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Cutting from Sentine
Address of Paper
Date

"A New American Sculptor" is the title of a leading and finely illustrated article in the Century Magazine for April. The young sculptor allided to is George Grey Banard, son of the Rev. Dr. Banard, of Madison, Ind. Large and finely executed photographs of three of his more important sculptures are given: a single figure, "Boy," a group called Brotherly Love" and a colossal group entitled "Two Nature." The modeling of all these works was undertaken and completed before the artist was twenty-six years old. In addition to these, he executed two fragments of a Norweigian stove, a portrait bust of a man and a great figure of Pan. All these, with the exception of the Pan, were exhibited at the Salon of the Champs de Mars in 1894, and met with instantaneous and enthusiastic success from jury and artists and critics. The same group of works was exhibited in the Logerot, in New York, during the autumn of 1896, and was visited by a large number of people and widely discussed in art circles. The writer, who is one of the art critics of the Century, while noting that the young sculptor disregards some of "our traditions," concedes to his work "such masterly treatment of marble with the chisel as few men have shown us." He says of the "Boy" that "it is complete and it is beautiful;" of the "Brotherly Love" that it "possesses a weird, indescribable charm;" of the bust of Norwegian lady, that "it is a marvel of the treatment of facial texture and color with the chisel;" of the "Two Natures," with "its uncouth, rugged aspect as a whole," that "it is amazingly good in technical treatment. It is pure modeling without tricks, and it is varied, firm, vigorous and skillful all at once." In summing up the qualities of the young sculptor he says: "Strength and breadth are evidently his. In interpretation his perception of what is before him in nature his hand is wonderfully skilled." The long and appreciative article of the critic concludes with the warm assertion that "Mr. Barnard's sculpture is full of the healthful, living force of the nature, and the desire to see it include other things may be repressed for the moment, for the splendid vigor and pure artistic power of his work entitle it to be received with enthusiasm." So that the young American sculptor, as Rodin predicted at the salon exhibit in 1894, has already won a high place in the world of true art. His colossal group is now in the Metropolitan Art Gallery, of New York, and his "Pan" is to be cast in bronze and placed as [[?]] fountain in Central Park. He is now at work on a more ambitious group than any that he has yet wrought out, with a view [[?]] having it ready for the Paris exhibition in 19[[?]]

Cutting from YORK MAIL AND EXPRESS
Address of Paper
Date    JUN _8 1897

DO NOT WANT THE GOD PAN.
Secretary Leary, of the Park Board, Says a Place Befitting Its Dignity Cannot Be Found.

If the Park Department adheres to a determination expressed a few days ago through its secretary, William Leary, and based upon its own deliberation and the report of Superintendent Samuel Parson, Jr., the city of New York is to be deprived of a work of art, offered free of cost, against which the most fastidious could scarcely raise objection. The board does not reject the gift because there is anything objectionable in its character, but because of "the inability of the superintendent to find in the Central Park a position of sufficient dignity and suitability for such a work of art, where it would at the same time harmonize with the characteristic scenery of the park."

The late Alfred Corning Clark, who was a lover of all that was chaste and harmonious in art, gave two orders not long before his death to George Grey Barnard, the young American sculptor, whose works attracted such attention in the Paris Salon of 1894. One was for the magnificent group, "I Feel Two Natures Struggling Within Me," now one of the chief attractions in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the other was for a colossal size figure of the great god Pan. It was Mr. Clark's wish that the group should go to the Museum and the figure of the piping dryad in bronze to the city. The sculptor made a plaster case, showing the Pan recumbent upon a large pedestal in the center of a basin. This was intended to surmount a bronze drinking fountain, from with the water would flow though fish mouths in the sides of the path. 

The cast was a splendid piece of work. It was shown in this city last November and attracted as much attention as the sculptor's work in the French Salon. The design was that a basin of about 24 feet in the greatest diameter of an oval should be built for the fountain, and the Pan should measure 9 feet 9 inches in his reclining posture, from elbow to knee. All those who saw the cast, and the great strength and force that its lines suggested, were generous in their expressions of approval. The cost of casting the figure in bronze would be $4,000, and Mr. Frank Presby, the agent of the estate, had been authorized and was ready to incur this expenditure as soon as a location for the gift was settled upon.

With that end in view he entered into communication with the Park Board and made the offer. The National Sculpture Society had already passed upon the artistic merit of the work and had given its approval, so that nothing remained but to wait for the board's selection of a site. In answer to his offer Mr. Presby received the following answer a few days ago:
"Mr. Frank Presby, Agent Alfred Corning Clark Estate, No. 25 East Twenty-third street:

"Dear Sir--With regard to your offer to present to the city, for placing in Central Park, an ornamental fountain with a statue of Pan as a decorative figure, forming part of the design of the fountain, I beg to advise you that the Board of Parks, after a careful consideration of the matter, has decided to concur in the conclusions of the Superintendent of Parks as contained in his report on the subject, in which he states his inability to find in the Central Park a position of sufficient dignity and suitability for such a work of art, where it would at the same time harmonize with the characteristic scenery of the Park. Respectfully,
"WILLIAM LEARY."