Sherry Edmundson Fry (1879-1966) Bronze Male Bust Sculpture

Our client's large bronze bust by the American sculptor, Sherry Edmundson Fry (1879-1966) depicts a determined male warrior with headdress.  Mounted on round marble plinth and signed E FRY.

This work is representative of the style of the lifesize bronze by Fry entitled Maidenhood (1914), a large female posed in similar neoclassical headdress exhibited at the 110th annual exhibition of the Pennsylvania Academy of Arts in 1915, and one of three works included in the 1918 Exhibition of American Sculpture at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

Fry received prestigious awards early in his career, including honorable mention at the Paris Salon in 1906, as well as a medal in 1908; the Rome Prize at the American Academy in Rome in 1908; a silver medal at the Panama–Pacific International Exposition in 1915 for his lifesize allegorical bronze statue depicting Peace; and a gold medal at the National Academy of Design in 1917.

He is known for a number of commissioned sculptures, fountains and architectural reliefs, including a large bronze statue of Mahaska, the 19th-century leader of a Native American tribe called the Ioway, installed in the town square Oskaloosa, county seat of Mahaska County, Iowa.  The clay model for this commission was exhibited at the Paris Salon in 1907. A year later, he exhibited the final full-size sculpture for which he was awarded the Prix de Rome. Soon after, it was shipped to the U.S. and installed in May 1909 to a crowd of over 12,000 people.

Other notable commissions include a pediment for the Frick Museum, reliefs for the Grant Memorial in Washington, DC, based on sketches by Henry Merwin Shrady, the fountains at the Toledo Museum of Art, a statue of Ira Allen at the University of Vermont (Burlington), a memorial to Captain Thomas Abbey in Enfield, Connecticut, and a sculpture of Ceres, the goddess of grain, that stands on the peak of the Missouri State Capitol dome in Jefferson City. In addition, a number of Fry's allegorical sculptures were among the artworks featured at the Panama–Pacific International Exposition in San Francisco in 1915. In 1914, he was elected into the National Academy of Design as an Associate member, and became a full Academician in 1930.

The artist's works are found in The Frick Collection, Toledo Museum of Art and Museum of Art and Archaeology, University of Missouri-Columbia, Columbia, MO.