Hans Schuler's monument in Baltimore honoring poet and musician Sidney Lanier. According to the Smithsonian archive (see external links), the monument dates from 1941, was dedicated in 1942, and measures approximately 126 x 168 x 99 inches.
Hans K. Schuler (May 25, 1874 – March 30, 1951) was a German-born American sculptor and monument maker. He was the first American sculptor to win the Salon Gold Medal. His works are in several important museum collections, and he also created many public monuments, mostly for locations in Baltimore, Maryland and in the Washington, D.C. area. For over a quarter of a century he served as president of the Maryland Institute College of Art.
Hans Schuler was born in a part of Alsace-Lorraine which was then under German sovereignty, though it is now part of France. Schuler's family emigrated to the United States while he was still a youngster. He graduated from the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) in Baltimore, Maryland, having studied there at the Rinehart School of Sculpture.[3]
Schuler's sculptures and monuments grace many public places. Among them is the James Buchanan Memorial in Meridian Hill Park in Washington, D.C. It is the only public memorial dedicated to U.S. president James Buchanan. On Baltimore's Charles Street, in the area of the main campus of Johns Hopkins University, there are also imposing monuments by Schuler honoring Johns Hopkins and Sidney Lanier. All three of these monuments are large bronzes occupying elaborate stone placements. Schuler's sculptures and reliefs also adorn the interiors of many public buildings. For example, Schuler, along with sculptor J. Maxwell Miller, created a large relief panel which is located in the main concert hall at the Peabody Conservatory in Baltimore.
While Hans Schuler created many public monuments, he also created extremely sensual examples of free sculpture, including a life-sized and very lifelike marble nude – now at the Walters Art Museum – representing the abandoned Ariadne, writhing in sadness and longing. Below is a link to an image and auction record of another Schuler piece of this type, recently sold at Christie's in London.
Riggs Memorial in Green Mount Cemetery, Baltimore, with bronze sculpture by Hans Schuler
Like many of the successful sculptors of his day, Schuler created quite a few cemetery memorials. Many of these sculptures are life-sized or even larger than life-sized bronze human figures. Often the figures sit or sprawl across the tombstones in an attitude of grief, nostalgia, pensiveness, or anguish, like fellow mourners at the grave, or ghosts sociably mingling with the living, instead of being perched neatly on pedestals. The Riggs memorial, shown at right, is a good example. The Lanier monument pictured above, while not being a cemetery sculpture, also exemplifies Schuler's knack for presenting figures in this way. Most of the cemetery pieces are located in and around Baltimore. They include:
Art Inventories Catalog of the Smithsonian American Art Museum: detailed information on the Lanier monument, including the following description: "Sidney Lanier is shown seated on huge unpolished granite boulders, leaning back slightly on his proper right arm, his proper left leg crossed over his proper right leg. In his proper left hand he holds an open book and in his proper right he holds a pencil. His flute is by his proper right leg. He is dressed in a suit with a vest and overcoat, his full beard spreads over the opening of his vest as he tilts his head slightly downward toward his book. He leans back against a boulder which is carved with a relief depicting a landscape and two allegorical female figures. They hold hands, one also holding an unrolled scroll, and the other one also holding a musical instrument."
Newsletter of the German Society of Maryland: noting the 2006 centennial celebration of the opening of Schuler's Baltimore studio on Lafayette Street. The studio is now the Schuler School of Fine Arts.
