Barnard, George Grey (1863–1938). American sculptor, an independent, original, and controversial figure. He was born in Bellefonte, Pennsylvania, and after studying briefly at the Art Institute of Chicago he moved to Paris in 1883. After years of hardship there he had a sensational success with his over-life-size marble group
Struggle of the Two Natures in Man (Metropolitan Museum, New York), when it was exhibited at the Salon de la Nationale in 1894. In the same year he returned to the USA (against the advice of
Rodin, to whom his vigorous style was much indebted) and settled in New York. Initially he made little impact there, but in 1902 he received the largest commission given to an American sculptor up to that date—a vast scheme of allegorical decorations for the Pennsylvania State Capitol at Harrisburg. He returned to France to work on this. In 1906 there was a scandal in Harrisburg over misuse of public funds, bringing payment to Barnard to an end, but he continued the project at his own expense and it was unveiled—on a much smaller scale than originally envisaged—in 1911. His final major work was a bronze statue of Abraham Lincoln, set up in Lytle Park, Cincinnati, in 1917. It caused a furore; Barnard had attempted to show the national hero as an ordinary man in deep thought, but some thought it made him look like a ‘disshevelled dolt’ and Lincoln's son described the statue as ‘grotesque and defamatory'. However, it also had strong supporters, including the former President Theodore Roosevelt, who said ‘The greatest statue of our age has revealed the greatest soul of our age'. Controversy continued when it was proposed to erect a copy of the statue in Parliament Square, London;
Epstein defended it against attack in a letter to the
Daily Telegraph, describing Barnard (his former teacher) as ‘a very great sculptor'. Eventually it was a replica of
Saint-Gaudens's statue of Lincoln that went to London, whilst a replica of the Barnard went to Manchester (it was unveiled in 1919 and is now in Lincoln Square). During his many years in France Barnard made a superb collection of medieval art; this was bought for the Metropolitan Museum, New York, in 1925 and forms the basis of its outstation, The Cloisters, opened in 1938. Barnard devoted his final years to a visionary project for a colossal
Rainbow Arch (to be dedicated to the mothers of war dead), which he hoped to erect near The Cloisters.