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Olympic friezes are being installed
Friezes were restored and cast in bronze by UB students and faculty members
By PATRICIA DONOVAN
Contributing Editor
The university is installing three monumental bas-relief friezes depicting athletes engaged in Olympic sports that were conserved, restored and cast in bronze by students and faculty of the Department of Art in the College of Arts and Sciences.
This bas-relief frieze depicting athletes engaged in Olympic sports was conserved, restored and cast in bronze by students and faculty in the Department of Art. The frieze is being installed near the main entrance to Alumni Arena.
PHOTO: DONNA BUDNIEWSKI
The installation site is an area adjacent to a small garden next to the main entrance to Alumni Arena, one of the most frequently traveled areas on the North Campus
The friezes were designed by Buffalo artist Charles Cary Rumsey, the son of a prominent and wealthy Buffalo family, who was a notable athlete and a well-regarded figure in the second phase of the Beaux-Arts style, one of the most distinctive phases of American sculpture.
Rumsey was commissioned in 1920 to create the series of plaster bas-reliefs that later would be used to cast concrete Olympic Games Friezes for the Isaac L. Rice Stadium in Pelham Bay.
The series consists of three panels totaling 60 feet in length that depict athletes competing in several Olympic events: racquet and equestrian events (tennis, lacrosse and polo), water sports (rowing, sailing and diving) and track and field (discus, hurdles, foot racing and javelin).
The concrete friezes, which were installed in Rice Stadium in 1928, six years after Rumsey's untimely death in an automobile accident, foreshadowed the great public art of the Works Progress Administration (WPA). They remained in place until 1989, when they were demolished, along with the stadium.
A casting of the panels in plaster/burlap reinforced with steel rods, however, had been taken from the original mold. These casts, which comprised the only representation of the work extant, were bequeathed to UB by Rumsey's widow, Mary Harriman Rumsey, sister of distinguished American statesman and New York Gov. W. Averell Harriman, upon her death in 1934.
UB installed the panels in Clark Gymnasium on the South Campus in 1938, where they remained for 55 years, sustaining damage from wear and age. They were removed in 1993 and stored in anticipation of their restoration.
In 1993, the UB art department's Sculpture Program founded its Casting Institute, which began the task of conserving the panels and restoring them to their original state with an eye toward casting them in bronze.
The project team documented all of its work in writing and with photography and videotape. Among the aspects of documentation included are a written examination report, written and photographic citations of conservation work performed and guidelines for ongoing maintenance. All conservation efforts were performed in accordance with guidelines of The American Institute for Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works.
In 2002, UB announced that $200,000 in grants from the Mary A.H. Rumsey Foundation, the Mary W. Harriman Foundation and an anonymous donor would permit the university to begin the final phase of restoration: the casting of the friezes in bronze. Support for the project also was provided by The Balbach Family Foundation, Outokumpu American Brass, Grace Rumsey Smith, The Stockman Family Foundation Trust and the Technical Skills Institute.
Casting Institute faculty and UB sculpture students poured the bronze under the direction of Reinhold Reitzenstein, UB associate professor of sculpture. Then they prepared the reliefs for final installation by grinding and chasing (working out imperfections), sandblasting, patinization (the process of creating a surface uniform in color) and welding. Project engineers then assessed each panel to determine if it was ready for installation.
Placement of the panel sections into the concrete frames that will hold them was completed June 27 and the sections will undergo a final welding phase to join them over the next several weeks.
The UB Casting Institute 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.