Missouri Botanical 
Garden Bulletin 
Vol. VI St. Louis, Mo., September, 1918 No. 7 
HENRY SHAW’S CONTRIBUTIONS TO ART 
IN ST. LOUIS 
Although Henry Shaw is rightly regarded as one of the 
greatest benefactors of the city of his adoption, this idea is 
based primarily, if not entirely, upon his founding of The 
Missouri Botanical Garden and his gift to St. Louis of 
Tower Grove Park. Still another aspect of his generosity 
and desire to give pleasure to his fellow townsmen, which is 
not so generally recognized, was his effort to provide ob- 
jects of art, in the form of statues and busts, which were 
worthy of the men thus commemorated. 
As early as 1878 he presented to the city two bronze 
statues, which at that time were among the most noteworthy 
pieces of this character in the United States. These gifts 
were followed by others until, at the time of his death, eleven 
years later, he had made available to the public another 
bronze statue, three marble statues, and nine marble busts, 
all executed in the best artistic manner of the period. 
In order that a permanent record may be made of some 
of the little-known facts concerning these various gifts, it 
has seemed advisable to bring together in the BULLETIN an 
account of the circumstances associated with Mr. Shaw’s 
efforts to provide for St. Louis suitable examples of the 
sculptor’s art. The sources of the information here em- 
bodied are the newspapers of the day, a review of the 
origin and history of Tower Grove Park, by David H. Mac- 
Adam, prepared by order of the Board of Commissioners in 
1883, and, most important of all, certain letters from the 
sculptors themselves, which it is believed contain facts of 
interest not hitherto made public. 
The first statue presented to the city by Mr. Shaw was 
that of Shakespeare, which was unveiled on April 23, 1878, 
the 314th anniversary of the poet’s birth. The event was 
marked by unusual simplicity. Mr. Shaw, in the fewest 
possible words, formally presented the statue and acting- 
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