Roger Noble Burnham (August 10, 1876 – March 14, 1962) was an American sculptor and teacher. He is best remembered for creating The Trojan (1930), the unofficial mascot of the University of Southern California.
Life and career He was the eldest of the four children of Arthur Burnham and Katharine Bray.Harvard College Class of 1870 (Cambridge, MA: Riverside Press, 1905), p. 26. His father was an 1870 graduate of Harvard University, and a Boston banker. He grew up just outside Boston, and attended the Robert G. Shaw School and The Hale School for Boys.
Burnham studied art and architecture at Harvard, graduating in 1899. He studied privately with Caroline Hunt Rimmer,Opitz, Glenn B., ed., Mantle Fielding's Dictionary of American Painters, Sculptors & Engravers, Apollo Book, Poughkeepsie, NY, 1986. and opened his own sculpture studio in Boston, specializing in portrait works. He moved to New York City in 1903, to work on the sculpture program for the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair, under Karl Bitter. He assisted George Brewster on twenty relief portrait medallions for the exterior of the Fair's Palace of Fine Arts, now the St. Louis Art Museum.Secretary's Report: Harvard College Class of 1899, Volume 3 (Cambridge, MA: Riverside Press, 1909), p. 45.
Burnham graduated from the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in Los Angeles in 1907,"Roger Noble Burnham," Catalogue of the International Exhibition of Contemporary Medals (New York: The American Numismatic Society, 1910), pp. 35-36. and made an extended 1908 tour of the South and Southwest in a production of Richard Brinsley Sheridan's The Rivals.Kathryn Greenthal, Paula M. Kozol & Jan Seidler Ramirez, American Figurative Sculpture in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1986), pp. 393-395. He worked as an actor in early Hollywood films,Andrew A. Aros and Richard Bertrand Dimmitt, An Actor Guide to the Talkies (Scarecrow Press, 1977), p. 319. and later performed Shakespeare, in Los Angeles."As You Like It" to be Given at Figueron Playhouse," The Eagle Rock Sentinel (Eagle Rock, Los Angeles), November 13, 1931, p. 8.
He returned to Boston, and taught modeling at Harvard's School of Architecture from 1913 to 1917. He was chairman of the Cambridge, Massachusetts Chapter of the Boy Scouts of America,Harvard Alumni Bulletin, vol. 19, no. 38 (June 28, 1917), p. 765. and moved to Hawaii in June 1917, to establish Boy Scout troops in the U.S. territory. He taught at the Otis Art Institute in Los Angeles from 1926 to 1932.
The Trojan
The Trojan (1930)—officially named the Trojan Shrine, but affectionately called "Tommy Trojan"—is a monument on the University of Southern California campus. The university's athletic teams are the USC Trojans.
The monument consists of a life size bronze warrior, wearing a championship belt and pleated skirt, a mohawk-plumed helmet, shin guards and sandals. He wields the Sword of Knowledge in one hand, and holds the Shield of Courage in the other. The figure stands upon a concrete pedestal, with inscriptions, bronze relief panels, and a Greek key border. The front of the base features the bronze seal of the university, with "The Trojan" inscribed above it, and words listing the traits of an ideal Trojan inscribed below it: "Faithful," "Scholarly," "Skillful," "Courageous," "Ambitious." The left side of the base features a bronze relief panel representing athletics. The right side of the base features a bronze relief panel representing scholarship. The rear of the base features an incised flaming torch, and a bronze plaque with a quote in Latin and English.
Burnham's primary models for the figure were All-American USC football players Russ Saunders (head and upper half) and Erny Pinckert (lower half).Tommy Trojan from USC Athletics.
Military monuments Burnham was living in Honolulu in April 1918, when the United States entered World War I, and joined the Hawaii National Guard."An Exhibition in Honolulu," The American Magazine of Art, Washington, D.C., vol. 9, no. 4 (February 1918), p. 164. Soon after the armistice, he designed a war memorial for the entrance to the city's Kapiolani Park."Hawaii's War Memorial," Hawaiian Almanac and Annual for 1920 (Honolulu, T.H.: Thomas G. Thrum, 1919), pp. 153-154. "It consists of three figures, the central one typifying Liberty while beneath are a Hawaiian warrior and a Hawaiian maiden. The warrior offers his spear while the maiden extends in outstretched hands a lei.""Proposes Aid for Memorial Funds," The Pacific Commercial Advertiser (Honolulu), January 9, 1919, p. 1. Instead of a formal monument with sculpture, the Waikiki Natatorium War Memorial (1927) was built at Waikiki Beach.Brian Ireland, "Remembering and Forgetting at The Waikiki War Memorial Park and Natatorium," The Hawaiian Journal of History. vol. 39 (Honolulu, HI: Hawaiian Historical Society, 2005), pp. 53-74.
He was commissioned to create a statue of Frank Luke, Jr. (1930), for the grounds of the Arizona State Capitol in Phoenix. An ace U.S. Army pilot who died in World War I, Second Lieutenant Luke was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor. A bronze plaque on the rear of the monument's base lists the names of the other 318 Arizonans who died in the war."Frank Luke Memorial to Bear Names of Arizona's War Dead," The Arizona Republican (Phoenix), July 8, 1930. The monument was dedicated on Armistice Day, 1930. Luke Air Force Base, in Glendale, Arizona, was named for the pilot in 1941.
Burnham took leave from Harvard to serve in the Massachusetts Naval Reserve during the Spanish-American War.Secretary's First Report, Harvard College Class of 1899 (Crimson Printing Company, 1902), p. 116. More than fifty years later, he created The Spirit of '98 (1950), the United Spanish War Veterans Memorial for the Sawtelle Veterans Home in Los Angeles County. It featured a tall, stepped concrete base, with marble figures of a soldier and sailor flanking a hooded goddess figure holding a torch. Burnham's marble statues were toppled in a 1971 earthquake. The memorial was restored with fiberglass replicas of the statues by sculptor David Wilkins,The Los Angeles Times, November 28, 1973. and relocated to Los Angeles National Cemetery.
He created the bronze statue of General Douglas MacArthur for the MacArthur Monument (1955), in Los Angeles's MacArthur Park.
Other works
Architect Edward T. P. Graham designed the 10-story Boston City Hall Annex (1912-1914), and Burnham (Graham's Harvard classmate) was given the commission to model four colossal figures for its 9th story cornice. Needing some strong vertical projections to carry the lines of the four large Corinthian columns on the front into the attic story, Mr. Edward T. P. Graham, architect of the Annex, decided to use partially attached human figures. Keeping their architectural character in mind, the sculptor designed the figures with a certain stiffness and with emphasis upon the vertical lines of the Greek drapery. The proportions, particularly of the faces, were modified to meet the fact that the figures would be seen from far below and foreshortened.Four standing figures, each 16 feet high and projecting 3 feet 2 inches from the building. Of reinforced concrete to match the limestone of the building.By Roger Noble Burnham. Contracted for by the commission at $8,000, July 29, 1913.Documents of the City of Boston for the Year 1915, Volume 1 (City of Boston Printing Department, 1916), p. 28. The four goddess figures were cast in concrete and hollow (to reduce their weight). Even so, each figure weighed approximately 8 tons (7.26 metric tonnes), and needed to be hoisted more than up to the cornice.D. B. Adams, "The Production in Concrete of Statues for Boston's New City Hall Annex," Concrete-Cement Age, vol. 4, no. 4 (April 1914), pp. 222-225. Burnham's figures were deemed unsafe,Anthony Mitchell Sammarco, Images of America: Boston's Financial District (Charleston, SC.: Arcadia Publishing, 2002. and destroyed in the process of removing them from the façade, in 1947.
Following the 1926 premature death of silent screen star Rudolph Valentino, Los Angeles City Council initially opposed the creation of a public monument to him.Tracy Ryan Terhune, Valentino Forever: The History of the Valentino Memorial Services (AuthorHouse, 2004), pp. 33-36. The city eventually relented, and approved the erection of a memorial fountain in Hollywood's De Longpre Park. Burnham's fountain sculpture was an Art Deco male nude, Aspiration."Hollywood Shows Slight Interest in Statue to Rudolph Valentino," The Star-Gazette (Elmira, New York), May 7, 1930, p. 1. from Newspapers.com. Made of bronze and covered with gold-leaf, the streamlined figure looked skyward while standing upon a black marble globe. Its cubical black marble base featured an inscription: "Erected in Memory of / RUDOLPH VALENTINO / 1895 - 1926 / Presented by His Friends and / Admirers from Every Walk of / Life and in All Parts of the World / in Appreciation of the Happi- / ness Brought to Them by His / Cinema Portrayals." The fountain was dedicated May 6, 1930, on what would have been Valentino's 35th birthday."Hollywood Unveils Its Memorial to Valentino," The New Movie Magazine, vol. 2, no. 1 (May 31, 1930), p. 95.
The Astronomers Monument (1934), at Griffith Observatory, Los Angeles, was built by the Public Works of Art Project of the New Deal. Designed by sculptor Archibald Garner, it is a hexagonal cast concrete obelisk, crowned by a bronze armillary sphere. Above its star-shaped base are six V-shaped recesses, in each of which stands a cast concrete Art Deco statue of an astronomer from history. The figures are approximately in height, and each was modeled by a different sculptor. Burnham created the John Herschel figure. The monument was dedicated November 25, 1934.
Will Rogers, an Oklahoma cowboy who became a nationally known humorist and movie star, died in an August 15, 1935 plane crash. Under contract to 20th Century Fox, the studio decided to name its new sound stage for Rogers, and commissioned Burnham to create a memorial plaque.The Will Rogers Stage from The Studio Tour. The dedication was November 23, 1935, and the bronze portrait plaque was unveiled by 7-year-old Shirley Temple, Rogers's intended co-star for their next movie.Brian B. & Frances N. Sterling, Will Rogers in Hollywood (Crown Publishers, 1984), p. 102.
Burnham created a number of medals for the Medallic Art Company in New York City,Burnham, Roger Noble from Medal Artists database. and figurines of his sculptures were mass produced by Roxor Studios in Chicago.Library of Congress, Catalogue of Copyright Entries, Part 4, Volume 17, for the Year 1922 (Washington, D.C., Government Printing Office, 1923), p. 614. One early figurine was Speed Demon (1919), which featured a threaded screw hole for mounting as an automobile hood ornament.Vintage Art Deco Flying Lady from Worthpoint. The Spirit of Rotary (1920) was marketed to members of Rotary International, and Dedication to Service (1921) to members of Kiwanas International. One of his best-selling figurines was The Trojan (1930), marketed to USC alumni.
At age 78, Burnham worked on a science exhibit for Disneyland.Dan J. Forrestal, Faith, Hope and $5,000: The Story of Monsanto (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1977), p. 170. The centerpiece of Monsanto's Hall of Chemistry was the Chemitron (1955): a giant ring of eight, clear plastic test tubes—each about in height—that individually spun as the entire ring rotated.Chemitron (1955) from Flickr. He modeled anthropomorphic figures representing the eight ingredients used to make plastics: Air, Coal, Limestone, Oil, Phosphate, Salt, Sulphur, and Water. His figures were cast in colorful tinted plastic, and one was mounted atop each spinning test tube.Alastair Dallas, "Where Chemistry Works Wonders For You," Inventing Disneyland, September 27, 2018.
Honors, exhibitions and awards