Paul Manship

A native of St. Paul, Minnesota, Paul Manship was born in 1885 and received his first artistic training in sculpture at the Minneapolis Institute of Art and the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts before winning a scholarship to study at the American Academy in Rome in 1909. While living in Europe, Manship traveled widely through Italy and Greece, and the exposure to classical Greek and Roman sculpture was a major influence on his work. After returning to America in 1912, he began producing classically influenced but simplified works that rejected the naturalism of the popular Beaux-Arts Style. Manship received many public commissions in the 1920s and 1930s, the most famous being his sculpture Prometheus at Rockefeller Center in New York City. He is probably best known for his neoclassical works but is also noted for his art deco sculptures of animals.