John J. Boyle (sculptor)

Boyle's bronze sculpture, Stone Age in America, completed in 1887 and now on display at the Ellen Philips Memorial Sculpture Garden in Philadelphia

Boyle's time in Paris established him as a successful, medaled ornament to the Salon, the official art exhibition of the Académie des Beaux-Arts in Paris (the École being the visual arts division of the Académie). Although he returned to the United States to secure commissions ~1880, he continued to show his works in Paris, joining company with the generation of Philadelphia artists who moved back and forth between Europe and the United States during this period.[5]

By the mid to late 19th century, the Romantic Movement had begun to see expression in the United States, particularly in the artistic circle centered at Philadelphia's PAFA, moving away from the "Grand Style" of the first part of the 19th century. John Boyle, "authentic in his rude strength," was among those active in this form.[5]

This was a period of many firsts for American artists. Boyle would become known for his portraits of Native Americans, bolstered by an 1880 two month domicile among the Sioux in the Dakotas.[3] The Alarm, commissioned by Martin Ryerson for Lincoln Park in Chicago, was intended to commemorate local Ottawa tribes, as part of a monument which originally included four bas-relief panels entitled “ The Peace Pipe,” “The Corn Dance,” “Forestry,” and “The Hunt” on its base (these original panels were stolen in the 1960s and replaced with sand-blasted reproductions).[6]

Statuary, Transportation Building, 1893 Columbian Exposition, Chicago

Boyle's prominence in the Philadelphia art scene by the 1890s was reflected by commissions for the Art Club of Philadelphia, including the design of their gold medal award, a prestigious form of social recognition.[7] Along with other noted artists and architects of the 1890s, Boyle was invited to participate in the Chicago World Fair of 1893 (the Columbian Exposition).

Artistic advisor Augustus Saint-Gaudens delegated the "career-enhancing commissions for monumental sculptures that promoted the exposition's overarching theme of national identity," to a select group of sculptors it was felt would portray young America in its most promising light.[8] He entrusted with the responsibility of supervising the sculptural decoration of the Louis Sullivan Transportation Building, work that was to include "five huge bas-reliefs, and eight triads of figures of heroic size, besides eight symbolical as well as allegorical figures," employing a staff of sculptors to complete his designs.[3] Executed in "staff," an impermanent mixture of plaster of Paris and fibrous materials, it was not expected that these works would endure beyond the fair's closing, but the scale, not merely for Boyle's work, but for 1893 America, went well beyond projects previously achieved. "For the sculptors whose works were displayed outdoors on the fairgrounds as well as in the Fine Arts Building, the World's Columbian Exposition was a professional and aesthetic coming of age," a "full flowering" of a naturalistic Beaux-Arts aesthetic that left the static formalism of neo-classicism behind.[8]

The success of Boyle's work in this venue cemented his reputation as a sculptor for American ideals, leading to commissions in Washington in the newly built Library of Congress building (figures of Sir Francis Bacon and Plato, bronze, 1894–96) in Washington, D.C.[4]

Boyle's statue of Benjamin Franklin for the Philadelphia Post office followed (1896–1899), followed by an invitation to participate in the Pan-American Exposition of 1901. He was appointed a member of the Art Commission of Greater New York January 1, 1906. In New York, he and his wife spent their later years. He was a member of many artistic clubs, including the National Sculpture Society, The Architectural League of New York, the T-Square Club of Philadelphia, and the National Arts Club and was still actively at work on a public project for the U.S. government, Commodore John Barry, now on display in Franklin Square in Washington, D.C., when he died in February 1917.[4]