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George Grey Barnard (May 24, 1863 – April 24, 1938), often written George Gray Barnard, was an American sculptor, "an excellent American sculptor", the French art dealer René Gimpel reported in his diary (1923), "very much engrossed in carving himself a fortune out of the trade in works of art."[1] His major works are largely symbolical in character.[2] His lasting monument is the architectural nucleus of The Cloisters, New York City, rather than any sculpture of his own.
Barnard was born in Art Institute of Chicago, and in 1883–1887 worked in the atelier of Pierre-Jules Cavelier at Paris while he attended the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts. He lived in Paris for twelve years, and with his first exhibit at the Salon of 1894 he scored a great success, returning to America in 1896. In 1902, he was elected into the National Academy of Design as an Associate member.
A strong Manchester, England (1919), and the third in Louisville, Kentucky (1922).
The Great God Pan, one of the first works Barnard completed after his return to America, according to at least one account, was originally intended for the Dakota Apartments on Central Park West. Alfred Corning Clark, builder of the Dakota, had financed Barnard's early career; when Clark died in 1896, the Clark family presented Barnard's Two Natures to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in his memory, and the giant bronze Pan was presented to Columbia University, by Clark's son, Edward Severin Clark, 1907.
Barnard had a commanding personal manner: "He talks of art as if it were a cabalistic science of which he is the only astrologer", wrote the unsympathetic Gimpel; "he speaks to impress. He's a sort of Rasputin of criticism. The Rockefellers are his imperial family. And the dealers court him."[5]
Interested in medieval art, Barnard gathered discarded fragments of medieval architecture from French villages before World War I.[6] He established this collection in a church-like brick building near his home in Washington Heights, Manhattan in New York City. The collection was purchased by John D. Rockefeller Jr. in 1925 and forms part of the nucleus of The Cloisters collection, part of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.[7]
Barnard died following a heart attack on April 24, 1938 at the Harkness Pavilion, Columbia University Medical Center in New York. He was working on a statue of Abel, betrayed by his brother Cain, when he fell ill. He is interred at Harrisburg Cemetery in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.
Archives of American Art
Long Island, Queens, Brooklyn, Philadelphia, Staten Island
Michelangelo, Jade, Hinduism, Islam, Louvre
New York City, Long Island, Albany, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania
National Register of Historic Places, Central Park, Islamic art, Rembrandt, El Greco
Dauphin County, Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania, Pittsburgh, Susquehanna River, Lancaster, Pennsylvania