, 1924-05-21

layman of the vast amount of work
necessary for the erection of a mon
ument of the character of the Buff
falo Bill memorial. Little thought
is given by the average person of
the days, weeks, months and years
of work which has been necessary
before this work of art could be
produced. Mrs. Gertrude Whitney
is a genius for taking infinite
pains and is surely demonstrating
her ability in the creating of this.
her masterpiece, which is to be I'M
yelled in Cody July 4th. The SYM
bolic equestrian statue is to be
. erected west of the city, and to the
unwilling ceremonies will come
thousands of people from all over
the world to pay tribute t. the
memory of Buffalo Bill.
Mrs. Whitney first made three
small models of the statue. This
was an attempt to embody in the
models her conception of the spirit
of the entire piece. h finally de-
cided on an equestrian statue. 1t
was her conviction that almost
N'SA Oh1 aAiAAAid VIII IL iot
of the great scout %visualized him
on horseback. So she planned to
depict him in the role of a path
finder, riding ahead along the trail,
alert, every faculty alive for pos
sible dangers, footprints of Indians.
n the like.
h sculptor then personally Wis
ualized him arriving at a cliff on a
hill near a stream, where, seeing
footprints along the path, he refined
i'll his horse to investigate. m in
this characteristic pose, Buffalo Bill
is shown in the complete statue.
Mrs. Whitney has thus epitomized
practically his entire history in the
pose. 1t is a life story in broaze.
Seeing the heroic-sized statue, one
sees the scout, the pathfinder, the
pioneer, the courageous man who
rides ahead preparing the way for
followers, forgetting personal safety
in thoughts of Others.
Gazing at the great bronze scout
one almost sees The three move
ments embodied in the pose. Rein
ing in. Listening. Watching.
After Mrs. Whitney had evolved
the principal idea-the treatment of
the piece as a whole-and had fin
shed the small clay models, she
wanted action and movement Her
first step was to secure a young
man model, for she had decided to
depict Colonel Cody in his prime.
She wanted to see this model on a
horse, watch the play of muscles
of both rider and beast, and OBJ
serve their movemen generally.
She wanted to see her symbolic sta
tue alive, so that she could grasp
life and put it into bronza. She
wanted to get away from the plastic
pose.
After seeing the horse and ridef
living, moving and in action, che
decided on the gesture, the exact
pose h would use. Then came the
question of the base. There were
: numerous conferences with tho ar
chitect, Albert r. Ross. Both sculr-
tor and architect agreed that this
horse and rider should not De
placed upon a conventional pedes-
tai. So Mrs. Whitney made the
trip out to Cody, Wyoming, so that
she could see the exact setting of
the statue when completed. After
a short time, stepped in the gran
deur and great sweeping beauty of
the western country, she was more
determined than ever that the syn
bolic statue must nave an appro-
pirate and fitting throne-one in
keeping with the entire background.
A great granite plinth on top of
a hill, with a stream flowing nearby,
to typify Col. Cody's irrigation pro-
jects, was finally decided on, and
Mrs. Whitney returned to her studio
in the east TO proceed with her
work. She made the piece in full
size, the armature the size of the
statue. The clay was thrown on.
and then came the question of an
apparatus which would facilitate the
sculptor's work. AS the statue is
fifteen feet high, ladders and bal
comics were constructed on which
she could work. After that a re-
volving stand was built, so that
she could move around the mon
umental piece with ease while she
worked. The mechanical difficult
ties involved were numerous, but
were finally overcome.
There followed the complicated
task of working out details. Ev-
erything that the bronze Buffalo
Bill wore had to be authentic, of
the style worn out west in that
period when he was at the of
thirty. His hat, boots, gun stirrups,