Charles Rumsey

Charles Cary Rumsey (1879-1922) was born in Buffalo, New York, the second eldest of five children. Rumsey was trained as a sculptor from an early age. He lived in Paris as a young man and apprenticed and studied under two of the most renowned sculptors of the turn of the century, Paul Weyland and Emmanuel Fremiet. Following completion of his education in the Beaux Arts tradition with a focus on the horse, Rumsey returned to the United States in 1906. Back home, Rumsey became acquainted with many wealthy industrialists and horsemen, including railroad magnate E. H. Harriman, who commissioned monumental works, architectural sculpture and heroic statuary. Rumsey was a well-regarded sculptor of his time. His sculptures of animals, particularly horses, gained him acclaim in an America that appreciated the tradition of the French Animaliers. He, like his teacher Fremiet and other historical realists, insisted on the visual accuracy of historical imagery. Yet, when Rumsey returned from the War in 1919, his work began to suggest abstraction, foretelling his contribution to the Art Deco Movement of the next two decades.

Among Rumsey's many honors are the following: exhibition of an equestrian sculpture in the Pan-American Exposition in 1901 in Buffalo, New York; first prize in sculpture in an exhibition at the New York Architectural League in 1908; an exhibition of small bronzes curated by the National Sculpture Society and lent to the Albright Art Gallery in Buffalo, New York, in 1909; inclusion of a large equestrian statue in the Panama-Pacific Exposition held in San Francisco in 1915; a commission to sculpt a frieze for the Manhattan Bridge in New York City in 1916; inclusion in an exhibition at The Sculptor's Gallery in 1917; and a World War I memorial commission in Brooklyn, New York, in 1922.