Thomas Hudson Jones

Secretary of War Dwight F. Davis (left) and Major General B. F. Cheatham, Quartermaster General of the U.S. Army, inspect the accepted model and design for the completion of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier (1928). The design by sculptor Thomas Hudson Jones and architect Lorimer Rich was selected after a competition in which 73 designs were submitted.

Thomas Hudson Jones (July 24, 1892 in Buffalo, New York – November 4, 1969 in Hyannis, Massachusetts) was a U.S. sculptor for the Army's Institute of Heraldry.

His wife was Mildred Dudley. They had four children Ann, Kim, June and Peter. His father was an engraver and encouraged him from childhood to be a sculptor. He attended the Albright Art School in Buffalo, New York. At 19 he won the Rome Prize Fellowship for three years of study at the American Academy in Rome. The judges, however, decided that he was too young to go at the time. He worked in the studio of Daniel Chester French while French was working on the seated Lincoln for the Lincoln Memorial. Jones left French in 1917. Jones first job was a bust of General Grant for the Hall of Fame. He enlisted and served in World War I and after the war took the fellowship in Rome.

He returned to the United States in 1922 to sculpt and teach at Columbia University in New York City. In 1934 he returned to Rome to serve as a Professor of Fine Arts at the academy.

Jones designed the ornate 50-foot-high bronze doors for the New Library of Brooklyn. In Washington, D.C., he designed three reliefs of law givers for the House of Representatives chamber in the United States Capitol (1950) and the Statue of Christ in St. Matthews Church in Washington, D.C.

His most well-known design was the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, with its architect Lorimer Rich, in 1929. This work made him well known in government circles even before he came to Washington.

At the request of the Government, Jones left his McDougal Alley studio in Greenwich Village, New York in 1944 and started work for the Institute of Heraldry in the Washington. He stayed with the Institute of Heraldry after the war ended.

He designed the Air Force Academy seal as well over 40 US military service medals including the World War II Victory Medal and Army of Occupation Medal.

His work earned him international acclaim and he was recognized by Who's Who in Art, Who's Who in America and was a Fellow of the American Academy in Rome and exhibitor and member of the National Academy of Design.

External links

Media related to Thomas Hudson Jones at Wikimedia Commons