THE QUARTER DOLLAR OF 1916
The winner of the competition to design the new quarter dollar was Hermon Atkins MacNeil. Like Weinman, he was at the height of his career with many notable examples of architectural sculpture to his name. Born in Chelsea, Massachusetts in 1866, he trained as an industrial artist and lectured on the subject at Cornell University from 1886 to 1889 before going to Paris to study sculpture under Henri Chapu and Alexandre Falguiere. On his return, he was commissioned to prepare models for the sculpture at the Columbian Exposition of 1893.
He won a Rinehart scholarship which enabled him to continue his studies in Rome for four years (1896-1900). He was elected to the National Academy in 1906, by which time he had gained a reputation for his statues of Native Americans. He also sculpted the Liberty Fountain for the Louisiana Purchase Centennial Exposition (1904), the McKinley Memorial Arch at Columbus, Ohio and the Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Monument at Albany, New York. One of his last works was the Pony Express Monument at St Joseph, Missouri, unveiled in 1940.
By the
