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SOM#011, Lorado Taft, Ontario Sends Greetings to the Sea - The Great Lakes, 1935
[b]Photo by John Birks[/b]

[i]Numbers Issued: 1,025 Bronze, 100 Silver[/i]

From the Artist:

"As a small boy I was fascinated with the store of the Danaides - those beautiful sisters who were eternally occupied in the hopeless task of carrying water in a sieve - No, in forty-nine sieves. To my youthful imagination, they made the most lovely groups, and it was unspeakably pathetic to think of them thus punished for killing their husbands - something that might happen in any family...

Later when I was looking for a subject for my class to collaborate upon there came a glimpse of our American Danaides engaged throughout all time in sending the sparkling waters of our mighty inland seas on their never-ending round. The forty-nine daughters of Danaus are reduced to a reasonably modern family of five and their cruel atonement has become a glad duty, cheerfully performed. The five best modelers in my class wrought the little ladies so well and assembled them so cleverly that the group attracted favorable comment in the school exhibition. The fanciful subject was deemed worthy of a more serious treatment and was remodeled with figures eight feet high. Then came the commission from the Ferguson Fund and the large bronze fountain with nymphs now grown to ten feet, was the result ...

In my fountain the figure of 'Superior' stands quite proudly above the others but, recognizing the exigencies of the medal, she has consented to kneel and accommodate herself to the circle. It must be confessed too that in the original, wistful 'Ontario' stretches her questing hand towards Saint Louis instead of the Saint Lawrence! It will be said - because it has been - that my 'Lakes' reveal little of the latent power of Great Waters, no hint of the storm and stress of mighty forces in conflict. I am no Winslow Homer, no George Bernard, and it just happens that of the 'various language' of nature the tranquil moods appear to me most strongly. If my inadequate rendering of a great theme tempts some better sculptors to try it, I shall have done something." 

Keywords: sold

SOM#011, Lorado Taft, Ontario Sends Greetings to the Sea - The Great Lakes, 1935

Photo by John Birks

Numbers Issued: 1,025 Bronze, 100 Silver

From the Artist:

"As a small boy I was fascinated with the store of the Danaides - those beautiful sisters who were eternally occupied in the hopeless task of carrying water in a sieve - No, in forty-nine sieves. To my youthful imagination, they made the most lovely groups, and it was unspeakably pathetic to think of them thus punished for killing their husbands - something that might happen in any family...

Later when I was looking for a subject for my class to collaborate upon there came a glimpse of our American Danaides engaged throughout all time in sending the sparkling waters of our mighty inland seas on their never-ending round. The forty-nine daughters of Danaus are reduced to a reasonably modern family of five and their cruel atonement has become a glad duty, cheerfully performed. The five best modelers in my class wrought the little ladies so well and assembled them so cleverly that the group attracted favorable comment in the school exhibition. The fanciful subject was deemed worthy of a more serious treatment and was remodeled with figures eight feet high. Then came the commission from the Ferguson Fund and the large bronze fountain with nymphs now grown to ten feet, was the result ...

In my fountain the figure of 'Superior' stands quite proudly above the others but, recognizing the exigencies of the medal, she has consented to kneel and accommodate herself to the circle. It must be confessed too that in the original, wistful 'Ontario' stretches her questing hand towards Saint Louis instead of the Saint Lawrence! It will be said - because it has been - that my 'Lakes' reveal little of the latent power of Great Waters, no hint of the storm and stress of mighty forces in conflict. I am no Winslow Homer, no George Bernard, and it just happens that of the 'various language' of nature the tranquil moods appear to me most strongly. If my inadequate rendering of a great theme tempts some better sculptors to try it, I shall have done something."

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