Valerie Harrisse Walter
Valerie Harrisse Walter | |
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 Valerie Harrisse Walter with her sculpture of the gorilla John Daniel II | |
| Born | February 15, 1892  Baltimore |
| Died | February 29, 1984 (aged 92) Baltimore |
| Occupation | Sculptor, artist |
Valerie Harrisse Walter (February 15, 1892 – February 29, 1984) was an American sculptor from Baltimore, Maryland. She primarily created portrait busts and sculptures of animals, including dogs and life-sized bronze gorillas.
Valerie Harrisse Walter was born on February 15, 1892 in Baltimore, Maryland,[1] the daughter and one of five children of prominent Jewish lawyer Moses Raphael Walter and Bertha Ulman Walter.[2] She attended Madame Lefebvre's School in Baltimore.[1]
Walter began sculpting at age 17 after her mother bought her a box of clay, which she used to model her dog Fritz.[3][4] She studied sculpture under Ephraim Keyser at the Maryland Institute and Henry Augustus Lukeman in his New York studio.[1][5] In 1922, she sailed on the SS Lapland to Paris to study art, along the way completing a bas relief portrait of another passenger, a girl named Genevieve Lymans. In Paris, she completed busts of Riccardo Bertelli of the Roman Bronze Works and Dr. Nicholas Sbarounis Tricorphos, surgeon general of the Greek army.[5]
She worked in Washington, DC for a time, creating a number of portraits of foreign diplomats and their family members, as well as a bust of President William Howard Taft for Taft Junior High School.[4]
In 1924, she met the gorilla John Daniel II from Ringling Brothers, Barnum and Bailey Circus. (He was so named because he was the successor gorilla to John Daniel.) She created a life-sized sculpture of the three-year-old gorilla. She presented it to the Baltimore Zoo in the 1948, and it has been exhibited outdoors on the zoo grounds since 1995.[5][6]
Valerie Harrisse Walter died on 29 February 1984.[7]
References[edit]
- ^ a b c Opitz, Glenn B. (1984). Dictionary of American sculptors : "18th century to the present," illustrated with over 200 photographs. Internet Archive. Poughkeepsie, NY : Apollo. p. 417. ISBN 978-0-938290-03-2.
- ^ "Moses R. Walter Dead". Baltimore Sun. 29 Dec 1916. p. 12.
- ^ Grant, June (2 Sep 1951). "Art for the Druid Hill Park Zoo". Baltimore Sun. pp. 8–A.
- ^ a b Scarborough, Katherine (21 Feb 1937). "A Baltimore Sculptor Returns". Baltimore Sun. p. 4.
- ^ a b c Scarborough, Katherine (18 May 1924). "When Beauty Sculpts the Beast". Baltimore Sun.
- ^ Kelly, Cindy (2011-06-10). Outdoor Sculpture in Baltimore: A Historical Guide to Public Art in the Monumental City. JHU Press. p. 291. ISBN 978-0-8018-9722-1.
- ^ "Deaths". Baltimore Sun. 3 March 1984. pp. C4.
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