From Stonecutter to Sculptor: Charles Calverley, 1833-1914

Elizabeth K. Allen

Jan 1996 · State University of New York Press

About this ebook

The first book-length look at one of upstate New York's most notable artists, From Stonecutter to Sculptor traces the long and prolific career of Charles Calverley, who completed more than 250 busts, medallions, tablets, and statues during his lifetime. Beginning as a stonecutter in an Albany marble shop, Calverley then worked as an assistant to the famous neoclassical sculptor Erastus Dow Palmer for fifteen years. In 1868, Calverley began a successful career as a portrait sculptor in New York City; later he created mortuary bronzes for Albany Rural Cemetery.

This celebration of Calverley's life and work draws extensively from the vast collection of the Albany Institute of History and Art. Represented fully are all periods of his career and the complete range of his sculptural production: busts, bas-reliefs, and medallions in plaster, marble, and bronze. Also included in this volume are Calverley's sketches of his bas-reliefs, the identification of a major unrecorded bronze funerary statue by Calverley, and a complete inventory of Calverley's known works.

Elizabeth K. Allen is the author of Open-Air Sketching: Nineteenth-Century American Landscape Drawings in the Albany Institute of History and Art.