The Shaw Monument is also cared for by the City of Boston (which owns the work), the National Park Service and the Museum of African American History. Five years ago their conservator noticed displaced stones and discovered the foundation was deteriorating because of water damage. They also started an endowment for it's upkeep. In the 1980s, the Friends of the Public Garden raised money to repair the historic object which had fallen into major disrepair. “As soon as they unveiled it, it was clear that this was greatness, that this was a great monument.” Saint-Gaudens worked for 14 years to finish the piece before it debuted in 1897. With the help of African American models, Vizza explained how he executed a work that showed the Black soldiers as human beings, not caricatures. The renowned sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens won the commission to create a large-scale bronze relief. When it came time to memorialize Shaw, his family wanted him to be shown not alone, but with his men, Vizza said. They were buried together in a mass grave. And many of them were killed, including Shaw,” Vizza said. “They did fight in a major battle at Fort Wagner. Their heroic story was recounted in the 1989 Hollywood film “Glory.” If the soldiers had been captured in battle they could have been enslaved or killed. Their colonel, Robert Gould Shaw, advocated for the men to join the war because they desperately wanted to fight for freedom. The Shaw Memorial captures the likenesses of the first African American volunteer infantry unit – the 54th Massachusetts Regiment – that fought after Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation. How do we help people understand the power in these monuments?” A group of elementary school students from Paige Academy in Roxbury visit the Shaw Memorial at the Boston Common in 2013 to learn about the 54th Regiment. “How do we make silent stone speak?” Vizza asked while acknowledging the controversial issue - and fact - of there being, 'too many dead white men in parks.'īut this sculpture celebrates men of color, Vizza said, 'which I want to lift up. The Friends of the Public Garden cares for 42 works in that park, along Commonwealth Avenue and on Boston Common, including the monument to Shaw and his men. “This monument is considered one of the nation's greatest pieces of public art and the greatest piece to come out of the Civil War,” said Liz Vizza, executive director of the Friends of the Public Garden, “It was, amazingly enough, dedicated 123 years ago on May 31st – the day it was defaced.” The conservator's recent prep work protected the front of the bronze relief with plywood, but its granite backside was vandalized with four-letter words and phrases including “Black Lives Matter,” “No Justice, No Peace,” and “Police are Pigs.” Workers remove graffiti from the backside of the Shaw Memorial. The outbreak of the coronavirus had delayed the project. The Robert Gould Shaw and the 54th Regiment Memorial was one of 16 public art works damaged when thousands of protesters swarmed Boston Common on Sunday night.Ī $3-million dollar restoration project for the sculpture dedicated to the African American soldiers who fought in the Civil War was granted clearance just last week.

(Robin Lubbock/WBUR) This article is more than 2 years old. Sculpture conservator Joshua Craine completes the cleanup of the Abigail Adams statue at the Boston Women’s Memorial on Commonwealth Avenue Mall.

Art of rally broken