Melvin Earl Cummings (August 13, 1876 – July 21, 1936), also known as M. Earl Cummings, was an American sculptor active in
San Francisco, California
San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17th ...
.
Biography
Melvin Earl Cummings was born on August 13, 1876, in
Salt Lake City
Salt Lake City (often shortened to Salt Lake and abbreviated as SLC) is the capital and most populous city of Utah, United States. It is the seat of Salt Lake County, the most populous county in Utah. With a population of 200,133 in 2020, th ...
, Utah. At the age of 20, his entire family moved to San Francisco.
He studied sculpture first at the
Mark Hopkins Institute of Art in San Francisco, under
Arthur Mathews and later
Douglas Tilden, and subsequently from 1900 to 1903 at the
École des Beaux-Arts
École des Beaux-Arts (; ) refers to a number of influential art schools in France. The term is associated with the Beaux-Arts style in architecture and city planning that thrived in France and other countries during the late nineteenth centur ...
, Paris, under
Louis Noël
Louis Noël (ne: Hubert Louis-Noël; Saint-Omer, April 1, 1839 - Paris, 1925) was a French people, French Sculpture, sculptor. After studying at the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts under François Jouffroy, Noël became a productive ...
and
Antonin Mercié.
After his return to San Francisco, he became professor of sculpture at the Mark Hopkins Institute (now
San Francisco Art Institute), which position he retained to 1915. In addition, in 1906 he was appointed instructor in modeling (and later promoted to assistant professor) in the
University of California, Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...
's School of Architecture, which position he held until his death. He was succeeded in his role at U.C. Berkeley by
Jacques Schnier.
Cummings also served on San Francisco's
Golden Gate Park Board of Park Commissioners from 1904 until his death, and several of his works are located in the park. His son, Ramy Ramsdale Cummings, was the model for his father's "Indian Boy" statue in the Pool of Enchantment grouping,
and a Bohemian Club photographer.
Selected works
* ''
Statue of John McLaren at the John McLaren Memorial Rhododendron Dell, Golden Gate Park.
* ''
The Doughboy'' at the Grove of Memory, Golden Gate Park.
* ''
Statue of Robert Burns'', Golden Gate Park.
* ''Pool of Enchantment'', M. H. deYoung Memorial Museum, Golden Gate Park.
*''Neptune's Daughter'', Golden Gate Park.
* ''Sun Dial'', Golden Gate Park.
* ''Becker Fountain'', Golden Gate Park.
* ''Rideout Fountain'', Golden Gate Park.
* ''Le Soif Fountain'', Washington Square, San Francisco.
* ''Bas-relief of George Hearst'', Mining Building, University of California.
* ''Portrait of General Richard W. Young'', Capitol, Salt Lake City, Utah.
References
External links
Calisphere article*
ttps://sfplamr.blogspot.com/2015/08/m-earl-cummings-pt-2-sculpture-in.html San Francisco Public Library blog post about Cummings' work, Part 2.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Cummings, Melvin Earl
1876 births
1936 deaths
20th-century American sculptors
Artists from San Francisco
UC Berkeley College of Environmental Design faculty