Robert James Cassilly Jr. (November 9, 1949 – September 26, 2011) was an American
sculptor
Sculpture is the branch of the visual arts that operates in three dimensions. Sculpture is the three-dimensional art work which is physically presented in the dimensions of height, width and depth. It is one of the plastic arts. Durable sc ...
,
entrepreneur
Entrepreneurship is the creation or extraction of economic value. With this definition, entrepreneurship is viewed as change, generally entailing risk beyond what is normally encountered in starting a business, which may include other values t ...
, and
creative director
A creative director (or creative supervisor) is a person who makes high-level creative decisions and, with those decisions, oversees the creation of creative assets such as advertisements, products, events, or logos. Creative director positions ar ...
based in
St. Louis, Missouri
St. Louis () is the second-largest city in Missouri, United States. It sits near the confluence of the Mississippi and the Missouri Rivers. In 2020, the city proper had a population of 301,578, while the bi-state metropolitan area, which e ...
. In 1997, Cassilly founded the idiosyncratic
City Museum, which draws over 700,000 visitors a year
and is one of the city's leading
tourist attraction
A tourist attraction is a place of interest that tourists visit, typically for its inherent or an exhibited natural or cultural value, historical significance, natural or built beauty, offering leisure and amusement.
Types
Places of natural ...
s.
Early life and education
Cassilly was born in
Webster Groves, Missouri
Webster Groves is an inner-ring suburb of St. Louis in St. Louis County, Missouri, United States. The population was 22,995 at the 2010 census.
The city is home to the main campus of Webster University.
Geography
Webster Groves is located at ...
, to a
homemaker
Homemaking is mainly an American and Canadian term for the management of a home, otherwise known as housework, housekeeping, housewifery or household management. It is the act of overseeing the organizational, day-to-day operations of a hous ...
and a
building contractor
A general contractor, main contractor or prime contractor is responsible for the day-to-day oversight of a construction site, management of vendors and trades, and the communication of information to all involved parties throughout the course of ...
.
[ He began skipping school by age 14 to work as an apprentice for a local sculptor, Rudolph Torrini.][ Cassilly graduated from Vianney High School, then earned a ]bachelor's degree
A bachelor's degree (from Middle Latin ''baccalaureus'') or baccalaureate (from Modern Latin ''baccalaureatus'') is an undergraduate academic degree awarded by colleges and universities upon completion of a course of study lasting three to six ...
in art from Fontbonne University
Fontbonne University is a private Roman Catholic university in Clayton, Missouri. It enrolled 955 students in 2021. Fontbonne is accredited by the Higher Learning Commission and it offers undergraduate, master's, and doctoral degree programs. ...
in St. Louis.[
]
Career
While at Fontbonne University
Fontbonne University is a private Roman Catholic university in Clayton, Missouri. It enrolled 955 students in 2021. Fontbonne is accredited by the Higher Learning Commission and it offers undergraduate, master's, and doctoral degree programs. ...
, Cassilly met and married his first wife, painter and printmaker Cecelia Davidson. In May 1972, the couple honeymooned in Rome. They were visiting St. Peter's Basilica
The Papal Basilica of Saint Peter in the Vatican ( it, Basilica Papale di San Pietro in Vaticano), or simply Saint Peter's Basilica ( la, Basilica Sancti Petri), is a church built in the Renaissance style located in Vatican City, the papal e ...
in Vatican City when Laszlo Toth
Laszlo Toth ( hu, Tóth László; born 1 July 1938) is a Hungarian-born Australian geologist. He achieved worldwide notoriety when he vandalised Michelangelo's ''Pietà'' statue on 21 May 1972. He was not charged with a criminal offence aft ...
attacked Michelangelo's The ''Pietà
The Pietà (; meaning " pity", "compassion") is a subject in Christian art depicting the Virgin Mary cradling the dead body of Jesus after his body was removed from the cross. It is most often found in sculpture. The Pietà is a specific form ...
''. Cassilly was the first to act and subdued Toth.
While living in St. Louis, Cassilly and Davidson restored over 36 dilapidated Victorian buildings. These restorations led to the construction of six in-fill townhouses, for which he designed the architectural flourishes. The Manhattan Townhouses, located at 4343 Laclede (1984) and 11-23 North Boyle (1985) in the City's Central West End, feature terracotta adorned with turtles and griffins. He also designed a 12-foot-tall cast stone border fence for Cordage-Nivek's adaptive reuse of the former Dorris Motor Car building (4100 Laclede, 1985). The townhouse project led Cassilly to start making sculptures professionally. He soon became known for his public pieces that depict animals such as turtles and hippos. The couple also built and ran a restaurant in Lafayette Square.
Eventually, they sold the restaurant, which allowed them to move to Hawaii
Hawaii ( ; haw, Hawaii or ) is a state in the Western United States, located in the Pacific Ocean about from the U.S. mainland. It is the only U.S. state outside North America, the only state that is an archipelago, and the only state ...
, where Cassilly carved wooden figures.
Cassilly reportedly grew tired of Hawaii and returned to his native St. Louis. There, he met sculptor Gail Soliwoda, whose works include the limestone monument at the Myron and Sonya Glassberg Family Conservation Area. Cassilly divorced Davidson and married Soliwoda.
Cassilly and Soliwoda became business partners. In 1993, they bought a complex, which included the International Shoe Building, offices and a 10-story warehouse, for 69 cents per square foot
The square foot (plural square feet; abbreviated sq. ft, sf, or ft2; also denoted by '2) is an imperial unit and U.S. customary unit (non- SI, non-metric) of area, used mainly in the United States and partially in Canada, the United Kingdom, Bang ...
. They renovated the site and opened it in 1997 as the City Museum, helping to spark a renovation boom in downtown St. Louis
Downtown St. Louis is the central business district of St. Louis, Missouri, the hub of tourism and entertainment, and the anchor of the St. Louis metropolitan area. The downtown is bounded by Cole Street to the north, the river front to the eas ...
. The museum includes a shoelace
Shoelaces, also called shoestrings (US English) or bootlaces (UK English), are a system commonly used to secure shoes, boots, and other footwear. They typically consist of a pair of String (cord), strings or cords, one for each shoe, finished o ...
factory, a fire truck
A fire engine (also known in some places as a fire truck or fire lorry) is a road vehicle (usually a truck) that functions as a firefighting apparatus. The primary purposes of a fire engine include transporting firefighters and water to an i ...
, two airplanes, and a Ferris wheel
A Ferris wheel (also called a Giant Wheel or an observation wheel) is an amusement ride consisting of a rotating upright wheel with multiple passenger-carrying components (commonly referred to as passenger cars, cabins, tubs, gondolas, capsule ...
on the roof. The Project for Public Spaces
Project for Public Spaces (PPS) is a nonprofit organization based in New York dedicated to creating and sustaining public places that build communities, in an effort often termed placemaking
Placemaking is a multi-faceted approach to the pla ...
listed the museum among the "Great Public Spaces in the World" in 2005. In 2002, financial obligations forced Cassilly to begin charging visitors a fee to park at the museum. Cassilly hung a sign in the museum's parking lot reading, "Greedy Bob’s Parking Lot."
Cassilly's other works include hippopotamus
The hippopotamus ( ; : hippopotamuses or hippopotami; ''Hippopotamus amphibius''), also called the hippo, common hippopotamus, or river hippopotamus, is a large semiaquatic mammal native to sub-Saharan Africa. It is one of only two extan ...
statues installed at Hippo Playground in Manhattan
Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...
's Riverside Park in 1993.[ In 1997, Cassilly also contributed hippo sculptures to ]Central Park
Central Park is an urban park in New York City located between the Upper West and Upper East Sides of Manhattan. It is the fifth-largest park in the city, covering . It is the most visited urban park in the United States, with an estimated ...
's Safari Playground near W. 91 Street. He designed two turtles for Turtle Park in St. Louis. A giant concrete butterfly, called the Mysterious Monarch, was unveiled in Faust Park outside the Butterfly House, Missouri Botanical Garden in 1997 in Chesterfield, Missouri
Chesterfield is a city in St. Louis County, Missouri, United States. It is a western suburb of St. Louis. As of the 2020 census, the population was 49,999, . The broader valley of Chesterfield was originally referred to as "Gumbo Flats", deriv ...
.[ Cassilly's giraffe statue, which stands at the entrance to the ]Dallas Zoo
Dallas Zoo aka Dallas Zoological Park is a zoo located south of downtown Dallas, Texas, in Marsalis Park. Established in 1888, it is the oldest and largest zoological park in Texas and is managed by the non-profit Dallas Zoological Society. It ...
, is the tallest sculpture in Texas
Texas (, ; Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2020, it is the second-largest U.S. state by ...
at 67½ feet tall. His works for the St. Louis Zoo include the Sea Lion Fountains and a 45-foot squid statue.[
In 2000, Cassilly began work on Cementland, a repurposing of a former ]cement
A cement is a binder, a chemical substance used for construction that sets, hardens, and adheres to other materials to bind them together. Cement is seldom used on its own, but rather to bind sand and gravel ( aggregate) together. Cement mi ...
factory on a site in north St. Louis.
In 2002, Cassilly and Soliwoda divorced.
Commissioned sculptures
* 1987-1989 dinosaur for Planet Hollywood West-end in Dallas. "Big-Tex Rex" now resides in Amarillo, Texas, at the Big Texan Steak Ranch
* 1987: Marlin Perkins
Richard Marlin Perkins (March 28, 1905 – June 14, 1986) was an American zoology, zoologist. He was best known as a host of the television program ''Wild Kingdom, Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom'' from 1963 to 1985.
Life and career
Perkin ...
bust at the St. Louis Zoo[
* 1991: Six lighted entry markers at the St. Louis Galleria][
* 1993: Hippo playground sculptures in Manhattan's Riverside Park][
* 1996: Turtle Park sculptures in St. Louis' ]Forest Park
A forest park is a park whose main theme is its forest of trees. Forest parks are found both in the mountains and in the urban environment.
Examples Chile
* Forest Park, Santiago
China
*Gongqing Forest Park, Shanghai
* Mufushan National Fores ...
[
* 1997: Hippopotamus Park statues at ]Central Park
Central Park is an urban park in New York City located between the Upper West and Upper East Sides of Manhattan. It is the fifth-largest park in the city, covering . It is the most visited urban park in the United States, with an estimated ...
's Safari Playground in Manhattan[
* 1997: Giraffe statue at the ]Dallas Zoo
Dallas Zoo aka Dallas Zoological Park is a zoo located south of downtown Dallas, Texas, in Marsalis Park. Established in 1888, it is the oldest and largest zoological park in Texas and is managed by the non-profit Dallas Zoological Society. It ...
* 1998: ''Mysterious Monarch'
and ''Lopatapillar'
at Faust County Park, Faust Park in Chesterfield, Missouri
Chesterfield is a city in St. Louis County, Missouri, United States. It is a western suburb of St. Louis. As of the 2020 census, the population was 49,999, . The broader valley of Chesterfield was originally referred to as "Gumbo Flats", deriv ...
[
* 1999: Sea Lion Fountains at the St. Louis Zoo][
* Dinosaur at Dallas Planet Hollywood
* Ruins at Roman Rapids ride, Busch Gardens Virginia
* Apple chairs, Webster Groves, Missouri
* 1999: Musical Lion Benches, University City, Missouri
]
Death
On September 26, 2011, Cassilly died at Cementland. A police investigation found that he died of injuries after the bulldozer he was driving flipped down a hill. Some members of Cassilly's family contested the results of the investigation and hired an independent doctor to review the evidence. He concluded that Cassilly was beaten to death, but the St. Louis medical examiner dismissed his evidence and stood by the ruling of accidental death.
Cassily was survived by his third wife, Melissa Giovanna Cassilly, and their two children, Dylan and Robert III; and two children from his second marriage, Daisy and Max.[
]
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Cassilly, Bob
1949 births
2011 deaths
Sculptors from Missouri
Museum founders
Fontbonne University alumni
People from Webster Groves, Missouri
Accidental deaths in Missouri
Saint Louis Zoo people
20th-century philanthropists
Death conspiracy theories