UB Casting Institute to Restore 75-Year-Old Rumsey Friezes

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- The University at Buffalo Casting Institute, one of the largest institutional foundries in the United States, has announced plans to conserve and recast three large bas-relief panels produced by the late Buffalo sculptor Charles Cary Rumsey in connection with one of his last commissions.

Tony Paterson, UB professor of art and director of the institute, said the UB frieze consists of positive plaster casts made for a 1920 commission for Rice Stadium in Pelham Bay. It is comprised of three bas-relief panels totaling 60 feet in length that depict Greek athletes competing in several Olympic sports.

Rumsey, the son of a prominent and wealthy Buffalo family, was a notable athlete and a well-regarded figure in the second phase of the Beaux-Arts sculptural style, one of the most distinctive phases of American sculpture.

In 1922, shortly after completing work on the Rice Stadium commission, Rumsey died in an automobile accident. The frieze, panels cast in concrete from the original mold, were installed in Rice Stadium in 1928, but were destroyed when the stadium was demolished in 1989.

In addition to the destroyed concrete frieze, a casting of the panels in plaster/burlap reinforced with steel rod had also been taken from the original mold. The panels were given to UB in 1938 and comprise the only representation of the work extant. The panels were installed that year in Clark Gymnasium on the South Campus, where they remained for 55 years, sustaining damage from wear and age. They were removed in 1993 and stored in anticipation of their restoration.

The panels are considered part of the collection of the University at Buffalo Art Gallery.

Private funding is now being sought to underwrite the project's conservation phase. In the meantime, the plaster friezes are on exhibit in the atrium of the Center for the Arts on UB's North Campus. When they are removed, they will be returned to storage until conservation begins.

Paterson said he and his team expect to eventually recast the works in bronze and install them in a prominent site at the university.

Paterson, who serves as project supervisor, has more than 30 years of experience in casting and finishing bronze sculptures. He is supported by a staff trained in the fabrication and conservation/preservation of bronze and stone sculpture. Among other projects, the team recently restored the bronze sculpture of Columbus in Buffalo's Front Park.

The co-supervisor of the Rumsey project is Susan Mills, who holds a master of fine arts degree in sculpture and is currently sculpture technician and instructor in the Program in Sculpture in the UB Department of Art.

The project team will document all of its work in writing and with photography and videotape. Among the aspects of documentation to be included are a written examination report, written and photographic citations of conservation work performed and guidelines for ongoing maintenance. All conservation will be performed in accordance with guidelines of The American Institute for Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works.

The UB Casting Institute, founded in 1993 as part of the university's program in sculpture, operates out of the Center for the Arts. It has as its goal training sculptors in the highest degree of professionalism and technical expertise. The institute has accepted many public and private commissions in bronze sculpture and supports restoration activities through its graduate program.

Charles Cary Rumsey, born in Buffalo in 1879, attended Nichols School and Harvard University, from which he graduated in 1902. As a child, he served as an apprentice to Paul Weyland Bartlett, who was at the time one of the most prominent American sculptors working abroad. He later studied at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts and the Julian and Colarossi Academics in Paris under well-known artists Bela Lyon Pratt and Emmanuel Fremiét, respectively.

A world-class polo player and amateur boxer, Rumsey's specialties included equestrian sculptures -- portraits of polo players and prize horses, as well as of cowboys, cattle and horses as metaphors. His animal sculptures are notable for the marriage of anecdotal naturalism and artificiality of pose so popular in that era.

Rumsey worked principally in bronze and stone, often employing exotic mythological and historical themes. These were articulated not only in private commissions for free-standing statuary, but in public monuments like fountains, friezes and memorials. Rumsey's 40-foot bas-relief panels of Indians, horses and buffaloes for the Manhattan Bridge and the heroic subject matter of Rice Stadium commission are examples.

A collection of his works is on permanent exhibition in the Charles Cary Rumsey Room of the Burchfield-Penney Art Center at Buffalo State College and his work is in the permanent collection of the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, among many other collections.

His sculptures and bronze panels are also displayed in a number of public institutions in Buffalo, including Forest Lawn, where Rumsey is buried. "The Three Graces" fountain statuary, originally sited at the Arden, home of his father-in-law, railroad magnate Edward H. Harriman, for instance, now graces Forest Lawn's Mirror Lake.