James Earle Fraser
James Earle Fraser was born at Winona, Minnesota, in 1876. His father was a railroad constructor, so that the lad had a good chance in traveling around the country to study the free types and life of the West. Being very impressionable, he imbibed a great deal which he has turned to good account in his chosen work. At fourteen he started to carve figures from the chalk that conventionality required to be used on blackboard problems. At eighteen he entered the Chicago Art Institute, where he stayed for but three months. He soon went to Paris, going first to the Beaux Arts and later to the Colorossi and Julian Academies. He won many honors during his three years stay in Paris. In 1898 he won the prize offered by the American Art Association in Paris for the best work in sculpture. Augustus Saint-Gaudens was on the jury and immediately became interested in the talented boy who later on held the place of chief assistant in the Saint-Gaudens studio. He became instructor of the Art Students’ League of New York in 1906, holding the position until 1911. He it was who made the new five-cent piece design - the Indian head on one side, the bison on the other. He is particularly interested in personalities, having done a number of very clever portrait busts. It is enough to look at the portrait bust of Mrs. Harry Payne Whitney’s boy to realize what he is able to do in the line of portraiture. He has produced nothing finer in that line. He is a master of character records.