Richard Bock

American sculptor (1865 1949)

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Richard W. Bock (July 16, 1865 – June 29, 1949) was a German born American sculptor known for his collaborations with the American architect Frank Lloyd Wright. He was particularly known for his sculptural decorations for architecture and military memorials, along with the work he conducted alongside Wright.

Bock was born on July 16, 1865, in Schloppe, Germany (now Człopa, Poland), and emigrated to the United States with his family as a youth, where he grew up in German neighborhoods in Chicago. Three years in school at the Berlin Academy studying with Schaper was followed by more studying at the École des Beaux Arts in Paris under Alexandre Falguière and then a tour of Florence, Italy. In 1891 he returned to his American hometown of Chicago to establish a permanent sculpture studio downtown. Almost immediately upon Bock's return to America, he received three major commissions. For the World's Columbian Exposition in 1893, he sculpted major architectural works for two of the event's primary buildings, the Mining and Electricity Exposition Halls. He took on a 14 year old apprentice, James Earle Fraser, who would later design the famous sculpture The End of the Trail and the Buffalo nickel. He also won a competition to execute an exterior sculpture at the Indianapolis Public Library in 1892. He created interior bas reliefs for Chicago's famous Schiller Building, during which time, in the winter of 1891 to 1892, Bock studied under its architect Louis Sullivan.]] Bock also created the Elijah P. Lovejoy Monument in Alton, Illinois, along with a bronze group of sculptures in Chickamauga, Georgia. For the Trans Mississippi Exposition in Omaha, Nebraska, in 1898, Bock composed all the sculptures for the Machinery and Electricity Building, a centerpiece of the fair. At the same time, he made the pediments for Omaha's Burlington Train Station. On November 1, 1899, Bock married Martha Higgins Methven, sister of his colleague Harry Wallace Methven. After returning from their honeymoon, Bock won a competition to help create the Illinois monument at the Shiloh Civil War battlefield. He also worked on sculptures for the Missouri State Building at the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair. often making Wright's architectural sculptures. Wright requested Bock's assistance after a previous sculptor, Albert Louis Van den Berghen, was not working out as planned for a planned sculpture at the Dana–Thomas House. Bock created two sculptures for the entrance to Wright's Office at his Home in Oak Park called "The Boulders" they are still visible from the street outside of Wright's House and Studio.

Bock provided a statues for the Dana–Thomas House in Springfield, Illinois, and a plaster frieze for the Wright designed Heller House in Chicago. Bock also worked on Wright's Unity Temple, the integrated human figures on the 1906 Larkin Administration Building, two statues for the Darwin D. Martin House in Buffalo, New York, The Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation claims the work as a Wright design from 1903. The Frank Lloyd Wright Preservation Trust lists Wright as the architect and Bock as the sculptor. In 1969, the badly deteriorated original fountain was reconstructed and a replica of Bock's work placed in Scoville Park at the corner of Oak Park Avenue and Lake Street in Oak Park.

Bock spent three years creating the figures for the Hippach Chapel at Chapel Hill Gardens West in Villa Park, Illinois. In 1929, he became the head of the Sculptural Department at the University of Oregon. After retiring in 1932, he completed his career with a possible design for a colossus for the 1933 Century of Progress exposition in Chicago. In the 1940s, Bock and his wife moved to California, where he completed his autobiography. He died at the age of 84 in 1949, of Parkinson's disease.

Dr. Donald Hallmark, a researcher at Greenville College in Greenville, Illinois, became interested in Bock and learned that his works did not have a permanent home in a museum. He contacted the sculptor's children, who remained in possession of the collection. The children, Thorwald Methven and Dorathi Bock Pierre, donated the collection to Greenville College in 1972 on the condition that the collection always remain on display. The Richard W. Bock Sculpture Collection includes more than 300 drawings, documents and photographs, and most importantly, over 300 bronze and plaster sculptures of Bock's. In addition, some of Frank Lloyd Wright's work which had never before been displayed became part of the collection. Renovated in 2007, the Bock museum has been redesigned as a more fitting home for Bock's masterpieces. The works include an outdoor sculpture, Spring; the Darwin D. Martin House in Buffalo, New York, commissioned a copy to be made of the sculpture in 2008, as part of its $50 million remodeling project.