biography of Hermon Atkins MACNEIL (1866-1947)

Birth place: Everett, MA

Addresses: College Point, NY

Profession: Sculptor

Studied: Massachusetts Normal Art Sch., Boston; Académie Julian, Paris with Chapu, 1888, 1890; …cole des Beaux-Arts with Falguière; in Rome under the Rinehart Roman scholarship, 1896-99.

Exhibited: Paris Salon, 1890; Columbian Expo., Chicago, 1893 (med.); PAFA Ann., 1894, 1902-17, 1922-23, 1928-31, 1935-40; AIC,1894-1928; Atlanta Expo., 1895 (med.); Paris Expo., 1900 (med.); Pan-Am. Expo., Buffalo, 1901 (gold); Charleston Expo., 1902 (gold); St. Louis Expo., 1904 (gold); Jewish Settlement in Am. (med.); Pan.-Pac. Expo., San Fran., 1915 (gold); Arch. Lg., 1917 (med.). Award: Prix de Rome

Member: NSS, 1897; ANA, 1905; NA, 1906; SAA, 1901; Arch. Lg., 1902; Century Artists; Munic. AS; Nat. Acad. AL; AFA; NAC.

Work: statues, memorials, monuments, friezes: MMA; CGA; City Park, Portland, OR; Columbus, OH; Albany, NY; State Capitol, Hartford, CT; AIC; Montclair Art Mus.; Northwestern Univ.; Cornell Univ.; Washington Arch, NY; Missouri State Capitol; Flushing, LI, NY; Waterbury, CT; Seattle, WA; US Supreme Court Bldg., Wash., DC; New York Univ.; Whitinsville, MA; Northfield Univ., MA; New Parkway, Phila.; memorial, Chicago; Charleston, SC; Vincennes, IN

Comments: Designer, Pan-Am. medal of award; Arch. Lg. medal of honor; U.S. Gov. quarter dollar. MacNeil made several trips to study the Indians. In 1900 he was commissioned by the Santa Fe RR to do a series of portraits of the Navajo and the Hopi. After 1910 he devoted himself to execution of public monuments celebrating Am. heroes. He was married to Carol Brooks MacNeil, also a sculptor.

Sources: WW53; WW47; P&H Samuels, 300; Eldredge, et al., Art in New Mexico, 1900-1945, 201; Fink, American Art at the Nineteenth-Century Paris Salons, 369; Falk, Exh. Record Series.