Remember Houston Stephen Fox 5

12 Cite Fall 1986 Remember Houston Stephen Fox 5 Houston has not proved fertile ground for Washington, D.C. sculptor, Louis monuments. Remembering - the activity Amateis. to execute the first monumental ^riJi'->*&*» thai monuments stimulate - is apparently work of Civic Art erected in Texas, the too unprofitable to occasion much Texas Heroes Monument at Broadway enthusiasm locally for their erection. and Rosenberg i n Gal vc ston (1896-1900). There are other problems too: a limited In the American Renaissance tradition, • conception of what merits recollection Amateis combined heroic bronze figures and, most critically, the lack of any and bronze relief tablets depicting Texas conventional forms of conduct for historical scenes in a classically detailed experiencing those monuments that have architectural composition. The Texas been erected. Therefore, it is hardly Heroes Monument remains the pre- surprising that naming parks, streets, and eminent work of Civic Art in the state, Texas Heroes Monument, Galveston, 1900, Louis Amateis, sculptor, J.F. Manning and Co buildings containing public institutions and it immediately inspired Houstonians, after outstanding citizens or notable just then beginning to assess critically the events has come to seem a more efficient quality of the local environment, to took York sculptor John Angel, which was commissioned artists to embellish extant means of commemoration than "useless" beyond Frank Teich. installed on the Rice Institute campus in public buildings. The Section of Fine Arts monuments.' 1930. The standard of artistic production of the Public Buildings Administration It was also to Louis Amateis that the that these monuments represented was commissioned artists to provide work for To some extent these shortcomings stem Houston chapter of the United Daughters consistently high. But only the Sam new federal government buildings. New from the fact that only twice in Houston's of the Confederacy turned to produce Houston and Founder's monuments can construction projects funded by the Public history have there been concerted efforts Houston's initial work of Civic Art, The be considered major works; and they were Works Administration provided for the to make monuments. Both episodes Spirit of the Confederacy (1906-1908). all that Houstonians managed to erect inclusion of commissioned art work. occurred during the first half of the 20th The Spirit, a mawkishly conceived but during the great boom of the 1920s. century: the Civic Art movement of the competently executed allegorical piece, In the first category, the best-known local Progressive Era, and the Public Art was set up in Sam Houston Park rather At the end of the 1920s there was a art works were the murals painted in 1935 movement of the New Deal. Both than at the intersection of the two widest resurgence of interest in Texas historical in the Julia Ideson Building of the allied artistic production with streets in town as was done with the Texas themes that continued through the 1930s. Houston Public Library by three Houston commemoration, resulting in styles Heroes Monument. Thus it has always The architect Kenneth Franzheim retained artists, Emma Richardson Cherry, Angela of representation that are easily been geographically remote, and today it a New York decorative painter, Vincent McDonnell, and Ruth Pershing Uhler. recognizable. Both also survived as is most often seen at a distance from Maragliatti, to produce eight murals Uhler's immortal The First Subscription styles of representation in Houston well outbound cars on Lamar Avenue. depicting Texas historical scenes in the Committee, 1854, at the first-floor beyond what is usually considered their lobby of the Guir Building (1929), landing of the main stair, is a resourceful historical terms. Yet, with few exceptions, In contrast, Houston's most recognizable designed by Franzheim and Alfred C. adjustment to an awkward site (a wall the monuments that were built exist in that public monument is centrally located and Finn. Twice more during the 1930s containing a window). The theme also peculiar state of suspended animation that highly visible: the bronze equestrian out-of-town artists were commissioned by was unusual for its specificity: an event seems to pervade everything in Houston statue of Sam Houston, set up at the corporate clients to execute public murals pertaining to the history of the public connected with the past. By and large entrance to Hermann Park in 1925 and representing Texas historical scenes: John library that occurred in a house which these artifacts lack resonance. modeled by the Italian-bom and trained A. McQuarrie of San Francisco for the originally occupied the site of the library Disconnected from the life around them, Houston sculptor, Enrico F. Cerracchio. Southern Pacific Lines at the now- building. In the second category, the they become - perversely - tokens of the The Sam Houston Monument successfully demolished Grand Central Station (1934), young Houston sculptor, William M. collective amnesia that alienates fulfills conventional expectations about and Eugene Montgomery of Chicago for McVey, executed two relief panels in the Houstonians from their city, and keeps the role of monuments. Its visibility and Sears, Roebuck and Company's new store new Federal Office Building at Fannin them from feeling themselves part of a accessibility are important factors, as is at Main Street and Wheeler Avenue and Franklin (1941), and the two most community. its specificity. It is a monument to a man (1939). Of far less consequence was the celebrated young artists in Texas, Jerry (Sam Houston), an event (the Texas insignificant Pioneer's Memorial Shaft, By waters and A lexandre Hogue of Dal las. The earliest monuments in Texas tended victory at San Jacinto toward which, it is erected in Hermann Park in 1936 to painted two murals each on the theme of to be monuments first, and works of art said, the Figure's extended arm is commemorate the centennial of Houston - the Houston Ship Channel for the by courtesy. Not inappropriately, pointed), and a place and its history (the a reversion to the graveyard standard of now-demolished Parcel Post Annex graveyard art accurately describes the City of Houston, named forSam Houston earlier years. Building (1941), In the third category, the style of representation with which these and designated under his aegis provisional architect Joseph Finger retained Daniel monuments acquired form. The first capital of the Republic of Texas). The By the middle 1930s, however, such MacMorris, a Kansas City decorative public monument that can be accounted monument connects viewers to a series of private works of public art began to be painter, to execute the heavy-handed for in Harris County is the obelisk experiences that account for the existence amplified by the unprecedented expansion plaster reliefs in the foyer of the new City erected in 1881 above the grave of of the city. of the U.S. government into the field of Halt (1940). Finger also retained the Benjamin Rice Brigham (one of the two art patronage. Both sculptors and Beaumont sculptor Herring Coe, assisted Texans killed during the Battle of San Cerracchio's Sam Houston was the major painters, almost all of them Texans and by Raoul Josset, to produce the much Jacinto) at the battle site. Were it not for more satisfying relief panels that ring the work of Civic Art erected during the many of them Houstonians, were retained 2 patriotic inscriptions and a listing of 1920s. It represented a tendency current between 1934 and 1941 to produce exterior of the City Hall. other Texas victims of the battle, the in Houston during the *20s to memorialize monumental works of art in public Brigham Monument (designed and individuals with art monuments, although buildings. The themes represented The single greatest monument erected in constructed by the Galveston marble most of these were privately included the by-now-familiar lineup of Texas also was a beneficiary of PWA cutting firm of A. Allen and Company) commissioned. An early example was the personages and events connected with the financing, the 570-foot-high San Jacinto would be indistinguishable from funeral bronze relief plaque of James L. Autry history of the Republic of Texas, as well Monument (1935-1938). designed by monuments typical of late 19th-century that Will C. Hogg had the Italian-born and as local historical events and vignettes of Alfred C. Finn. Built to commemorate the American cemeteries. The first public trained sculptor, Pompeo Coppini, contemporary life, the so-called American centennial of Texas's independence, the monument erected in Houston, the Dick execute in 1921 for installation at The Scene. Painting and sculpture remained monument consists of an obelisk crowned Dowling statue (i 905, originally instal led Autry House, 6265 Main Street. The figural (rather than abstract) in style and by a three-dimensional star, centered at Market Square, now located in estate of the developer Henry F. epic in character. But in place of the above a base containing a museum, and Hermann Park), was the work of a San MacGregor retained the New York academic conventions of Civic Art surrounded by broad, raised terraces. A Antonio stone contractor, Frank C. Teich, sculptor Gutzon Borglum to model a classicism, a new. more aggressive 1,750-foot-long reflecting basin provides whose stock-in-trade was graveyard bronze relief of a female figure set on a realism was preferred. This "regional" a dramatic horizontal counterpoint to the memorials. This field of specialization stone backing as part of a fountain style exchanged the nymphs and muses of shaft's vertical thrust. William M, McVey apparently was considered sufficient constructed at Peggy's Park on Almeda the academy for new. down-to-earth was responsible for executing the qualification, for Teich exercised a virtual Road (1927) in honor of Peggy Stevens idealizations: the common man and the crowning star, the bronze entrance doors, monopoly on the production of public MacGregor, MacGregor's widow.

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