Ernst Plassmann
{{Short description|German-American sculptor and carver}}
{{use dmy dates|date=August 2014}}
File:Benjamin Franklin statue by Ernst Plassman (1872).jpg
Ernst Plassmann (14 June 1823 – 28 November 1877; alternate spelling, Plassman) was a German-American sculptor and carver.
Biography
Born in Sondern, Wuppertal, Kingdom of Prussia, Plassmann began to study art under Munstermann, then continued his studies in Aachen,{{cite book|last=Pohlsander|first=Hans A.|title=German Monuments in the Americas: Bonds Across the Atlantic|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=6kCDYByxCSYC&pg=PA105|year=2010|publisher=Peter Lang|isbn=978-3-0343-0138-1|page=105}} Cologne, and finally in Paris, where he spent about four years in the studio of Michel Liénard. He moved to New York City in 1853, and in 1854 established "Plassmann's School of Art", which he ran the rest of his life.{{cite book|last1=Wilson|first1=James Grant|last2=Fiske|first2=John|title=Appletons' Cyclopaedia of American Biography: Pickering-Sumter|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ZbBAAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA38|edition=Public domain|year=1898|publisher=D. Appleton|page=38}} In 1858 he founded the "Verein fur Kunst und Wissenschaft" (Association for Art and Science).[http://woodlawnconservancy.org/index.php/news/blog/262-movember-10-plassman] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140903110109/http://woodlawnconservancy.org/index.php/news/blog/262-movember-10-plassman |date=3 September 2014 }} "Woodlawn Conservancy" (accessed 28 August 2014) In New York he became known for his statue of Benjamin Franklin (1870–1) in Printing House Square,{{cite book|last=Black|first=Mary|title=Old New York in Early Photographs|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=kNnCAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA47|date=24 July 2013|publisher=Dover Publications|isbn=978-0-486-31743-4|page=47}} depicted as a printer by including an issue of the Pennsylvania Gazette in his left hand.{{cite book|last=Lightfoot|first=Frederick S.|title=Nineteenth-century New York in Rare Photographic Views|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=O7kMAAAAYAAJ|year=1981|publisher=Dover Publications|isbn=978-0-486-24137-1|page=22}} Plassmann spent months researching Franklin busts, portraits, and costumes, and he "labored conscientiously for several months" on the "colossal" clay statue, which was inaugurated on 17 January 1872.{{cite book|title=Record of the Proceedings and Ceremonies Pertaining to the Erection of the Franklin Statue in Printing-house Square|url=https://archive.org/details/recordproceedin00unkngoog|year=1872|publisher=F. Hart & Company|page=[https://archive.org/details/recordproceedin00unkngoog/page/n108 98]}}
His figures of Franklin and Guttenberg are located on the New Yorker Staats-Zeitung building (c.1873). The heroic statue of Chief Tammany, a legendary Delaware Indian chief, was part of the façade of Tammany Hall on 14th Street (1868/9),{{cite book|last=Bondarin|first=Arley|title=All around the town: a walking guide to outdoor sculpture in New York City|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=l6E2AQAAIAAJ|year=1975|publisher=Scribner|isbn=978-0-684-14256-2|page=31}} while the 1869 {{convert|8.5|feet}} bronze statue of Cornelius Vanderbilt, the Commodore Vanderbilt, is located at the south façade of Midtown Manhattan's Grand Central Terminal.{{cite book|last=Durante|first=Dianne L.|title=Outdoor Monuments of Manhattan: A Historical Guide|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=1nMnB-2HgbwC&pg=PT132|year=2007|publisher=NYU Press|isbn=978-0-8147-1986-2|page=132}} A Plassmann sculpture stands in the freight depot of the New York Central Railroad (1870), aside from various metal works, including medals. In 1875, he published Modern Gothic Ornaments with 83 plates. He began publishing Designs for Furniture in 1877, and had completed three parts by the time of his death (in New York City).
Selected works
- (1875) A collection of modern Gothic ornaments for architects, sculptors, modelers, designers, painters, &c., &c.
- (1877) Designs for furnitures and development,
File:Bas relief over old NYC HRRR (Hudson River Railroad) terminal at St. Jones Park, from Robert N. Dennis collection of stereoscopic views.jpg|Cornelius Vanderbilt pediment (1868), Hudson River Railway Freight Depot. Demolished.
File:Cornelius Vanderbilt Statute at Grand Central Terminal.jpg|Commodore Vanderbilt (1868), relocated to Grand Central Terminal, 1929.
File:Schickel Staats-Zeitung 1873.jpg|Staats-Zeitung Building (c. 1873). Demolished for construction of the approach to the Brooklyn Bridge.
File:Tammany Hall LC-USZ62-101734.jpg|Tammany Hall, West 14th Street, NYC
References
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Further reading
- McCormick, Heather Jane (1998), Ernst Plassmann, 1822–1877: A New York Carver, Sculptor, Designer and Teacher
- [http://woodlawnconservancy.org/index.php/news/blog/262-movember-10-plassman] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140903110109/http://woodlawnconservancy.org/index.php/news/blog/262-movember-10-plassman |date=3 September 2014 }} A bust of Plassmann was sculpted by US artist Caspar Buberl (1834–1899).
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Category:German male sculptors
Category:19th-century American sculptors
Category:19th-century American male artists
Category:American male sculptors
Category:Artists from New York City
Category:Emigrants from the Kingdom of Prussia
Category:Immigrants to the United States
Category:People from Olpe (district)