William Ordway Partridge

William Ordway Partridge (April 11, 1861 – May 22, 1930) was an American sculptor, teacher and author. Among his best-known works are the Shakespeare Monument in Chicago, the equestrian statue of General Grant in Brooklyn, the Pietà at St. Patrick's Cathedral in Manhattan, and the Pocahontas statue in Jamestown, Virginia.
He was born in Paris, the younger son of George Sidney Partridge, Jr. and Helen Derby Catlin. His father was the Paris representative for the New York City department store A.T. Stewart. His mother was a cousin of the painter George Catlin. His brother, Sidney Catlin Partridge, became a bishop of the Episcopal Church.
Partridge's family returned to New York City in 1868, and enrolled him in Cheshire Academy in Connecticut, followed by Adelphi Academy in Brooklyn. He entered Columbia University in autumn 1881, but had to withdraw because of poor health. He traveled to Europe in 1882, and studied in Florence in the studio of Fortunato Galli, where he became friends with the young Bernard Berenson. Although he never formally enrolled at the Ecole de Beaux-Arts, he audited classes there in autumn 1883, and studied briefly in the Paris studio of sculptor Antonin Mercié. He returned to New York City in Spring 1884, and enrolled in the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. He appeared in a New York City production of David Copperfield, and moved to Boston, where he supported himself by giving dramatic readings of Shakespeare and the Romantic poets. He continued to sculpt, and received encouragement in this from his cousin, the sculptor John Rogers.
In 1887, he married Augusta Merriam, a wealthy widow from Milton, Massachusetts, who was 15 years older. They traveled to Europe that year, where he studied briefly in the Paris studio of painter William-Adolphe Bouguereau. There he formed a close friendship with the neo-Gothic architect Ralph Adams Cram. The couple moved to Rome, where he studied in the studio of Polish sculptor Pio Welonski. They returned to Milton, Massachusetts in 1889, where he established his own studio.
Partridge created two larger-than-life bronze statues of Alexander Hamilton, executed 15 years apart. The first was commissioned by the Hamilton Club of Brooklyn, installed in front of the club's headquarters in Brooklyn Heights, and dedicated on October 4, 1893. For months before and after that dedication, Partridge's full-size plaster model of Hamilton was on exhibition at the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago. The bronze statue stood in Brooklyn until 1936, when it was relocated to The Grange, Hamilton's country house in northern Manhattan. The second Hamilton statue was commissioned by the Alumni Association of Columbia College [now University]. It was installed on campus in front of Hamilton Hall, and dedicated on May 27, 1908. Both Hamilton statues stand in northern Manhattan, less than 1.5 mi (2.4 km) apart.
In 1890, Partridge won a national competition to create a statue of William Shakespeare for Chicago, Illinois. He returned to Paris, where he set up a studio to work on the project. He exhibited his full-size plaster model of Shakespeare at the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago, along with nine other works. His bronze Shakespeare was installed in Lincoln Park the following spring, and dedicated on April 23, 1894, the Bard's 330th birthday. Partridge wrote a sonnet for its dedication.
The Equestrian Statue of General Ulysses S. Grant (1895–1896) was Partridge's most colossal work. Commissioned by the Union League Club of Brooklyn, it was installed in the center of Bedford Avenue, in front of the Club's headquarters, and dedicated on April 27, 1896. The bronze horse and rider are approximately 12 ft (3.7 m) in height, and stand upon a granite pedestal approximately 15 ft (4.6 m) in height.
A bequest from Englishman James Smithson (c. 1765–1829) funded the creation of the Smithsonian Institution. Partridge was commissioned in 1896 to create a bronze memorial tablet commemorating that bequest for Smithson's gravesite in Genoa, Italy. He based his relief portrait of Smithson on an 1817 relief portrait taken from life by Pierre-Joseph Tiolier (formerly attributed to Antonio Canova). Partridge initially made two casts of the bronze tablet, one for the gravesite and the other for the nearby Protestant Chapel of the Holy Spirit. He made a third bronze cast in 1898 for Smithson's alma mater, Pembrook College, University of Oxford. The gravesite's bronze tablet was stolen, and the chapel's bronze tablet was used as a model for a marble copy, that was installed at the gravesite in 1900. Upon learning that the Genoa cemetery was to be destroyed for the expansion of an adjacent quarry, Alexander Graham Bell, a member of the Smithsonian's Board of Regents, proposed that Smithson's remains be brought to the United States. In 1904, Smithson's remains and grave monument were relocated to the Crypt of the Smithsonian's Castle Building in Washington, D.C. The 1900 marble copy of Partridge's tablet was part of that move. The Chapel of the Holy Spirit was destroyed by Allied bombing during World War II. A marble copy of Partridge's tablet was carved in 1963, and stands today at the site of the chapel.
Partridge's most famous religious work is the larger-than-life Pietà he created for St. Patrick's Cathedral, Manhattan. The dead Christ is collapsed before a seated Mary, who cradles his face with her hand. Critic Robert Burns Wilson wrote a sensitive appreciation of the work. Carved from white Carrara marble, Pietà is located in the Ambulatory behind the High Altar.
The Association for the Preservation of Virginia Antiquities commissioned Partridge to create a larger-than-life bronze statue of Pocahontas, the Native American princess, for the 1907 Jamestown Exposition in Norfolk, Virginia. The exposition commemorated the 300th anniversary of the founding of the first permanent English settlement in the Americas. Pocahontus stood in front of the Administration Building for the exposition, and APVA later loaned the statue to the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. APVA donated the statue to Jamestown, where it was re-dedicated on June 3, 1922. Queen Elizabeth II visited Jamestown in 1957 for the 350th anniversary, and was charmed by the statue. Her reaction inspired a posthumous replica to be cast, which was presented by the Governor of Virginia as a gift to the British people. Dedicated on October 5, 1958, the bronze replica was installed outside St. George's, Gravesend, the English church in which Pocahontas had been interred in 1617.
Partridge lectured at the National Social Science Association, the Concord School of Philosophy, and the Brooklyn Institute. From 1897 to 1903, he lectured at what is now George Washington University, in Washington, D.C., and went on to lecture at Stanford University in California.
He wrote a manual on sculpting: Technique of Sculpture (1895).
Partridge's studio was at 15 West 38th Street, Manhattan. Lee Lawrie was among his studio assistants.
Partridge and Augusta Merriam had a daughter together, also named Augusta (d. 1916). The couple divorced in 1904.
On June 14, 1905 he married the poet Margaret Ridgely Schott. They had a daughter together, also named Margaret.
Partridge died in Manhattan, New York City, on May 22, 1930.
Partridge's published writings include articles on aesthetics, books on art history, and a manual on sculpting. He published two volumes of poetry, and three verse novels: