# Edmond Thomas Quinn

Edmond Thomas Quinn (December 20, 1868 – September 9, 1929) was an American sculptor active from the Gilded Age to the Jazz Age, with work in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, National Portrait Gallery, Whitney Museum of American Art, and the National Gallery of Ireland. Among his sitters were Playwright Eugene O'Neill, Painter Leon Kroll, and architect Cass Gilbert. Among his outdoor sculptures visible today are Edwin Booth as Hamlet in Gramercy Park, composer Victor Herbert near the Naumburg Bandshell on the Central Park Mall, and baseball pioneer Harry Wright.

## Education

Quinn was born December 20, 1868, in Philadelphia, to John and Rosina McLaughlin Quinn. He studied painting at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts under Thomas Eakins. Following Eakins's February 1886 forced-resignation from PAFA, Quinn followed him to the Art Students League of Philadelphia, and later became that short-lived school's curator. In Paris he trained for a time as a sculptor in the studio of Jean Antoine Injalbert.

## Career

He exhibited regularly at the National Academy of Design, showing paintings in 1891, 1893, 1905, 1906 and 1907. He first showed his sculpture there in 1908, and annually for many years, usually portrait busts. He won a silver medal for his bronze sculpture of model Audrey Munson at the Panama-Pacific Exposition, San Francisco, 1915. He also exhibited at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts (paintings: 1891, 1894, 1897; sculptures: 1899, 1901, 1905–06, 1908–10, 1914–16, 1921, 1923, 1925–26, 1928, posthumously 1930), and the Art Institute of Chicago.
He was elected an Associate of the National Academy of Design in 1920, and was a member of the National Sculpture Society, the Century Association, the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and the Players Club, for whom he executed his statue of Booth.
Quinn was recognized as being a fine portraitist whose work "shows taste and conscience." His portrait busts include Franklin Hooper, Sylvester Malone, Edwin Markham, Vicente Blasco Ibáñez, Padraic Colum and Eugene O'Neill. His half-length, oil-on-canvas portrait of Attilio Piccirilli, the sculptor whose studio executed many works of American Beaux-Arts masters, is in the National Academy of Design, as are his painted portraits of Furio Piccirilli and Sherry E. Fry. The National Portrait Gallery has a large number of his portrait busts.

## Death

In May 1929, Quinn tried to kill himself by drinking poison. He was found drowned off Governors Island, New York City in September 1929, a suicide.
Quinn's papers are at Yale University.

## Selected works

| Year | Subject | Place | Location |
| 1897 | Baseball pioneer Harry Wright | West Laurel Hill Cemetery | Bala Cynwyd, Pennsylvania |
| 1905 | Mayor William Howard | William Howard Memorial Chapel | Williamsport, Pennsylvania |
| 1908 | Author Edgar Allan Poe (bust) | Poe Cottage | The Bronx, New York |
| 1908 | Author Edgar Allan Poe (plaster model) | Poe Museum | Richmond, Virginia |
| 1908 | Revolutionary War Memorial (bas relief) | Kings Mountain National Military Park | Blacksburg, South Carolina |
| 1910 | Zoroaster | Brooklyn Museum (east facade) | Brooklyn, New York |
| 1911 | Interior Sculptures | Pittsburgh Athletic Association Building | Pittsburgh, Pennsylanvia |
| 1912 | Figure of a Nymph | Metropolitan Museum of Art | New York, New York |
| 1912 | Attorney J. Edward Swanstrom (relief) | Columbus Park (removed) | Brooklyn, New York |
| 1915 | General Winfield S. Featherston (bust) | Vicksburg National Military Park (outside) | Warren County, Mississippi |
| 1917 | General John C. Pemberton | Pemberton Circle | Vicksburg, Mississippi |
| 1918 | Actor Edwin Booth | Gramercy Park | New York, New York |
| 1920 | Professor Franklin W. Hooper (bust) | Brooklyn Museum | Brooklyn, New York |
| 1921 | Victory, Great War Memorial | Faneuil Park | New Rochelle, New York |
| 1922 | Playwright Eugene O'Neill (bust) | National Portrait Gallery | Washington, D.C. |
| 1924 | Painter Leon Kroll (bust) | Whitney Museum of American Art | New York, New York |
| 1925 | Poet Padraic Colum (bust) | Hugh Lane Gallery | Dublin, Ireland |
| c1925 | Poet and Novelist James Stephens (bust) | National Gallery of Ireland | Dublin, Ireland |
| 1926 | Actor Edwin Booth (bust) | Hall of Fame for Great Americans | The Bronx, New York |
| 1926 | Chancellor James Kent (bust) | Hall of Fame for Great Americans | The Bronx, New York |
| 1926 | Architect Cass Gilbert | Minnesota State Capitol | St. Paul, Minnesota |
| 1927 | Composer-Conductor Victor Herbert (bust) | Central Park Mall | New York, New York |
| 1927 | Fire Chief William Francis Kenny (bas relief) | Unknown | |
| 1927 | Congressman Henry Clay | National Capitol Park | Caracas, Venezuela |
| 1928 | Painter James McNeill Whistler (bust) | Hall of Remembrance, New York University | New York, New York |
| 1929 | Dr. J. Marion Sims (bust) | State Office Building | Columbia, South Carolina |
| 1929 | Judge Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. (bust) | Hall of Fame for Great Americans | The Bronx, New York |
| 1930 | Founding Father John Quincy Adams (bust) | Hall of Fame for Great Americans | The Bronx, New York |
Paintings
| Year | Subject | Place | Location |
| 1895 | Clown | La Salle University Art Museum | Philadelphia, Pennsylvania |
| 1911 | Portrait of Attilio Piccirilli | National Academy of Design | New York, New York |
| 1915 | Portrait of Sherry Edmundson Fry | National Academy of Design | New York, New York |
| 1919 | Portrait of Furio Piccirilli | National Academy of Design | New York, New York |

## Gallery

* Actor Edwin Booth (1918), Gramercy Park, New York City.
* General John C. Pemberton (1917), Vicksburg National Military Park, Vicksburg, Mississippi.
* Harry Wright Monument (1897), West Laurel Hill Cemetery, Bala Cynwydd, Pennsylvania.
* Bas reliefs (1908), King's Mountain Battle Monument, South Carolina.
* Pittsburgh Athletic Association (1911), Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
* Victory (1921), World War I Memorial, New Rochelle, New York.
* Edwin Booth (1926), Hall of Fame for Great Americans, Bronx, New York City.
* Victor Herbert (1927), Central Park, New York City.
* Dr. J. Marion Sims (1929), Columbia, South Carolina.