Rudulph Evans

Image:Brookgreen Gardens Sculpture27.jpg's Mowgli, located in Brookgreen Gardens, South Carolina]]

File:USA-Thomas Jefferson Memorial.jpg, exhibited in the Jefferson Memorial in Washington, D.C.]]

File:Julius Sterling Morton bust.jpg by Evans, created in 1896 for the Nebraska Hall of Fame.]]

Evans was born February 1, 1878, in Washington, D.C., to Frank L. Evans, the descendant of a Quaker family, and Elizabeth J. Grimes, the daughter of Gassaway Sellman Grimes, a physician.{{cite web|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=qYEbAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA79|title=Encyclopedia of American Biography: New Series|first=Winfield Scott|last=Downs|date=27 December 2017|publisher=American Historical Society|accessdate=27 December 2017|via=Google Books}} He grew up in Front Royal, Virginia, and studied in France at the École des Beaux-Arts; his fellow students included Auguste Rodin and Augustus Saint-Gaudens. He also studied at Corcoran School of Art under Edith Ogden Heidel.{{cite book|author=Virgil E. McMahan|title=The Artists of Washington, D.C., 1796–1996|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=X4jrAAAAMAAJ|year=1995|publisher=Artists of Washington|isbn=978-0-9649101-0-2}}

After returning to the United States in 1900, Evans established and maintained a studio in New York City. The 1926 Montparnasse census reported his living at 17 rue Campagne Premiere in the 14th district together with his wife Jeanne Evans born in 1875 in Illinois. In 1918, he was elected into the National Academy of Design as an associate member and became a full academician in 1929. He moved back to Washington, D.C., in 1949. Evans designed the statue of Thomas Jefferson inside the Jefferson Memorial in Washington, D.C. At the time the memorial was inaugurated, in 1943, due to material shortages during World War II, the statue was of plaster patinated to resemble bronze; the finished bronze was cast by Roman Bronze Works of New York City in 1947.[http://memory.loc.gov/pnp/habshaer/dc/dc0400/dc0473/sheet/00001a.tif Documentation of the Jefferson Memorial.] Office of the Historic American Buildings Survey/Historic American Engineering Record (HABS/HAER), of the National Park Service. September 1994. Library of Congress. Accessed 26 May 2009.

Evans' other noted works include the statues of Julius Sterling Morton (1937) and of William Jennings Bryan (1937), both in the National Statuary Hall Collection of the United States Capitol. Evans also sculpted the statue of Robert E. Lee (1932) in the Virginia State Capitol.[http://www.virginiamemory.com/online_classroom/union_or_secession/doc/lee_statue Evans's statue of Robert E. Lee] for the Virginia State Capitol. Virginia State Art Collection. Library of Virginia. Accessed 23 June 2011. His statue of Lee was removed in July 2020 from the Old House Chamber in the Virginia Capitol.

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Yonkers, Tescia Ann. "Behold His Bronze Likeness: Rudulph Evans's Statue of Robert E. Lee." Virginia Cavalcade 34 (Autumn 1984): 90–95.

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• [http://www.virginiamemory.com/online_classroom/union_or_secession/doc/lee_statue Evans's statue of Robert E. Lee] for the Virginia State Capitol

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Category:American alumni of the École des Beaux-Arts

Category:1878 births

Category:1960 deaths

Category:20th-century American sculptors

Category:American male sculptors

Category:National Academy of Design members

Category:Artists from Washington, D.C.

Category:Sculptors from Virginia

Category:National Sculpture Society members

Category:People from Front Royal, Virginia

Category:20th-century American male artists

Category:Members of the American Academy of Arts and Letters