Charles Niehaus
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Three-quarters view of Apotheosis of Saint Louis, by Niehaus, in St. Louis, Missouri

Side view of the same Apotheosis of Saint Louis, by Niehaus, in St. Louis, Missouri

Charles Henry Niehaus (January 24, 1855 – June 19, 1935), was an American sculptor, born in Cincinnati, Ohio.

Education

Niehaus began working as a marble and wood carver and then gained entrance to the McMichen School of Design in Cincinnati and later studied at the Royal Academy in Munich, Germany. The effect of the German study was that he retained much of the neo-classic flavor in his art while most other sculptors of his generation were drawn towards beaux-arts realism.

Career

WWI Monument, Newark, New Jersey

Lincoln, Muskegon, Michigan

Niehaus returned to America in 1881 and by virtue of being a native Ohioan was commissioned to execute statue of the recently assassinated President Garfield, who was also from Ohio. Following that he created a statue of Ohioan William Allen that was placed in the National Statuary Hall Collection in the United States Capitol in Washington D.C., along with his statue of Garfield. In later years he was to place statues of John J. Ingalls (Kansas, 1905) Henry Clay (Kentucky, 1929), Ephraim McDowell (Kentucky, 1929), Zachariah Chandler (Michigan, 1913), Oliver P. Norton (Indiana, 1900) and George W. Glick (Kansas, 1914) in the Hall, making his eight statues represented there five more than any other artist.

Monuments by Niehaus can be found in many American cities. Several of the works authored by him are equestrian statues. As was the case with other sculptors of his day he also fashioned a fair amount of architectural sculpture.

Public monuments

• The Scraper; or Greek Athlete using a Strigil, Brookgreen Gardens, South Carolina, 1883
• President James Garfield, Cincinnati, Ohio, 1887
• Trenton Battle Monument (Image), Trenton, New Jersey, 1891-1893
• Moses and Gibbons, for the Library of Congress, Washington D.C. 1894
• Joel Barlow (ca. 1885), George Berkeley (ca. 1885), John Davenport (1889), Jonathan Edwards (1895),Thomas Hooker (1889) and John Trumbull (1895) Connecticut State Capitol, Hartford, Connecticut
• Abraham Lincoln (1900), David Farragut (1900), and William McKinley (1902), and Charles Hackley, Hackley Park, Muskegon, Michigan
• The Samuel Hahnemann Memorial, in Scott Circle, Washington, D.C., 1900
• General Nathan Bedford Forrest, Forrest Park, Memphis, Tennessee, 1905
• Apotheosis of St. Louis (Image), Forest Park, St. Louis, Missouri, 1906
• William McKinley statue and a lunette for McKinley's tomb, at Canton, Ohio, 1907
• John Paul Jones, United States Military Academy, Annapolis, Maryland and the John Paul Jones Memorial in West Potomac Park, Washington, D.C., 1912
• Francis Scott Key Monument (Orpheus), Fort McHenry National Monument, Baltimore, Maryland, 1922

• Planting the Standard of Democracy in Honor of Newark's Soldiers, Newark, New Jersey, (1923)
• The Driller, at Titusville, Pennsylvania, in memory of Colonel Edwin Drake, who in 1859 sank the first oil well in Pennsylvania (1901).
• At least 30 Civil War Monuments and several World War I memorials.

Architectural sculpture

• Hooker's March, Connecticut State Capitol, Hartford, Connecticut relief panel, 1895
• Triumph of Law, Appellate Court House, New York City, pediment, 1896-1900
• The Astor Memorial doors, Trinity Church, New York, 1895
• Kentucky State Capitol Building, Frankfort, Kentucky, pediment, 1907
• Buffalo Historic Society, Buffalo, New York, pediment

Pediment

of the Buffalo Historic Society Building,

Buffalo, New York

References

• Bzdak, Meredith Arms, photographs by Douglas Peterson, Public Sculpture in New Jersey: Monuments to Collective identity, Rutgers University Press, New Brunswick, New Jersey, 1999
• Connecticut State Capitol Statuary, The League of Women Voters of Connenticut: Education Fund
• Hardin Campen, Richard N., Outdoor Sculpture in Ohio: A Comprehensive Overview of Outdoor Sculpture in Ohio, Mid-Nineteenth Century to the Present, West Summit Press, Chagrin Falls, Ohio, 1980
• Kvaran, Einar Einarsson, Architectural Sculpture of America, unpublished manuscript
• Opitz, Glenn B , Editor, Mantle Fielding’s Dictionary of American Painters, Sculptors & Engravers, Apollo Book, Poughkeepsie NY, 1986
• Proske, Beatrice Gilman, Brookgreen Gardens Sculpture, Brookgreen Gardens, South Carolina, 1968
• This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.