IMDB Francis X. Bushman Update RE: Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0124279/ Francis X Bushman at IMDB

IMDB Francis X. Bushman Update RE: Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland

Silent film idol, Francis X. Bushman, supposedly was the model for the fifteen foot tall sculptured figure, "Energy in Repose," by 1923, which stands in a sidewalk nook of the main access entrance [Euclid Avenue, downtown at East 6] to the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, Ohio, USA.

It is a colossal, nude male figure dressed only in a heavy work apron seated on a rock holding a hammer in his proper left hand. His facial expression is calm and intelligent. He has large, well-defined muscles developed through hard physical labor, representing man at the fullest of his physical powers and symbolizing physical energy guided by intelligence.

Smithsonian American Art Museum's Inventory of American Sculpture (IAS) files contain a related news article from the Plain Dealer (Cleveland, OH), April 13, 1974 and an excerpt from "Federal Reserve Notes" entitled "The Architectural Sculpture of the New Building," by Henry Hering, pg. 16-18.

IAS files also contain an excerpt from a publication entitled, "Integrity and Security: The Building of the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland," prepared by Benjamin D. Rickey & Company of Columbus, Ohio, March 1993, pg. 71-78, which provides a description of all of the bank's artwork and notes that Hering's contract included designs for most of the carved stone ornamentation on the bank's architecture as well as several plaster models to guide the craftsmen executing the work.

The sculptor's fee was a pricey (by 1923 standards) $46,000 which included designing the statuary and overseeing the design and production of the architectural ornamentation.

Statue image http://www.bluffton.edu/~sullivanm/ohio/cleveland/fedreserve/0008.jpg
Reference: http://siris-artinventories.si.edu/ipac20/ipac.jsp?uri=full=3100001~!298726!0

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0124279/ Francis X Bushman at IMDB

--Neale Sourna