January 12, 2014

Chicago's Forgotten Masterpiece

By Robert Klein Engler
Carl Rohl-Smith (1848-1900) was a Danish-American sculptor who was classically trained in Europe and came to practice his craft the New World. In 1893 he worked on a commission from George M. Pullman, one of the richest and most powerful men in Chicago. It would cost Pullman $30,000 (almost a million dollars today) just for the statue he commissioned Rohl-Smith to execute. That's not counting the marble base on which the monument stood and other expenses. Pullman wanted Rohl-Smith to create a bronze memorial that would stand on his property at 18th St and Calumet Ave. in Chicago. It had to be a work that commemorated the Fort Dearborn Massacre, a massacre that took place in 1812, near Pullman's mansion, and close to the hulk of a dead cottonwood tree, the Massacre Tree, that also stood nearby. Because the Massacre Tree "could not speak," Pullman wanted something more to mark the spot. He had the money and power to get what he wanted. Smith had just finished a statue of Benjamin...(Read Full Article)