ABSTRACT

This chapter shows how the country's cultural elite mobilized after the First World War to guide memorial making, largely in response to sculptures like Viquesney's and fears that their proliferation would lead to a new wave of statue mania. New York City's Municipal Art Society (MAS) was one of many art advocacy groups that weighed in on the topic of commemorative art. By 1895, it had joined with the National Sculpture Society and other New York–based art and architecture organizations to form the Fine Arts Federation. Too realistically modeled and cheaply made for official sanction by the Commission of Fine Arts, the American Federation of Arts, or the American Legion, Viquesney's image of invincibility against all odds nevertheless struck a chord with thousands of Americans. Soon after the American Federation of Arts issued its first circular on war memorials in February 1919, it appointed an advisory committee consisting of prominent artists, architects, city planners, arts administrators, patrons, businessmen, and politicians.