Warner, Olin Levi
WARNER, OLIN LEVI (1844-1896), American sculptor, was born at West Suffield, Connecticut, on the 9th of April 1844. In turn an artisan and a telegraph operator, by 1869 he had earned enough money to support him through a course of study in Paris under Jouffroy and Carpeaux. He was in France when the Republic was proclaimed in 1870 and enlisted in the Foreign Legion, resuming his studies at the termination of the siege. In 1872 he removed to New York, where, however, he met with little success; he then went to his father's farm in Vermont, and worked for manufacturers of silver and plated ware as well as makers of mantel ornaments. He attracted the attention of Daniel Cottier, of the Cottier Art Galleries of New York, where Warner's work was exhibited, and some commissions gradually secured for him recognition. They were followed by busts of Alden Weir, the artist, and of Maud Morgan, the musician; some decorations for the Long Island Historical Society; statues of Governor Buckingham at the State Capitol, Hartford, Conn.; William Lloyd Garrison and General Charles Devens, at Boston; reliefs of several striking North American Indian types; a fountain for Portland, Oregon, and the designs for the bronze doors, "Tradition" and "Writing," of the Congressional Library at Washington, of which he lived to complete only the former, which contains the beautiful figures of " Imagination " and " Memory." Warner died in New York City on the 14th of August 1896. He was one of the five charter members of the Society of American Artists (1877), and in 1889 became an academician, National Academy of Design, New York. One of his best-known works is a " Diana." He designed the souvenir silver half-dollar piece for the Columbia Fair at Chicago, in 1893, making also some colossal heads of great artists for the art palace, and busts of Governors Clinton and Flower, of New York State.
Note - this article incorporates content from Encyclopaedia Britannica, Eleventh Edition, (1910-1911)
