He Faces the East

Booklet courtesy of Boice Lydell. Pictures and comment courtesy of Paul Jackson.

He Faces the East

 by Elbert Hubbard, 1909

This booklet measures 6" x 4 1/2"  and has 4 pages. This booklet is a praise of sculptor Paul Bartlett and in particular his bronze of Michelangelo which stands in the Library of Congress.
Paul Wayland Bartlett 1865 - 1925, was born in was born in New Haven, Connecticut and was sent to Paris at the age of nine because his father, sculptor and art critic Truman H. Bartlett, considered Paris the only place to get a proper artistic education. There the young Bartlett studied with the sculptors Emmanuel Frémiet at the Jardin de Plantes and Ecole des Beaux-arts and later Auguste Rodin. His progress and ability as a pupil was such that in 1880 at the age of fifteen he was accepted to exhibit a portrait bust of his grandmother at the Paris Salon and at the age of only twenty-four he was to become a member of the Salon Jury. Bartlett earned a reputation for his animal studies. When Bohemian Bear Tamer, a bronze of a man standing over two cubs that won an honorable mention at the 1887 Salon, was exhibited in Chicago at the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition, it brought him his first artistic recognition in America.
Paul Bartlett was to set up his own foundry in Paris at his studio where he cast much of his own sculpture but there are some of his known works cast by Gruet around 1887. Some of the monuments he is known for are: The equestrian statue of Lafayette in Paris, the statue of Michelangelo in the Library of Congress, and the facade of the New York Public Library in New York City.  Among the honors bestowed upon Paul Bartlett by the French were to be named a Chevalier of the Legion d'Honneur in 1895, a Commander in the Legion d'Honneur in 1924, a member of the Institute de France, and an Associate of the Academe des Beaux-arts.  His American honors include being a member of the National Sculpture Society, The National Institute of Arts and Letters, and a Member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Although Paul Wayland Bartlett lived most of his life in France, he became best known for his numerous monumental sculptural projects in America.

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