- Avard Fairbanks
Avard Tennyson Fairbanks (1897-1987) was a prolific 20th century American sculptor. Three of his sculptures are in the
United States Capitol , [ Viles, Philip H. Jr., National Statuary Hall: Guidebook for a Walking Tour, Published by Philip H. Viles, Tulsa OK, 1997 ] and the state capitols in bothUtah andWyoming , as well as numerous other locations, also have his works. Possibly his most enduring artistic contribution was designing theram symbol forDodge . [ [http://www.allpar.com/corporate/bios/fairbanks.html Avard T. Fairbanks, designer of the Dodge Ram symbol and the Plymouth Flying Lady hood ornaments ] ]Fairbanks was born in
Provo, Utah . His father wasJohn B. Fairbanks , who was an artist and art professor. His mother, Lilly Annetta Huish, died about a year after he was born. She was a cousin ofOrson Pratt Huish .Avard's brother
J. Leo Fairbanks was also an artist, and helped Fairbanks start sculpting as a teenager. [http://www.fairbanksartbooks.com/AboutAvard.html The Life of Avard T. Fairbanks ] ]In 1918, Avard worked with his brother J. Leo Fairbanks on
frieze s for theLaie Hawaii Temple . It was during this time that he married Beatrice Maude Fox inHonolulu, Hawaii . She was a native of Salt Lake City whom he had met in Utah and convinced to come join him in Hawaii so they could marry. [ [http://www.onlineutah.com/historyfairbanks.shtml History of Avard T. Fairbanks, Utah ] ] This would not be Fairbanks' last connection with temples. The statues of theAngel Moroni on theWashington D.C. Temple , theJordan River Utah Temple ,Seattle Washington Temple and theSão Paulo Brazil Temple are all Fairbanks' work.Fairbanks studied in at the
Art Students League of New York beginning at age 13 and theÉcole Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts beginning at age 17.Garr et. al, "Encyclopedia of Latter-day Saint History", p. 355] Fairbanks received his bachelor's degree fromYale University and his master's degree from theUniversity of Washington ."LDS Church News",September 17 ,1994 ] For three years Fairbanks studied on aGuggenheim Fellowship inFlorence, Italy . He got his Ph.D. in anatomy from theUniversity of Michigan . He was also a professor of sculpture at the University of Michigan.While Fairbanks was living in Ann Arbor, he served for a time as the president of the branch of
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in that city.Many of the sculptures on
Temple Square in Salt Lake City are by Fairbanks. ["LDS Church News",April 4 1992 ]For a time in the 1920s Fairbanks was a member of the faculty of the
University of Oregon . [ Greenthal, Kozol, Rameirez & Fairbanks, American Figurative Sculpture in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston 1986 ] It was while here that he made hisOregon Trail sculpture.Fairbanks latter became a professor at the
University of Utah .He did a sculpture of the restoration of the
Melchizedek priesthood for the Mormon Pavilion at the1964 New York World's Fair . [Top, Brent L., "The Miracle of the Mormon Pavilion: The Church at the 1964-1965 New York World's Fair" in Porter, Larry C.,Milton V. Backman Jr. andSusan Easton Black , ed., "Regional Studies in Latter-day Saint History: New York" (Provo: BYU Department of Church History and Doctrine, 1992) p. 245]Although most of his later work was free-standing sculptures, Fairbanks did return to the frieze when he made some for the
Harold B. Lee Library onBrigham Young University campus.Fairbanks made a statue of
Lycurgus Clarifyme|date=March 2008 that lead to his being knighted by KingPaul of Greece . He has also done multiple statues ofAbraham Lincoln andGeorge Washington .Among Fairbanks' children is
Jonathan Leo Fairbanks , who was curator of theBoston Museum of Fine Arts in the early 1990s. ["LDS Church News",March 6 1993 ]References
External links
* [http://www.avardfairbanks.com/index.html avardfairbanks.com]
Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.