Jump to content
 







Main menu
   


Navigation  



Main page
Contents
Current events
Random article
About Wikipedia
Contact us
Donate
 




Contribute  



Help
Learn to edit
Community portal
Recent changes
Upload file
 








Search  

































Create account

Log in
 









Create account
 Log in
 




Pages for logged out editors learn more  



Contributions
Talk
 



















Contents

   



(Top)
 


1 Life  





2 Selected works  





3 Gallery  





4 References  





5 External links  














Bela Pratt






العربية
 

Edit links
 









Article
Talk
 

















Read
Edit
View history
 








Tools
   


Actions  



Read
Edit
View history
 




General  



What links here
Related changes
Upload file
Special pages
Permanent link
Page information
Cite this page
Get shortened URL
Download QR code
Wikidata item
 




Print/export  



Download as PDF
Printable version
 




In other projects  



Wikimedia Commons
 
















Appearance
   

 






From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 


Bela L. Pratt
Portrait of Bela Pratt (1918) by Howard E. Smith
Born(1867-12-11)December 11, 1867
Norwich, Connecticut, United States
DiedMay 17, 1917(1917-05-17) (aged 49)
Los Angeles, California, U.S.
OccupationSculptor

Bela Lyon Pratt (December 11, 1867 – May 18, 1917) was an American sculptor from Connecticut.

Life[edit]

Pratt was born in Norwich, Connecticut, to Sarah (Whittlesey) and George Pratt, a Yale-educated lawyer. His maternal grandfather, Oramel Whittlesey, was a pianoforte maker and founder in 1835 of Music Vale Seminary in Salem, Connecticut, the first music school in the country authorized to confer degrees to teach music.[1][2] At 16, Pratt began studying at the Yale University School of Fine Arts, where his teachers included John Henry Niemeyer (1839–1932) and John Ferguson Weir (1841–1926).

After graduating from Yale, he enrolled at the Art Students League of New York where he took classes from William Merritt Chase (1849–1916), Kenyon Cox (1859–1919), Francis Edwin Elwell (1858–1922), and most important, Augustus Saint-Gaudens (1848–1907), who became his mentor. After a short stint in Saint-Gaudens' private studio, Pratt traveled to Paris, where he trained with sculptors Henri-Michel-Antoine Chapu (1833–1891) and Alexandre Falguière (1831–1900) at the École des Beaux-Arts.

In 1892, he returned to the United States to create two large sculptural groups representing The Genius of Navigation for the World's Columbian ExpositioninChicago. He also produced sculptures for the Pan-American ExpositionatBuffalo in 1901. In 1893, he began a 25-year career as an influential teacher of modeling in the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. One of Pratt's most famous students at the School was John A. Wilson. During this time, Pratt sculpted a series of busts of Boston's intellectual community, including Episcopal minister Phillips Brooks (1899, Brooks House, Harvard University), Colonel Henry Lee (1902, Memorial Hall, Harvard University), and Boston Symphony Orchestra founder Henry Lee Higginson (1909, Symphony Hall, Boston). He became an associate of the National Academy in 1900. (1)

1908 Quarter eagle Indian Head design

When Saint-Gaudens' uncompleted group for the entrance to the Boston Public Library was rejected, Pratt was awarded a commission for personifications of Art and Science. Pratt continued Saint-Gaudens' influence in coin design after 1907. His gold Indian Head half ($5) and quarter ($2.50) eagle gold U.S. coins are known as the "Pratt coins" and feature an unusual intaglio Indian head, the U.S. mint's only recessed design in circulation. A memorial exhibition of 125 of his sculptures was held at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston in the spring of 1918.[3]

Pratt's students included Frederick Warren Allen, Daisy Blanche King.,[4] Bashka Paeff, and Richard Henry Recchia, as well as his son Dudley Pratt.

Selected works[edit]

Art and Science on the Library of Congress Building, Washington DC, USA

Gallery[edit]

References[edit]

Specific
  1. ^ "Oramel Whittlesey · Music Vale Seminary the Normal Academy of Music: Salem, Connecticut". musicvaleseminary.omeka.net. Retrieved 30 December 2017.
  • ^ "Music Vale Seminary - Connecticut Historical Markers on Waymarking.com". www.waymarking.com. Retrieved 30 December 2017.
  • ^ "Memorial Exhibition of the Work of Bela Lyon Pratt," Bulletin of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, vol. 16 (Spring 1918), pp. 28-29.
  • ^ EHRMANN, Thierry. "The biography of Daisy Blanche KING: information and auctions for the artworks by the artist Daisy Blanche KING - Artprice.com". www.artprice.com. Retrieved 30 December 2017.
  • External links[edit]


    Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Bela_Pratt&oldid=1196704772"

    Categories: 
    1867 births
    1917 deaths
    Yale School of Art alumni
    People from Norwich, Connecticut
    American alumni of the École des Beaux-Arts
    Sculptors from Connecticut
    Art Students League of New York alumni
    School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts faculty
    20th-century American sculptors
    20th-century American male artists
    19th-century American sculptors
    19th-century male artists
    Sculptors from New York (state)
    Artists of the Boston Public Library
    American coin designers
    19th-century American male artists
    Hidden categories: 
    Articles with short description
    Short description is different from Wikidata
    Articles with hCards
    Commons category link is on Wikidata
    Webarchive template wayback links
    Articles with FAST identifiers
    Articles with ISNI identifiers
    Articles with VIAF identifiers
    Articles with WorldCat Entities identifiers
    Articles with GND identifiers
    Articles with LCCN identifiers
    Articles with Musée d'Orsay identifiers
    Articles with ULAN identifiers
    Articles with SNAC-ID identifiers
     



    This page was last edited on 18 January 2024, at 06:21 (UTC).

    Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 4.0; additional terms may apply. By using this site, you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a non-profit organization.



    Privacy policy

    About Wikipedia

    Disclaimers

    Contact Wikipedia

    Code of Conduct

    Developers

    Statistics

    Cookie statement

    Mobile view



    Wikimedia Foundation
    Powered by MediaWiki