Stephen Foster (sculpture) facts for kids
Quick facts for kids Stephen Foster |
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| Artist | Giuseppe Moretti |
| Year | 1900 |
| Type | Sculpture |
| Location | Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, U.S. |
Stephen Foster is a landmark public sculpture in bronze by Giuseppe Moretti formerly located on Schenley Plaza in the Oakland section of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Formerly sited along Forbes Avenue near the entrance of Carnegie Museum of Natural History, in the shadow of Dippy, a life-size sculpture of a Diplodocus dinosaur, and in close proximity to the University of Pittsburgh's Stephen Foster Memorial, the Foster statue is one of the city's best known and most controversial. It was removed on April 26, 2018 on the unanimous vote of the Pittsburgh Art Commission.
The work of art is composed of two figures: a seated Stephen Collins Foster, the famous Pittsburgh-born songwriter who is depicted with a notebook in hand, and an African American man at his feet strumming a banjo, thought to represent "Uncle Ned," a fictionalized slave featured in Foster's song of the same name. The sculpture's pedestal is four feet, three inches, and the figures measure ten feet.
History
Stephen Foster was first erected in 1900 in the city's Highland Park, where Moretti had recently completed grand neoclassical gates for the park's main entrance. An economic depression in the 1890s, however, caused the Pittsburgh Press to head a subscription drive to garner funds for the piece. Nearly 50,000 Pittsburghers lined the parade route for the statue's dedication. Victor Herbert, the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra's new music director, led 3,000 school children in the singing of Foster tunes. At the ceremony Stephen Foster's daughter Marion Foster Welch unveiled the statue and nieces of U.S. President James Buchanan laid a wreath at its base.
The actual design of the statue was by committee. Andrew W. Mellon the banker, Edward Manning Bigelow the parks director, Robert Pitcairn the Pennsylvania Railroad mogul, as well as the director of the Carnegie Museum of Art, among others, all met to brainstorm scenarios for the artwork. The current design was suggested by committee member T.J. Keenan, Jr., editor of the Pittsburgh Press, and embraced by Moretti, according to the paper. It is intended to commemorate the song "Uncle Ned," and shows Ned, a slave, with Foster. Stephen Foster's brother Morrison Foster sat as a model in Moretti's New York studio.
Decades later during the Great Depression the sculpture was repeatedly vandalized; the banjo and Foster's pencil were broken off and sold, presumably, as scrap metal. Eventually Pittsburgh mayor Cornelius D. Scully requested the statue be moved to a more visible, safer place. During World War II it was moved to Oakland's Schenley Plaza, along busy Forbes Avenue and across the street from Stephen Foster Memorial. It was rededicated on June 29, 1944.
See also
