The Sun Vow
Bronze
33 1/2 x 20 3/4 x 17 3/4 in
Biography
Hermon Atkins MacNeil was born in 1866 in Chelsea, Massachusetts. MacNeil studied at the Massachusetts Normal Art School in Boston and then went on to teach modeling at Cornell University. After three years of teaching, MacNeil continued his own artistic education when he traveled to Paris in 1888 to study at the Académie Julian with Chapu and at the École des Beaux-Arts with Falguière.
MacNeil was one of the first sculptors to turn to American life for subject matter and found inspiration in Native American Indian life. He first was exposed to American Indian life at the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago, where Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show was the highlight. MacNeil later made several trips to the Southwest and visited the reservations of the Moqui and Zuni tribes.
MacNeil is best known for his Western themed sculptures, but he also created a number of historical works. A few examples of his many historical sculptures include: a statue of Ezra Cornell for Cornell University, Lincoln the Lawyer, a formal work for the east pediment of the Supreme Court Building in Washington, D.C., as well as the relief of Washington as Commander-in-Chief on the Washington Arch in New York. His works are in a number of public collections including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Art Institute of Chicago, The Corcoran Gallery of Art, Montclair Art Museum, and the Wadsworth Atheneum.
