Clark Mills, Founder of Monumental Bronze Sculpture in America, Book 1: 1815-1853, Portrait Busts and the Jackson Equestrian

In Washington, D.C., stands a statue of Andrew Jackson astride a rearing steed. Unveiled in 1853, it was the first monumental statue of bronze ever cast in the United States. Moreover, it was the first equestrian work of heroic size anywhere in the world that balanced solely on the horse's hind legs. Scientists had insisted that such a statue was impossible. Besides, no foundry in the country was equipped to cast one. But Clark Mills did it.

Mills was a runaway orphan from upstate New York, scarcely literate, but brilliant, robust, and full of pluck and ambition. Settling in South Carolina, he mastered the craft of making plaster busts. In 1847, wealthy slaveowners sent him to the nation's capital to advance his career. There a chance encounter inspired Mills to attempt an audacious goal.

Book 1 follows Mills through six years of self-training, trial-and-error experimentation, natural catastrophes, deepening debt, and the alienation of his family to create his Andrew Jackson. The public loves it. But the art establishment deems it clumsy and unsuitable. Mills had dared to depict the "Hero of New Orleans," not in the neoclassical style considered appropriate, but naturalistically.

John Philip Colletta

2025, 6" x 9", Paper, index, 417 pp.

ISBN: 9781939472502

101-C7250