Carl Ethan Akeley

(1864-1926)

The Wounded Comrade 12in high

Footnotes

Provenance
The Collection of Berry B. Brooks.

Literature
P.J. Broder, Bronzes of the American West, New York, 1973, pp. 247 and 249.
V.S. Schmitt, Four Centuries of Sporting Art, Mumford, New York, 1984, p. 142, another example illustrated.

The Wounded Comrade is an important work in bronze by pioneering taxidermist, naturalist, inventor and animal sculptor Carl Ethan Akeley and displays the artist's deep understanding of animals' anatomy and movement.

In his taxidermy practice, Akeley specialized in mounting African wildlife, particularly gorillas and elephants. He is also credited with major innovations in taxidermy technique. He created lightweight but study hollow mannequins sculpted with realistic musculature in active poses on which to mount the skins. He displayed animals in natural groupings and in settings full of accurate flora and landscape details. The result created animal displays that seemed to viewers to be alive. Sculpting in bronze was a natural extension of Akeley's sculptural taxidermy mannequins, and elephants were his most frequent subject.

From a young age, Akeley was interested in animals. He taught himself taxidermy as a child and mounted his first animal, a neighbor's canary, at the age of 12. In 1883 Akeley went to work as an apprentice at Ward's Natural Science Establishment in Rochester, New York, where he began to explore naturalistic mountings and settings in taxidermy. While at Ward's, Akeley had his first major commission to mount P.T. Barnum's Jumbo the elephant after it perished in a train accident. In 1886, Akeley moved to Milwaukee and worked at the Milwaukee Art Museum where he created the world's first museum habitat diorama in 1890.

In 1895 Akeley took a job at Chicago's Field Museum of Natural History, lured with the promise of travel to Africa. While there he led two collecting expeditions to the continent: in 1896 to Somaliland in conjunction with the museum's curator D.G. Elliot, and in 1905 to British East Africa. By 1909 he had moved to the American Museum of Natural History in New York, and joined President Theodore Roosevelt's year-long safari, sponsored by the Smithsonian Institute. On that trip, while hunting on Mount Kenya with his team, Akeley was attacked and pinned to the ground by an enraged bull elephant. He was only saved after his first wife, Delia "Mickie" Denning, and two of his porters carried him off the mountain. During his recovery, and while suffering from fever, Akeley had a dream which was to become the inspiration for his greatest work: the Hall of African Mammals.

Upon his return to America, Akeley began modeling small clay maquettes of the dioramas for the Hall, the first of these would become The Wounded Comrade. J.P. Morgan reputedly pledged his financial support for the African Hall after seeing just that model. The resulting bronze, produced at Roman Bronze Works in 1913, was exhibited at the Winter Exhibition of the National Academy of Design that same year, earning Akeley membership in the National Sculpture Society.

The Wounded Comrade is a moving sculptural grouping of a central wounded elephant supported on either side by two others. The vignette was apparently inspired by an experience the artist had on safari in Uganda. Akeley's team unexpectedly disturbed a herd of over seven hundred elephants in a dense forest, scattering them in all directions and forcing Akeley's group to shoot to avoid being trampled. Akeley, having escaped, recalled looking back and seeing that one of those hit had been a large bull, which had gone on twenty-five yards and collapsed. Six cows had stayed behind, surrounded the bull, and were attempting to lift him to his feet with their trunks.

During his fourth African expedition in 1921, this time to collect gorillas on Mt. Mikeno in the Belgian Congo, Akeley's opinions about hunting for sport and trophy were fundamentally altered. He remained an advocate for the collection of specimens for scientific research and education, but his epiphany led him to campaign to protect the gorillas. His advocacy resulted in King Albert I of Belgium creating in 1925 the first protected park in Africa, the Albert National Park (now known as Virunga National Park). Akeley died that same year and was buried in a meadow in Kabara, near Mt. Mikeno.

The Wounded Comrade was first produced in 1913 at the Roman Bronze Works, New York. According to the Gorham Bronze ledger (vol. 22), this bronze was commissioned on 9th May 1930 by Mary Lee Jobe Akeley, Carl Akeley's widow, at the Museum of Natural History, together with copies of two of his other pieces, Stung and Going. The contract (E-1283) suggests that only one casting of each piece was ordered at this time, with a later note cancelling the order for Stung. The cost of The Wounded Comrade was $350, the total order costing $590. Gorham sub-contracted the work to Eugene Gargani & Sons, who had worked at Roman Bronze Works before forming his own company in 1927. Between 1929 and 1934 Gargani worked solely for Gorham, who were unable to produce lost-wax bronzes at their own foundry. The full Gorham edition number of this bronze is not known.

Akeley led a remarkable life, both as an artist and an inventor. He was made a member of the National Institute of Social Sciences in 1916 for "making taxidermy one of the arts", with the president of the Museum of Natural History, Henry Fairfield Osborn, comparing his skill to the great classical sculptor Pheidias. He was also awarded thirty-seven patents between 1895 and 1921, and received recognition from the Franklin Institute for two of them: the cement gun, which became the basis for the shotcrete industry; and the Akeley camera, specifically designed for filming wildlife in its natural habitat. After his death, Mary Lee Jobe Akeley became advisor to the Museum of Natural History, helping to complete the hall which was finally opened in 1936, ten years after his death, as the Carl Akeley Hall of African Mammals. An Akeley award is still presented at the World Taxidermy & Fish Carving Championships.