Fernando Miranda y Casellas (1842-1925)
Sculptor of Savannah’s City Hall Fountain
Fernando Miranda y Casellas, commonly known as Fernando Miranda, was born in 1842 in Valencia, Spain. Miranda, referred to as a “celebrated Spanish sculptor” in 1893, studied with sculptor J. Piquer, of the court of Queen Isabella II, in Madrid, and later with Carpeaux in Paris. He came to the United States during the Centennial Exposition of 1876 and settled in New York City.* Around the late 1880s, King Alfonso XII made him Comendador of the Royal Order of Isabella and he was knighted. Miranda exhibited works at the National Academy of Design in New York City in 1878, 1879, and 1898, and with the National Sculpture Society in New York c.1908. Miranda died in 1925 in New York at the age of eighty-three.
Miranda assisted Francisco Piquer with the modeling of a statue of Christopher Columbus erected in the Plaza de Recreo in Cardenas, Cuba in 1862. In 1892, he prepared a design for the Circulo Colon Cervantes, a Spanish-American heritage group, of a fountain honoring Christopher Columbus for submission to the Quadro Centennial Committee to commemorate the four hundredth anniversary of the discovery of America. Miranda’s design was one of three memorials to be erected around Central Park in New York City by various groups, however, the Circulo Colon Cervantes pulled funding for their project after a disagreement with the Central Park Board regarding placement of the fountain. The group desired to erect the fountain at the entrance to Central Park at 59th Street and 5th Avenue. The Park Board suggested two alternate sites at the Battery and at Mount Morris, neither as centrally located or desirable to the group. Had it been built, Miranda’s fountain would have had a basin 100 feet in diameter with a statue of Christopher Columbus standing on a pedestal representing the globe.
Miranda’s body of work includes several important commissions primarily around the turn of the twentieth century in the United States. Four large figures of angels sculpted by Miranda were placed in the American Tract Society Building, designed by Robert Henderson Robertson and built in 1894-1895 in Manhattan. In 1903, he was one of numerous artists awarded commissions for the 1904 Louisiana Purchase Exposition, commemorating the one-hundredth anniversary of the Louisiana Purchase. Miranda’s work appeared in relief panels for the Palace of Machinery at the exposition in St. Louis. Supervised by Thomas Edison, the Palace of Machinery, a building “very rich in plastic detail and sculptural decoration,” covered an area of ten acres and contained the power plant for the exposition. The hall’s highlights were “sheet metal, link belts and the gasoline engine.”
In February 1897, Miranda was at the forefront of a group of sculptors protesting the contracting of work on the new Appellate Division Court House in New York City at 25th Street and East Madison Square without advertising for bids. The sculptors wanted a competition to be held and bids accepted before the art works were commissioned.
In 1905, Miranda’s design of a fountain for Savannah’s City Hall was accepted through the proposal of bronze foundry John Williams, Inc., of New York City. Miranda’s design, cast by John Williams, Inc. and installed in 1906, includes a “putto” or male angel, supported by a base of four dolphins, holding aloft a cornucopia representing the prosperity of the City at the beginning of a new century. The last confirmed work of Miranda’s is the sculpture entitled Primitive Marksman, also cast by John Williams, Inc. The bronze figure depicts a Native American lying on his back and shooting an arrow. This piece is now part of the New York Historical Society’s collections and is housed in the Henry Luce III Center for the Study of American Culture.
*The Centennial Exposition (the International Exhibition of Arts, Manufactures and Products of the Soil and Mine) opened in Fairmount Park, Philadelphia on May 10, 1876 to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence and the nation’s advances in science and industry. Nearly ten million people visited exhibits of 38 states and 50 nations during the five months the exposition was open.
Sources
“American Tract Society Building.” New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission, Designated June 15, 1999; LP-2038. Taken from http://www.ci.nyc.ny.us/html/lpc/html/designation/summaries/americantract.html (accessed 31 March 2005).
“Centennial 1876.” Taken from http://www.150.si.edu/chap4/four.htm (accessed 31 March 2005).
“Centennial Exposition.” The Reader's Companion to American History. Houghton Mifflin Company. Taken from http://college.hmco.com/history/readerscomp/rcah/html/ah_015200_centennialex.htm (accessed 31 March 2005).
“City and Suburban News.” The New York Times (5 March 1892) 3.
“The Columbus Fountain; The Designer Talks to the Park Board about the Site.” The New York Times (22 December 1892) 8.
“The Columbus Fountain; Spanish-Americans Particular about its Location…” The New York Times (20 December 1892) 2.
“Columbus Memorials; Three of Them Soon to be Presented to this City.” The New York Times (13 June 1892) 10.
“Fernando Miranda, Primitive Marksman, c.1900.” Taken from http://loanet.mit.edu/exhibitions/mobilesound/exhibit-4/intro-left-1.html (accessed 30 March 2005).
“…A Grand Columbus Fountain.” The New York Times (17 May 1896) 25.
The Greatest of Expositions, Completely Illustrated. St. Louis: Louisiana Purchase Exposition, Press of Samuel F. Myerson Printing Company, 1904. Taken from http://washingtonmo.com/1904/index.htm (accessed 31 March 2005).
“Louisiana Purchase Exposition, St. Louis, 1904.” University of Delaware Library, Special Collections Department, Progress Made Visible. Taken from http://www.lib.udel.edu/ud/spec/exhibits/fairs/louis.htm (accessed 31 March 2005).
Metropolitan Museum of Art, Thomas J. Watson Library, New York, New York. Reference Desk Assistance (30 March 2005).
New York Historical Society, New York, New York. Reference Desk Assistance (30 March 2005).
“Palace of Machinery.” Taken from http://www.earthstation9.com/index.html?1904_stl.htm (accessed 31 March 2005).
Ponce de Leon, Nestor. The Columbus Gallery, the “Discoverer of the New World” as represented in Portraits, Monuments, Statues, Medals and Paintings… New York: N. Ponce de Leon, 1893. Taken from http://www.cornelli.org/columbus_gallery/statues.html (accessed 30 March 2005).
“Sculptors ask Competition; They Protest Against Awards of Work Without Bids.” The New York Times (17 February 1897) 1.
“Significant Advance Shown in an Art that is Comparatively New in this Country.” The New York Times (12 April 1908) X2.
“Statues for St. Louis; Contracts Which Have Been Awarded to New York and Other Sculptors.” The New York Times (17 February 1903) 7.
“World’s Fair Centennial Celebration: The 1904 Fair.” International Folklore Federation, 2004. Taken from http://www.worldsfairstlouis.org/ (accessed 31 March 2005).
Prepared by Luciana M. Spracher, Bricks and Bones Historical Research
for the City of Savannah, Georgia, Research Library and Municipal Archives.
© Copyright 2005 by the City of Savannah, Georgia.
All rights reserved.
|