Charles Albert Lopez (American 1869-1906)
The Sprinter, 1902
Bronze
17 x 24 x 10/ inches
Biography
Charles Albert Lopez, born in Matamoros, Mexico and of Cuban ancestry, was brought to the United States as a child, reportedly to New Orleans. After working with British-born sculptor John M. Moffit in New York in the mid-1880s, Lopez entered the studio of John Quincy Adams Ward as a pupil and assistant. In addition, Lopez was enrolled in antique classes at the National Academy of Design between 1890 and 1892. During this time, he created several large statues for the 1893 Chicago World’s Columbian Exposition. The same year, Lopez decided to continue his artistic training in Paris, in the atelier of Jean-Alexandre-Joseph Falguiere at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts.
Lopez returned to New York from Paris in 1893 where he established his own studio and began to receive a number of public commissions, including a group, East Indies, for the temporary triumphal arch to Admiral Dewey (1899) and a marble statue of Mohammed (1900) for the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of New York. In 1902, Lopez’s design for a monument to President William McKinley (1908; City Hall, Philadelphia) was chosen over thirty-seven other entries submitted. He additionally won a gold medal at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition in 1904 for his contribution of six smaller works, including The Sprinter. Lopez was nominated to the Society of American Artists in 1904 and was named an associate of the National Academy of Design in 1906 when the two institutions merged. Lopez died in May 1906 and the National Sculpture Society held a memorial exhibition of his work, November of the same year.
