Monday, March 19, 2012

Happy Birthday Cyrus E. Dallin from Boston.



"You may be familiar with Cyrus E. Dallins Boston monuments and statues around Boston. "Paul Revere", "Anna Hutchinson" and "Appeal To The Great Spirit" are just some of his spiritualistic memorial sculptures inspiring all of us.

Dallin, the son of Thomas and Jane (Hamer) Dallin, was born in Springville, Utah, November 1861 to a family then belonging to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. At age 19, he moved to Boston to study sculpture with T. H. Bartlett, and in 1883 entered a competition for an equestrian statue of Paul Revere. No entries were selected, but over the next 58 years Dallin made seven versions of a monument of Paul Revere.

In Boston, he became a colleague of Augustus St. Gaudens and a close friend of John Singer Sargent. He married Vittoria Colonna Murray in 1891, moved to Arlington, Massachusetts in 1900, where he lived for the rest of his life, and there raised three children. He was a member of the faculty of Massachusetts Normal Art School, since renamed Massachusetts College of Art and Design, from 1899 to 1941.

He created more than 260 works monuments and statues, including well known Boston statues of Paul Revere and of Native Americans. He also sculpted the statue of the Angel Moroni atop the Salt Lake City Temple, which has become a symbol for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and is generally the pattern for future Angel Moroni statues on the spires of subsequent LDS Temples.

Dallin was probably the first American Sculptor sensitive enough to depict American Indians as humanist spiritualistic human beings in his statues and monuments, because he grew up with Indians as a boy in Utah. Cyrus E.Dallin conveyed this above sensitivity through his Boston bronze and stone sculptures.

Happy Birthday from Joe Gallo, author of "Boston Bronze and Stone Speak To Us", a Boston guidebook of historical story telling of monuments and statues our found on Boston's parks and streets.

Wednesday, March 14, 2012

Edgar Allan Poe Monument, Boston, MA


Proposed Edgar Allan Poe Monument on Edgar Allan Poe Square at the corner of Charles and Boylston Streets Boston, MA is coming soon with proper future funding. "Boston Bronze and Stone Speak To Us "second edition shall surely place Poe new monument in our book for all to share!

Did you know Poe was born at this above location?

"One of the best-kept secrets in Boston's literary history concerns the most influential writer ever born here: Edgar Allan Poe. And the secret is this: he was born here! Over the past 200 years, leading up to the bicentennial of Poe's birth on January 19, 2009, his connections to other East Coast cities -- Richmond, Baltimore, Philadelphia, and New York -- have been celebrated and memorialized. Finally, Mayor Thomas M. Menino dedicated this above location as Edgar Allan Poe Square with a plaque.

While each of these cities hosts a museum or historic house that commemorates Poe's standing as a local author, Boston has made itself conspicuous for its apparent determination to treat the master of mystery -- America's first great critic and a foundational figure in the development of popular culture -- like an undeserving orphan.

The walking tour made possible by this brochure ( The Raven's Trail) offered by www.poeboston is designed to begin a new era in the way Poe's connection to Boston is understood and experienced. While it's true that Poe fought a career-long battle against Boston-area authors, whose moralistic poems and stories sounded to him like the croaking frogs, it's also true that he had positive feelings about the place." (The Raven's Trail 2009 ,The Edgar Allan Poe Foundation of Boston, Inc.)

Please visit for more information poeboston.org

Boston is America America is Boston!