In 1883, Dallin entered a competition to sculpt an equestrian statue of
Paul Revere for
Boston,
Massachusetts. He won the competition and received a contract, but six versions of his model were rejected. The fifth model was not accepted because of fundraising problems. The seventh version was accepted in 1939 and
the full-size statue was unveiled in 1940. Dallin converted to
Unitarianism and initially turned down the offer to sculpt the
angel Moroni for the spire of the LDS Church's
Salt Lake Temple. He later accepted the commission and, after finishing the statue said, "My angel Moroni brought me nearer to God than anything I ever did." His statue became a symbol for the LDS Church and was the model for other angel Moroni statues on the spires of
LDS Church temples. In Boston, Dallin became a colleague of
Augustus St. Gaudens and a close friend of painters
John Singer Sargent and
William McGregor Paxton with whom he played baseball for the
St. Botolph Club. He married Vittoria Colonna Murray in 1891 and returned to Utah to work on
The Angel Moroni (1893). He taught for a year at the
Drexel Institute in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, while completing his
Sir Isaac Newton (1895) for the
Library of Congress. In 1897, he traveled to Paris, and studied with
Jean Dampt. In 1889 and 1890 he developed a friendship with prominent European painter
Rosa Bonheur. Together they traveled to
Neuilly outside of Paris to sketch the animals and cast of
Buffalo Bill Cody's Wild West Show at their encampment. He entered a
Don Quixote statuette in the Salon of 1897, and
The Medicine Man in the Salon of 1899 and the
Exposition Universelle (1900). He finished ninth in the Double American round and 12th in the Double York round. From 1899 to 1941, he was a member of the faculty of Massachusetts Normal Art School, now the
Massachusetts College of Art and Design, where his more notable students included
Bashka Paeff,
Vincent Schofield Wickham and Ruth Johnston Surez. In 1912, he was elected to the
National Academy of Design as an Associate member and became a full Academician in 1930. He also was a member of the
National Sculpture Society and the National Association of Arts and Letters, as well as an associate at the
National Academy of Design.
Equestrian sculptures of indigenous peoples '', a 1940 statue by Dallin at
Old North Church in
Boston, where Revere said he would forewarn
American patriots if the
British Army were approaching by hanging "one lantern if by land, two if by sea". Dallin created four prominent equestrian sculptures of indigenous people:
A Signal of Peace, or
The Welcome (1890);
The Medicine Man, or
The Warning (1899);
Protest of the Sioux, or
The Defiance (1904); and
Appeal to the Great Spirit (1908).
A Signal of Peace was exhibited at the 1893
World's Columbian Exposition and was installed in Chicago's
Lincoln Park in 1894.
The Medicine Man was exhibited at the 1899
Paris Salon, and the 1900
Exposition Universelle in Paris, where it won a gold medal. It was installed in Philadelphia's
Fairmount Park in 1903. The full-size
staff version of
Protest of the Sioux was exhibited at the 1904
Louisiana Purchase Exposition, where it won a gold medal. The mounted brave defiantly shaking his fist at an enemy was never cast as a full-size bronze and survives only in statuette form. A one-third-size bronze version, cast in 1986, is at the
Springville Museum of Art in Springville, Utah.
Appeal to the Great Spirit became an icon of American art and is Dallin's most famous work. The full-size version was cast in bronze in Paris and won a gold medal at the 1909 Paris Salon. It was installed outside the main entrance to the
Boston Museum of Fine Arts in 1912. Smaller versions of the work are in numerous American museums and in the permanent collection of the
White House. In 1929, a full-sized bronze version of
Appeal to the Great Spirit—personally overseen and approved by Dallin— was installed in
Muncie, Indiana, at the intersection of Walnut and Granville Streets, and is considered by many residents to be a symbol of their city. Benefactors of the city would later add to their Dallin portfolio through the purchase of the
Passing of the Buffalo sculpture, which had been commissioned by
Geraldine R. Dodge. A one-third-size plaster version of the Appeal was given to Tulsa, Oklahoma's Central High in 1923. It stood in the school's main hall until 1976, when Central closed its doors. In 1985, that plaster was used to cast a one-third-size bronze version, which is now in
Woodward Park (Tulsa), at the intersection of 21st and Peoria Streets. There is also a version at St. John University in Wisconsin. File:IndianPeace.JPG|
A Signal of Peace (1890) in
Lincoln Park in
Chicago File:Philly Med Man.jpg|
The Medicine Man (1899) in
Fairmount Park in
Philadelphia File:Sculpture- Protest of the Sioux by Cyrus E. Dallin.jpg|
Protest of the Sioux (1904) at the
1904 St. Louis World's Fair File:Appeal to the Great Spirit.jpg|
Appeal to the Great Spirit (1908) at the
Museum of Fine Arts in
Boston ==Death==