John Frazee (July 18, 1790 – February 24, 1852) was an American sculptor and architect.John Frazee National Academy The Smithsonian has a collection of many of his sculptures as well as paintings of Frazee by other artists including Asher B. Durand and Henry Colton Shumway.John Frazee Smithsonian Collections
He was born in Rahway, New Jersey, and worked in the Neo-Classic tradition. He is known as being one of the first successful native born American sculptors and "the first American born sculptor to execute a bust in marble".James-Gadzinski, Susan and Mary Mullen Cunningham, ‘’American Sculpture in the Museum of American Art of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts’’, Museum of American Art of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, 1997 p. 20 He is best known for his portrait busts, including of John Jay and Marquis De Lafayette. He carved sculptures for the Boston Athenaeum including of Chief Justice John Marshall and Daniel Webster. He also received a commission to design the New York Customs House, later used as Federal Hall National Memorial.
The sculptor Thomas Crawford began his career as a marble carver in Frazee's studio in New York City.Crane, Sylvia E., ‘’White Silence: Greenough, Powers and Crawfoed, American Sculptors in Nineteenth Century Italy’’, University of Miami Press, Coral Gables, 1972 p. 279
In 1826, he helped found the National Academy of Design.
Selected works early 1820s, Elbridge Gerry Monument 1824, John Wells (1770 – 1823) First sculpture portrait by a native born American sculptorVoss, Frederick S., ‘’John Frazee: 1790-1852, Sculptor’’, the Boston athenaeum and the National Portrait Gallery, Washington City and Boston, 1986 p. 29 1827, Self-portrait sculpture 1831, John Jay sculpture 1831, John Henry Hobart (1775 – 1830) plaster sculpture 1832, Nathaniel Prime bust 1834, Daniel Webster marble sculpture 1834, Nathaniel Bowditch (1773 – 1838) marble sculpture 1834, Cadwallader D. Colden, (1769 – 1834) bas relief on tombstone 1835, John Lowell sculpture 1835, Thomas Handasyd Perkins (1764 – 1854) marble sculpture 1835, John Marshall sculpture 1836, Joseph Story sculpture 1836, Judge William Prescott marble sculpture 1836, William Prescott sculpture 1839, Monument to Thomas Paine in New Rochelle, New York, (The bronze bust of Paine by sculptor Wilson MacDonald was added in 1899)Voss, Frederick S., ‘’John Frazee: 1790-1852, Sculptor’’, the Boston athenaeum and the National Portrait Gallery, Washington City and Boston, 1986 p. 104 1839, Thomas Paine memorial with bas relief 1840, William Leggett portrait on tombstone 1842, George Griswold III (1777 – 1859) bust 1847, Monument to Charlotte Canda (1828 – 1845) ca. 1850, Andrew Jackson sculpture Luman Reed sculpture William Wetmore Story (1819 – 1895) marble sculpture early 1830s, Robert R. Randall attributed to Frazee
References
Further reading
From artisan to artist : John Frazee and the politics of culture in antebellum America by Linda Hyman 1983 John Frazee, American sculptor by Henry B. Caldwell 115 leaves, 20 leaves of plates : ill 1983, 1951 Call number:N40.1.F845 C14 1983a