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The Equestrian Monument of
Simon Bolivar
By Michael Reed, Director of the Sally James
Farnham Catalogue Raisonne Project
The equestrian monument of Simon Bolivar is
unquestionably Sally James Farnham’s magnum
opus. It is an imposing work that took five
long years to complete and is regarded as the
crowning achievement of her long and varied
career. Farnham’s achievement cannot be
overstated for the monument’s history is a
colorful tale of meeting great odds head on
and overcoming professional setbacks in order
to succeed where others had failed.
In 1884 the government of Venezuela presented
the City of New York with a bronze statue of
Simon Bolivar. The gift was meant as a “token
of admiration from the southern republic to
her sister in the North.” Bolivar was
considered the George Washington of the
southern hemisphere, liberating not only
Venezuela, but also Columbia, Peru, Ecuador
and Bolivia from Spanish rule, instilling
democracy as the governing power in the
region. The sculptor R. de la Cora was
commissioned to create the first monument,
which was placed among a grove at West 83rd
Street in Central Park known as Bolivar Hill.
From the very start the de la Cora monument
attracted controversy. The New York Park
Commission hotly debated its artistic merit.
The New York Times grimly listed it as one of
the city’s more “unsightly New York statues”
in 1899. Soon the questionable monument,
labeled a “monster piece,” was removed from
its base. A second commission to create a
Bolivar was awarded to Giovanni Turini. The
National Sculpture Society flatly rejected his
submission. The granite base, which held the
monument, stood empty for the next fifteen
years.
By 1915, the Venezuelan government decided to
try again and invited sculptors to submit
designs in an open, international competition
for the Bolivar monument. Farnham’s interest
was instantly piqued, “Bolivar was always one
of my heroes of romance. He was always in the
strong current, never in the backwaters. He
lived extremes-in the trappings of a prince
being acclaimed by the multitudes, in the
thick of a revolution, mud-splashed and
sweating…” She had visited the theme of
Bolivar once before in her Frieze of the
Discoverers at the Pan-American Union (1910,
Washington D.C.).
This time she submitted a design based on a
classic equestrian form, a victorious Bolivar
astride his horse. The work was a triumph of
detailed naturalism with studied bits of
drama; his wind-swept cape; the power of the
horse in all its equine glory striding forward
and the strong features of its noble leader.
The work was an impressive 15 feet tall. The
granite base displayed the coats of arms of
the grateful nations he helped to liberate.
This was undoubtedly El Libertador.
In August 1916, the Venezuelan government
awarded the $24,000 commission to Sally James
Farnham, who beat out twenty other entries by
some leading sculptors of the day. The New
York Times called the commission a
“substantial recognition of an American woman
sculptor.”
Farnham began at once to create her monument.
She traveled to Venezuela to research and
absorb Bolivar’s homeland and its culture. Her
youngest son, John, remembered in 1989 that
she “was proud that her works were accurate in
their smallest details. She even researched
the buttons on General Bolivar’s uniform.”
Almost immediately she ran into problems. She
would later recall, “Bolivar’s life was not an
easy one, and in my studio it continued to be
one of storm and stress.
At the time this country was at war. There
were few competent workmen; the fuel question
was most serious; and many essential materials
were impossible to obtain.” Farnham estimated
that she lifted at least three tons of
plasticene in making the original form. She
commented with her usual wit, “You see I am
really a stevedore, not an artist.”
The war halted much of her production until
March 1918 when she rented studio space from
John Ettl, a sculptor known for his method of
enlarging sculptural monuments. She worked on
weekends and holidays at the Ettl studio to
complete her Bolivar because of the
distraction from others there during “working”
hours. In October 1919, Farnham sued Ettl in
New York’s Supreme Court after he refused to
allow her and her plaster caster into his
studio, claiming Farnham neglected to pay $100
in rent. Desperate, Farnham asked the court to
intervene before her model was ruined. In
court it was revealed that Ettl called Farnham
a “liar” and “made threats of violence against
her.” The model was lost during this legal
dispute and Sally had to start over from
scratch.
By late 1920 her model was finally completed
and cast the following year at the Roman
Bronze Works foundry. Plans for the formal
dedication were well underway. President
Warren G. Harding had agreed to give the
keynote address at the unveiling.
On April 19, 1921 the monument was formally
unveiled and dedicated before a crowd of
thousands in New York’s Central Park. By all
accounts the work was deemed a critical
success. Dr. Esteban Gil-Borges, Minister of
Foreign Relations for Venezuela, stated in his
dedication speech, “A woman’s hand molded this
statue…a woman’s hand gave it eternal form in
bronze to that life that was a prodigious
dream of heroism, beauty and love.
In giving to you one of your women the
privilege of that motherhood of glory, my
country wished to enhance the significance of
this token of friendship.” So honored, Farnham
would come to say that it was “the greatest
day of my life.” Critic Alexander Woollcott
would claim the “towering monument enters the
annals of American sculpture at the largest
work by a woman which history anywhere
records.” Others would label it the only
equestrian monument of a man ever created by a
woman.
That evening during a special banquet in her
honor, the Venezuelan government bestowed on
Sally James Farnham the highest honor its
country can give, the Order of the Liberator.
Farnham cherished the honor and the respect of
the South American republics until her death.
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