BUST OF DANIEL COTTIER
By Olin Levi Warner
CUPID AND PSYCHE
By Olin Levi Warner
then decided that he had better return to his trade of telegraph operator.
So he wrote to Mr. Plant, the president of the Southern Express Company, with whom he had previously been employed, asking for a position. This gentleman, however, learning the circumstances of the case, met them with a commission for a portrait-bust of himself, followed by one of Mrs. Plant. About this time, too, Warner made the acquaintance of Mr. Daniel Cottier, who had recently opened a gallery for the display of the objects of art which he was importing, and now invited the sculptor to make an exhibition of his works. This proved to be the turning-point of his affairs; commissions began to come in with increasing frequency, until he was fully engaged upon a number of important works. He was elected a full member of the National Academy, and was one of the original group of painters and sculptors who founded the Society of American Artists.
In the too short period left to him before his sudden death in 1896, which resulted from a bicycle accident in Central Park, New York, he produced a variety of works of high merit. They comprise portrait-busts, among the best of which are those of Daniel Cottier, Alden Weir, W. C. Brownell and Miss Maud Morgan; three heroic statues, representing, respectively: Governor Buckingham of Connecticut, William Lloyd Garrison and General Devens; fountains for Union Square, New York, and for Portland, Oregon; many medallion portraits, including some of Indian Chiefs; ideal subjects, “Twilight,” “The Dancing Nymph” and “Diana”; an alto-relievo of “Cupid and Psyche” and one of the sets of bronze doors for the Library of Congress at Washington. In all these works, covering so wide a range of motive, there is present a union of monumental feeling with extreme sensitiveness, which gives them in a marked degree the sculpturesque character and invests them with a singular individuality.