Александр Проктор: Американский скульптор-анималист

American sculptor

Alexander Phimister Proctor (September 27, 1860 – September 5, 1950) was an American sculptor with the contemporary reputation as one of the nation's foremost animaliers.

Proctor was born on September 27, 1860 in Bosanquet, Ontario, near the village of Arkona, Ontario, the son of Thirzah Smith (born 1832), herself daughter of a contractor on the Erie and Welland Canals, and Alexander Proctor (1822–alive 1904). The family left Canada in 1866 and moved to Iowa and then to Denver, Colorado, when Alexander was eleven. Growing up on the frontier, Proctor early developed into a skilled woodsman and hunter—interests that remained with him for the rest of his life. In his autobiography, Sculptor in Buckskin, he spends as much ink, and seems to be as excited about killing his first bear and elk as he is about obtaining his first major commission. Along with his gun, Proctor took pencils and a sketching pad with him on his trips through the Rocky Mountains. As a hunter he always was careful to measure, draw, and sometimes dissect the animals that had crossed his gun sights. These early studies helped propel him to the position of one of the most sought after and respected animaliers of his day. He was fortunate to find an art instructor in the still rough and tumble Colorado, where his early drawings included big horn sheep, elk, bears, and the lynching of outlaw L. H. Musgrove, which occurred in Denver in November 1868.

In 1885 Proctor sold a homestead that he had acquired in Colorado and used the proceeds to move to New York City with the intention of studying art. He enrolled first in the National Academy of Design where he studied drawing and painting, and later, at the Art Students League of New York, where his interest in sculpture came to the fore. His ability to capture animals in action, garnered in part from his days tracking them, coupled with his interest in all things Native American, opened a niche for Proctor, one that he parlayed into a long, successful career. As with many of his contemporaries, Proctor's opportunity to work with some of the greatest sculptors of his day, coupled with the opportunity to create his own large, albeit temporary, pieces presented itself in the guise of the World Columbian Exposition of 1893 in Chicago. Proctor later was called upon to produce works of various Western themes, mostly figures of native animals, but also a cowboy and Indian that were to form the genesis of his later works, The Bucking Bronco and On the War Trail, both found in Denver. Proctor moved to Paris to continue his studies. During this period he assisted Augustus Saint Gaudens in the creating of the General John Logan Memorial, now in Chicago. In 1896 he won the Rinehart Scholarship which allowed him to work and study in Paris for four years under Jean Antoine Injalbert and others. By the time he returned to America in 1899 Proctor was well versed in the Beaux Arts tradition.

Proctor's output after he moved to New York City was prolific; among his creations in this period was the sculpture of the horse underneath William Tecumseh Sherman in Grand Army Plaza, bordering Central Park. (Most of the 1903 equestrian statue was by Augustus Saint Gaudens; the architect of the installation was Charles Follen McKim.) In September 1909, Proctor was commissioned to design four large bronze tigers for the 16th Street Bridge in Washington, D. C. While the building no longer exists, it did represent an intriguing collaboration between the preeminent architecture firm and one of the leading sculptors of wildlife of the day. From this studio in 1922 Proctor completed a model of an equestrian statue of Theodore Roosevelt. The sculpture was commissioned by Henry Waldo Coe, a long time friend of both Roosevelt and Proctor. Coe donated Proctor's sculpture, Theodore Roosevelt, Rough Rider, to the city of Portland, Oregon. Two other versions of this sculpture were created for the cities of Mandan and Minot, North Dakota, and yet another sculpture cast from the same mold many years after Proctor's death was dedicated in Oyster Bay, New York, on October 29, 2005. His work was also part of the sculpture event in the art competition at the 1928 Summer Olympics.