BARTLETT, Paul Wayland - b. 1865 New Haven, d. 1925 Paris

American sculptor, son of Truman Howe Bartlett, a sculptor and art critic. Although Paul Bartlett was born in the United States he may well be considered a French sculptor since he spent the greater part of his life in Paris. He lived in Paris in his boyhood and studied at the École des Beaux-Arts and under Frémiet. The Bohemian Bear Trainer won a gold medal at the Salon of 1888. Of his other works, The Ghost Dance is at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts; the equestrian statue of Lafayette is in Paris and a replica is in Hartford, Conn.; Columbus, Michelangelo, and Law are in the Library of Congress. The bronze statue of Robert Morris (Philadelphia) was unveiled after the sculptor’s death.

Bartlett’s masterwork was the House of Representatives pediment at the U.S. Capitol building, The Apotheosis of Democracy, begun in 1908 and completed in 1916.

Brazilian Frog

Alongside monumental commissions, small-format animal art developed as a result of the growing number of potential customers among the newly wealthy middle classes coupled with the relative modesty of their domestic arrangements. These small bronzes, designed to stand on mantelpieces and chests of drawers, provided a regular income for the bronze casters whose numbers likewise increased during the second half of the nineteenth century.

Bartlett with his Brazilian Frog, approached the modeling of animals using the resources of symbolism. Others, guided by the technique of stone-cutting, rediscovered the simplicity of solid form.