Edward McCartan: A monumental commission of the Deco era

Women of inspiration have existed throughout all time periods, and behind each one is a story that continues to impress today. Their lives, choices, and proactiveness often leave behind institutions and legacies that endure.

Sarah Todd Bulkley and her husband, Jonathan, were involved in many philanthropic and social endeavors. He was president of the East Side House Settlement, one of New York’s oldest organizations helping the poor, which still exists today. Sarah was vice president of the New York Y.W.C.A. and active in the Girls Service League in New York.

She served as president of the Garden Club of America from 1932 to 1935, traveling throughout the United States and Asia to promote the club’s aims. In the 1930s, Japanese Prince Fumimaro Konoye visited Mrs. Bulkley at her home, Rippowam, in Ridgefield, Connecticut. Later, she traveled to Japan on behalf of the Garden Club, where the Prince entertained her. Konoye went on to become Prime Minister of Japan but resigned shortly before Pearl Harbor. In 1945, he was closely involved in efforts to stop the war.

In the suburbs, Sarah Bulkley was also a charter member of the Ridgefield Garden Club, serving as its president in the 1920s. She inspired her daughter, Sarah Bulkley Randolph, to become one of the founders of the Ridgefield Boys’ Club. Jonathan O. Bulkley was a wealthy paper merchant and owner of Bulkley Dunton Co., today the largest paper distribution company in North America.

The Bulkleys set about doing justice to their Ridgefield, Connecticut property by giving serious attention to the creation of gardens designed by Ellen Biddle Shipman, a pioneering woman landscape architect. She designed both public and private gardens throughout the East, including those for Henry Ford and Thomas Edison’s wife, as well as the acclaimed Sarah P. Duke Gardens at Duke University.

This is where Edward McCartan enters the story.

Diana, the goddess of the hunt, first appeared as a subject in McCartan’s sculpture in 1923. The earliest rendition, titled Diana (The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York), depicts the goddess controlling a leashed hound. Diana of 1924, at Brookgreen Gardens in Pawley’s Island, South Carolina, produced the following year, portrays the goddess in a more passive state, with her hand resting on the head of a fawn. This work was a direct precursor to our Garden Figure. This marble was designed to overlook the elaborate pool and garden, serving as the focal point for sculpture on the property.

The sculpture graced the cover of Country Life in March 1934.

Jonathan and Sarah also built a mansion at 600 Park Avenue in Manhattan, now considered one of the city’s architectural treasures. The house was designed by James Gamble Rogers, whose many major projects included a dozen buildings at Yale and others at universities, as well as hospitals such as Presbyterian and Memorial Sloan Kettering in New York.

The number of monumental marbles produced during the Deco era is small, making Garden Figure a significant work from the golden age for sculpture in America.