In the sculpture gallery – which is more interesting to you
I suppose there is little more than you have seen. Powers
& Clevenger have several busts there the formers of D. Webster is generally admired I believe Crawfords Hyperion,
so called here, I like very much, but his Bas Relief of
Anaerion and the nymph, I think a slim affair and I believe there are plenty of others who agree with me.
Joseph Mr. Carew has a head of a child "your namesake I
think it does him much credit it pleases him very much
he has just modeled a Bass Relief of a scene in the last
days of Pompeii where Glaucus protects Nydia the blind girl
from the hag – the wife of Burbo – six figures I think
this his best effort – I like the arrangement of the figures,
he thinks to improve it in the marble I hope this will
open the way to him for something more in the same line
he seems to understand it. Ball Hughes is here his last work is "The dead Christ" – destined for a orthodox church
I have not seen it Mr. Carew thinks it his best work [ ? ]
and has made me somewhat acquainted with his wife
and daughters. I also had an introduction to him. I learn
that he is so fond of his ease "pipe and liquor that his
spouse – who is somewhat on the masculine build, has
to exert – all her powers to keep him at work keep-
ing with him constantly in his studio – or he would be
(over all the hill of life victorious). Brackett seems to be thought considerable of here, I look upon him as artist
much in the same light you do, he is lately done
a bust of Allston from a cast after death which
I think is the best he has done thus far
(c) Pocumtuck Valley Memorial Association, Deerfield MA. All rights reserved.
Contact us for information about using this image.

label levels:

Twenty-one-year-old George Fuller (1822-1884) wrote this letter to his former teacher, sculptor Henry Kirke Brown (1814-1886) in 1837. It reveals Fuller's early love of art and the influences that served to forge his taste. Brown had begun his own artistic career as a painter, but turned to sculpture after a five-year period of study in Italy after which he established himself in New York. George Fuller confides in Brown that all his study and observation of the work of others has caused him to determine to see nature "for myself through the eye of no one else and to put my trust in God awaiting the result." Like Kirke and many other American artists, George Fuller would be profoundly influenced by his own travels in Europe and exposure to European art.

top of page