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The Newark Experience

City Plan Commission

On March 12, 1913 a Newark statute went into effect wherein "All questions concerning the location and architectural design of any work of art, statue, or any other memorial within such city, shall be referred to the City Plan Commission for its consideration and report before final action is taken thereon."

Monumental Newark

Monumental Newark: Gutzon Borglum's 'Seated Lincoln' and 'Wars of the Americas.'
Sponsored by the Newark History Society and NJPAC, November 9, 2020. Panalists: Natalie Borisovets (Gutzon Borglum); Guy Sterling (The Seated Lincoln); and Gorden Bond (Wars of America).

Public Art and Artifacts

National Register of Historic Places: Public Sculpture in Newark
Focus on the works of Gudzon Borglum in Newark but also includes a section on "The Evolution of Public Sculpture in the City of Newark."
Public Sculpture in New Jersey: Monuments to Collective Identity.
Meredith Arms Bzdak. New Brunswick, N.J., Rutgers University Press, 1999.
Entries on Newark sculptures include:
Henry Kirke Brown, General Philip Kearny, 1873, p.27
The Settlers Monument (Puritan Statue and Founder Monument), 1889, p.33
Karl Gerhardt, Seth Boyden, c.1890, p.35
Karl Gerhardt, Frederick T. Frelinghuysen, 1899, p. 41
Andrew O'Connor Jr., Truth and Power, 1906, p. 55
John Massey Rhind, Bartolommeo Colleoni, 1916, p. 73
John Massey Rhind, Franklin Murphy, 1924, p. 93
Gutzon Borglum, Wars of America, 1920-1926, p. 99
Memorial to Gral. Jose G. Artigas, 1977, p. 163
John Goodyear, The New Death of Socrates, 1981, p. 167
Hiroshi Murata, Tilt, 1991, p. 187
Diana Moore, Justice, 1991, p. 191
Available?
City Planning for Newark.
Newark City Plan Commission. Newark, N.J., L.J. Hardham Printing Co., 1913.
Chapter II of the report deals with "Municipal Decorative Improvements," noting that "There is...one feature of civic improvement notably lacking in Newark, and that is the systematic grouping of public buildings, and a dignified treatment of prominent street intersections and plazas in connection therewith." [p.43] Available?
"Newark's Sculpture: A Survey of Public Monuments and Memorial Statuary,"
Fearn Thurlow. Newark Museum Quarterly 26(1), Winter 1975, 1-31.
28 statues and memorial sculpture (1873-1972). Photographs of works; biographical information on the artists. Available?
"Murals and Sculptures Heighten Courthouse Beauty"
Charles F. Cummings. Newark Star-Ledger, December 30, 2004.
Public art at the Essex County Courthouse.
Essex County Historic Courthouse
2007? Some history and lots of photographs
"Modern Sculpture From Ancient Sources,"
John A. Parks. American Artist 60, October 1996, 42-47.
Diana Moore's monumental blindfolded head of "Justice," commissioned for the Newark federal courthouse plaza. Rutgers-restricted Access.
Columbus Monument in Washington Park
Giuseppe Ciochetti, 1927.
Newark's Christopher Columbus
Photographs and history of the Washington Park monument.
Christopher Columbus (Xavier Park)
Giuliano Cecchinelli, 1972. Donated by the Italian Tribune News.
Gutzon Borglum Monuments
The 'Puritan and Indian' statue (1916) and the 'First Landing Party of the Founders of Newark' relief (1916).
Wars of America Memorial--outtakes
"Sculptor Gutzon Borglum works on a plaster model, to be later cast in bronze in Italy." c.1920
Statues of Abraham Lincoln, Gutzon Borglum, Newark, N.J.
"Excerpts from newspapers and other sources. From the files of the Lincoln Financial Foundation Collection." Over 200 pages of scanned clippings, photographs, letters, etc.
"Newark's Seated Lincoln,"
Barry Schwartz. New Jersey History 113(3/4), 1995, 22-59.
Gutzon Borglum's statue of Abraham Lincoln was dedicated in Newark in 1911. Available?
The Newark Lincoln, A Memorial.
Newark, N.J., The Free Public Library for the Trustees of the Van Horn Trust, 1912. Available?
George Washington
John Lee photograph of John Massey Rhind's 1912 bronze in Washington Park.
Address Delivered at the Unveiling of the Washington Statue at Newark November 2, 1912.
Francis Swayze. [n.p.] Privately Printed, 1913.
Stories of the Statues.
Newark Museum Association, 1913-1917.
#4 (1917): Bartolommeo Colleoni: A Statue by Verocchio. Includes information on the history of the copy in Newark's Clinton Park.
Ceremonies at the Unveiling of a Copy of the Colleoni Equestrian Statue by Verrocchio: Executed by J. Massey Rhind...Clinton Park, Newark, Wednesday Afternoon, July Twenty-Sixth, Nineteen Sixteen at Four O'Clock.
Newark, N.J., Committee of One Hundred, 1916. Available?
Romuald Kraus: Justice and Other Works for the Works Progress Administration, 1933-1943
Eddie-Sue McDowell. Thesis (M.A.), University of Louisville, 1992. Available?
The New Death of Socrates
John Goodyear, 1981. Two anodized aluminum murals located on the side of the Edwin H. Albano Institute of Forensic Medicine, South Orange Avenue.
Tilt
Hiroshi Murata, 1992. Welded Aluminum sculpture. Aidekman Center Court Yard, Rutgers-Newark.

Charles Cummings wrote about Newark's 'historical artifacts' from the 1,200-pound bronze 'Hiker' monument at McKinley Circle to the engine that once powered the Jackson Street Bridge:

"Lost and Saved: Tale of Newark's Famed Statues, Sculptures," Newark Star-Ledger, July 15, 1999, p. 3. "Artifacts Represent the Incredible Diversity that is Newark," Newark Star-Ledger, July 22, 1999, p. 3
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