Hermon Atkins MacNeil

The majority of the sculptures and medals created by the artist Hermon Atkins MacNeil depict Native American figures. Trained at the Massachusetts Normal Art School in Boston and the École des Beaux-Arts and Académie Julian in Paris, MacNeil became an important sculptor as well as a teacher, instructing students in drawing and sculpture at Pratt Institute in New York City, Cornell University, and the Art Institute of Chicago. During his work as an assistant on the architectural sculpture for the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago, MacNeil saw Buffalo Bill’s Wild West performing alongside the fair and became fascinated by the Native Americans who were part of the show. He made many sketches of the performers that became references for his later works. He subsequently made several trips to the Four Corners area of the southwestern United States, studying particularly the traditions and ceremonies of the Hopi (then called Moqui) and Zuni tribes. For much of his career MacNeil focused on Native American subjects in both small and large-scale sculptures, though a number of his late monument commissions celebrate historic Anglo-American figures.