Glenna Maxey Goodacre (August 28, 1939 – April 13, 2020) was an American sculptor, best known for having designed the obverse of the Sacagawea dollar that entered circulation in the US in 2000, and the Vietnam Women's Memorial in Washington, D.C.[2]
Early life and career
Goodacre's father, Homer Glen Maxey, was a Lubbock, TX, builder, developer and civic leader.[citation needed] A graduate of Texas Tech University in 1931, he was the first president of the Red Raider Club.[3] He served on the Lubbock City Council from 1956 to 1960.[4] A 100-acre (40 ha) city park bears the name of Homer Maxey's father, James Barney Maxey (1881–1953), who was Glenna's paternal grandfather. James Maxey was also a prodigious builder and civic leader in Lubbock and the South Plains.[5] Goodacre graduated from Monterey High School in Lubbock. She then completed studies at Colorado College and classes at the Art Students League in New York City. She moved to Santa Fe, New Mexico, in 1983.[6]
Art
Goodacre's art appears in public, private, municipal and museum collections throughout the U.S. Her bronze sculptures feature lively expression and texture.
Her most well-known work is the Vietnam Women's Memorial installed in Washington, D.C., in 1993[7] of which there is smaller replica at Vietnam Veterans Memorial State Park in Angel Fire, New Mexico. Goodacre was selected in 1997 as sculptor for the monumental Irish Memorial in Philadelphia.[8] Completed and installed at Penn's Landing in 2003, the massive bronze is her most ambitious public sculpture—with 35 life-size figures. Another cast is at the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City. After a nationwide competition for a Sacagawea dollar coin design in 1999, Goodacre's rendering for the face was unveiled at the White House by then First LadyHillary Clinton.[9]
In 2004, her bronze portrait of West Point Coach Colonel Earl "Red" Blaik was dedicated at the National College Football Hall Of Fame.[10] In 2004, she also designed the Children's Medal of Honor awarded to then First Lady Laura Bush in Dallas by the Greater Texas Community Partners.[citation needed]
An academician of the National Academy of Design and a fellow of the National Sculpture Society, Goodacre won many awards at their exhibitions in New York. Goodacre has received honorary doctorates from Colorado College, her alma mater, and Texas Tech University in her hometown of Lubbock.[11] In 2002, Goodacre's work won the James Earl Fraser Sculpture Award at the Prix De West Exhibition. In 2003, she received the Texas Medal Of Arts and later that year was inducted into the National Cowgirl Museum and Hall of Fame in the Fort Worth historic district.[12]
Goodacre was inducted in 1997 into the West Texas Walk of Fame in Lubbock.
In 1997, Goodacre was inducted into the West Texas Walk of Fame in Lubbock. Eleven years later, Goodacre was named the 2008 "Notable New Mexican". This honor, bestowed by the Albuquerque Art and History Museum's Foundation, celebrates extraordinary, living New Mexicans who contribute significantly to the public good. A portrait of Goodacre by the artist Daniel Greene is in the permanent collection of the Albuquerque Museum in Albuquerque, New Mexico.[citation needed]
Goodacre is honored by the naming of a downtown Lubbock street which extends from the Jones AT&T Stadium at University Avenue to the east.
In 2005, the former 8th Street from University Avenue east in Lubbock was named Glenna Goodacre Boulevard,[13] and in Santa Fe at the State Capitol, then GovernorBill Richardson presented Goodacre with the New Mexico Governor's Award For Excellence in the Arts.[14] In 2006, Richardson appointed Goodacre to the State Quarter Design Committee to develop a U.S. quarter coin representing New Mexico.
Goodacre married her first husband, William Goodacre, with whom she had 2 children. She married her second husband, C. L. Mike Schmidt, in 1995. In March 2007, while in Santa Fe, Goodacre suffered a fall and head injury. After initially being taken to St. Vincent's Hospital in Santa Fe, Goodacre was transferred to the Craig Hospital brain trauma center in Englewood, Colorado,[16] after a fall injury sent her into a coma on March 13. An MRI disclosed that she had suffered a massive head injury. Goodacre's husband, C.L. Mike Schmidt, told reporters, "We don't know if Glenna fainted and fell, or had a mini-stroke and fell."[17] Schmidt reported on April 9, 2007, that his wife had made major progress in the preceding three days. In August 2007, she returned home from the hospital. On January 18, 2008, Goodacre was well enough to unveil her new sculpture "Crossing the Prairie" at the St. Vincent Regional Medical Center in Santa Fe. She was reported to have recovered very well but had lingering problems with concentration because of aphasia.[18][unreliable source?]
^Michael., Duty (2010). Texas traditions : contemporary artists of the Lone Star State. McGarry, Susan Hallsten. Albuquerque, N.M.: Fresco Fine Art Publications. ISBN9781934491249. OCLC671642232.
