592 



OBITUARIES, AMERICAN. (WARNER.) 



one summer at work in a glove manufactory, and 

 at fifteen entered the Seward Institute, in Orange 

 County, a school kept by his uncle. His facility in 

 drawing caricatures had already attracted his 

 schoolmates. It is related that he once carved a 

 head of Lincoln out of chalk, but the admiration of 



the bystanders did 

 not prevent him 

 from destroying it 

 because he knew 

 he could do better. 

 At the breaking 

 out of the war 

 he was restrained 

 with difficulty 

 from entering the 

 service as a drum- 

 mer boy, but he 

 finally remained 

 with his parents, 

 then living in 

 Pittsford, Vt, and 

 he attended school 

 in Brandon until 

 In' was nineteen. 

 His natural and 

 constant desire for 



artistic expression was, of course, uncultivated. 

 He had never seen a statue and he knew sculp- 

 ture only through the engravings in his " Hor- 

 ace." He determined to test his capabilities ac- 

 cording to his best knowledge, and, ignorant 

 as he was, he applied himself to carving a bust 

 of his father out of a block of plaster of Paris. 

 The bust was pronounced a likeness. This trial, 

 the young novice thought, justified him in adopt- 

 ing sculpture. With the same concentration of 

 purpose he reasoned that art was a very serious 

 thing, that the only instruction worth having was 

 the best, and that there was no suitable training to 

 be had in this country. Therefore he determined 

 to put all thoughts of art behind him until he could 

 earn enough money to enable him to study abroad. 

 He learned telegraphing and was employed as an 

 operator in Albion and Rochester, N. Y., and later, 

 from 1866 to 1869, was under Gov. Bullock in the 

 Southern Express Company's office at Atlanta, Ga. 

 He managed to save $1,500 and sailed for Paris, 

 going first of all to the Louvre. An English artist 

 whom he met by chance directed him to a sculptor's 

 studio, where he studied for nine months, until, 

 with the aid of Minister Washburne, he obtained a 

 place at the Beaux Arts, where Jouffroy was then a 

 conspicuous figure. He secured admission to Car- 

 peaux's studio as a workman, where his modeling 

 attracted the attention of the master and brought 

 him an invitation the first extended to an Ameri- 

 can to remain in 'the atelier as a student. Mr. 

 Warner was in Paris through the Franco-Prussian 

 War and enlisted in the Foreign Legion. He re- 

 mained also throughout the perilous days of the 

 siege and the reign of the Commune, which brought 

 him several narrow escapes. Returning to America 

 in 1872, he opened a studio in New York, and 

 speedily learned by bitter experience the difference 

 in the estimates placed upon art in France and in 

 this country at that time. There was little real 

 interest in sculpture and commissions were often 

 awarded through political or personal influence. 

 Mr. Warner's modesty and his very seriousness of 

 purpose told against him. After four years of pri- 

 vation he was forced to apply to the Southern Ex- 

 press Company for a place like that which he for- 

 merly held, but the president. Mr. Plant, encour- 

 aged him with a commission for a bust, which at- 

 tracted favorable attention and led to another 

 order. In 1877 he met Mr. Daniel Cottier, one of 



the few art dealers who could be classed as genuine 

 ainateurs and art lovers, and, with a keen apprecia- 

 tion of Warner's quality, Mr. Cottier invited him 

 to exhibit his work in his rooms. Mr. Clarence 

 Cook and other critics gave the artist almost his 

 first public recognition, although before this the 

 chairman of the Republican Central Committee 

 sent him to Columbus to model a bust of R. B. 

 Hayes. This and a colossal alto-relief of Edwin 

 Forrest, shown at the Centennial Exposition, were 

 received with favor. Incidentally, about this time 

 Mr. Warner wrote a lecture on communism, which 

 was delivered in New York. In 1877-'78 he mod- 

 eled a small statue of " Twilight " for Mr. J. L. 

 Williams. He became one of the five original mem- 

 bers of the Society of American Artists, founded as 

 a protest against the ultra-conservatism of the 

 Academy. With this society he exhibited in 1878 

 a bust of his father and some medallions ; in 1879 

 the " Twilight " ; in 1880 his virile bust of J. Alden 

 Weir, which afterward excited profound admiration 

 at the Paris Salon ; in 1881 a small statue of " The 

 Dancing Nymph " and his singularly beautiful 

 bust of Miss Maud Morgan, a cast of which was 

 purchased for the Boston Art Museum ; and in 1882 

 a delightfully modeled alto-relief, "Cupid and 

 Psyche." Busts of Mr. Cottier and his two young 

 daughters, of Mrs. Cook, Mr. W. C. Brownell, and 

 A. A. Low, and some remarkable busts of his wife 

 and little daughter were among his notable work in 

 portraiture. His decorative work included colossal 

 heads for the building of the Long Island Historical 

 Society in Brooklyn and the Pennsylvania Railroad 

 station in Philadelphia. He modeled three heroic 

 statues a seated figure of Gov. Buckingham, which 

 is in the Capitol at Hartford, Conn. ; the statue of 

 William Lloyd Garrison on Commonwealth Avenue, 

 Boston ; and a standing figure of Gen. Devens, of 

 Massachusetts. He designed a fountain which is in 

 Union Square, New York, some beautiful and dig- 

 nified caryatids for a fountain, which it is the 

 good fortune of Portland, Ore., to possess. In the 

 course of his visits to Oregon Mr. Warner was 

 attracted by the noble types presented by the Nez 

 Perce and other Indians, and he modeled reliefs 

 of Chief Joseph and other chiefs which represent 

 the highest order of Indian sculpture that we have 

 had. In the last year of his life he was engaged 

 upon reliefs for the doors of the new Congressional 

 Library. One of these doors was left unfinished, to 

 be completed by another hand, but the other door 

 and the noble reliefs of the spandrels which show 

 one of the few American motifs seen in the decora- 

 tion of the library, form an enduring memorial of the 

 sculptor. His untimely death, due to an accident, 

 was a most serious loss not only to the National 

 Academy of Design and the Society of American 

 Artists, but to all those who saw in his development 

 the fruition of the purest and strongest talent which 

 has found expression in our sculpture. Though this 

 may seem high praise to those who were debarred 

 by Warner's extreme modesty from an intimate ac- 

 quaintance with his character and work, it is none 

 the less deserved. He held a most serious, fairly 

 reverential view of art. In all that he did he was 

 absolutely sincere. His method of expression was 

 entirely sculpturesque. He held to sculpture as an 

 art primarily monumental rather than pictorial. 

 His view of his subject was always a large one. He 

 grasped the essential features, the necessities of 

 construction, the relations of planes, the demands 

 of truthfulness and balance. In modeling he 

 showed a delicacy of touch, a caressing quality, and 

 a subtility of discrimination which became the more 

 wonderful from its union with the almost classical 

 seveJ^iy of his general attitude. Of this charming 

 finesse" his "Cupid and Psyche" and his busts of 



