Cyrus Dallin

“We can only create in life what we are and what we think.”

Cyrus Dallin

Cyrus Dallin’s grandparents had moved to Utah after joining the Church. His parents had settled in the small Utah town of Springville, near where Dallin’s father mined. Despite the grandparent’s membership in the church, Cyrus’s parents Left the Church and did not raise their family in the faith.

Dallin grew up associating with the children in local Native American tribes. He first attempted sculpting by making animals that roamed the area, and busts of the local Indian leaders and chiefs out of river clay.^[1]Knapp, Alma J, “The History of Cyrus Edwin Dallin, Eminent Utah Sculptor,”Thesis, University of Utah, 1948, p. 11. It was while working in his father’s mine that Dallin’s skills gained him recognition. A vein of white clay was discovered in the mine, and from it Dallin sculpted busts of a man and a woman.^[2]Craven, Wayne, “Cyrus Dallin: American Sculptor 1860-1943,” University of Delaware via Harvardsquarelibrary.org, Accessed 04 March 2012. These busts were noticed by many regionally, and eventually gained him the attention of wealthy individuals who proposed to help him, like a prospecting visitor from Boston, C. H. Blanchard.^[3]Knapp, p. 14.

The Revere competition never really ended for Dallin, however. Despite winning, he had 6 versions of the statue rejected over a 58 year period before finally seeing his final submission cast and placed in 1940.^[6]
“Dallin, Cyrus Edwin,” Springville Museum of Art. Accessed 30 September 2011. Much of the difficulty in getting his statue built can be attributed to the poor behavior of other sculptors, including his former instructor, Thomas Bartlett, who did all they could to turn public opinion against him for being a “mere youth hailing from the Godless west.”^[7]“The Cyrus Dallin Story,” NortheastFineArts.com, accessed 5 June 2015.

Thanks to the help of a sympathetic Bostonian,^[8]Knapp, p. 17. Dallin moved to Paris in 1888 to study at the Julian Academy.^[9]“Dallin, Cyrus Edwin,” Springville Museum of Art. Accessed 30 September 2011. There he would model his first major work, a full size statue of a mounted Indian titled Signal of Peace. This first major sculpture for Dallin would also be the first to bring him international attention and an honorable mention from the Paris Salon.^[10]Rell G. Francis, “Cyrus Edwin Dallin,” Utah History Encyclopedia, media.utah.edu. Accessed 10 January 2012.

Dallin found the life of a sculptor to be rocky. While his works one praise far and wide, making a living as a sculptor proved difficult. To support his wife and three sons he became a professor of Art, teaching primarily for the Massachusetts Normal Art School (Massachusetts College of Art and Design) for 41 years.^[16]Craven, Wayne, “Cyrus Dallin: American Sculptor 1860-1943,” University of Delaware via Harvardsquarelibrary.org, Accessed 04 March 2012.

Though being raised by his parents as a student in a Presbyterian School^[18]
Albert L. Zobell, Jr, “Cyrus Dallin and the Angel Moroni Statue,” Improvement Era 72 (April 1968) p. 5. , in a Latter-day Saint community, Dallin would eventually choose to become a Unitarian. This makes him unique among all the current sculptors of an Angel Moroni statue, in that he is the only one never to have joined the Church