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Honoring Special People Through Art
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Artist: William Ordway Partridge Art Work: Untitled bronze sculpture, Joseph Pulitzer Memorial, after 1911 Location: Woodlawn Cemetery, Webster Avenue at 223rd St. Grades: 4-6 About the Art: William Ordway Partridge's seated bronze figure for Joseph Pulitzer's mausoleum is fully incorporated within its architectural setting as a figure symbolic of meditation and repose. Nowhere evident are symbolic or narrative images alluding to Pulitzer's fame as a publisher, so we must find other sources for understanding how the sculpture honors him. Joseph Pulitzer (1847-1911) published the newspaper World, a position from which he transformed the meaning of the freedom of the press. Through a Pulitzer newspaper campaign, funds were raised to erect the Statue of Liberty. Pulitzer’s newspaper wars with William Randolph Hearst’s publishing empire were a key to the Spanish-American War. His final bequests established the Pulitzer Prize, the annual awards "for the encouragement of public service, public morals, American literature, and the advancement of education." The first burial at Woodlawn Cemetery was in 1865 and since then it has become the final resting place of more than 250,000 people. The site combines the natural beauty of the landscape with the funerary monuments designed by some of America’s most respected sculptors and architects. These works have been carefully and skillfully integrated into the landscape. Among those honored here are Herman Armour, meat packer, Irving Berlin (1888-1989), songwriter, Elizabeth Cochran (Nellie Bly), journalist who went around the world in 80 days, Oscar Hammerstein, composer, Fiorello LaGuardia, mayor of New York, Roland H. Macy, department store founder, Thomas Nast, political cartoonist, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, women’s suffragist, and William "Bat" Masterson, U.S. Marshall, sheriff, gambler, Indian scout and sportswriter. |
Questions for Discussion: What do you notice about the Pulitzer sculpture? What is a memorial (think "memory")? How does the choice of materials and the size add to the meaning of honoring him? How can you find out more about the people buried here?
Sample Art Activity: Students create an Olympic-type medallion to honor someone buried in Woodlawn Cemetery who has contributed to society in a way that is meaningful to them, such as a political leader, a poet or a writer.
Purpose: To demonstrate understanding of how art is used to honor people.
Materials: For medallions: cardboard dinner plates, heavy duty aluminum foil, glue, pasta letters, plastic spoons. For crayon rubbings: newsprint or manila paper 12" x 18", crayons in dark colors.
Teaching Strategies:
- Organize students in small groups for research about people whose work inspires them.
- Show examples of coins for the way they honor politicians and are durable.
- Students explore the way aluminum foil scraps can be pinched, folded and formed before creating the final piece.
- When ready to create the medallion, students use images from research to provide visual reference.
- For letters, students can glue pasta letters on the paper plate before applying the foil.
- They should press foil gently over letters with fingers or a plastic spoon.
- They should draw the head on foil after it is covering the paper plate.
Closure: Stage a happening or party at which students dress up as the person whose life inspires them (consider doing this at the end of October to make the most of the season). Display medallions with the crayon rubbings. Serve food and beverages if possible.
Extensions: For linguistic learning: Write in journals about the experience of the visit and the process of researching, becoming inspired and struggling with how to represent the inspiration. For mathematical learning: Create a time line of all the people included in the class’ choices of people to honor. Show their dates of birth and death. Do distinguished people tend to live longer than others? How can you estimate an answer?
National Art Education Learning Standards:
- Understanding and applying media, techniques and processes
- Choosing and evaluating a range of subject matter, symbols and ideas
- Understanding the visual arts in relation to history and cultures
- Making connections between visual arts and other disciplines
