Unlike those available for painting, the opportunities to exhibit sculpture in the United-States around the turn of the twentieth century were quite scarce. There was almost no room for sculpture at the influential Fine Arts Society's 57th Street Galleries in New York. As late as 1905, the Monumental News, a journal dedicated to promotion of sculpture, lamented, "Exhibitions of sculptors' works are so comparatively rare." In response to this dire predicament, (he sculptor Frederick W. Ruckstull and Charles de Kay, art editor of the newspaper The New York Times, founded the National Sculpture Society (NSS) in 1893, the first organization dedicated solely to the advancement of sculpture.
Incorporated in 1896 to promote sculptural production and encourage the exhibition and sale of the plastic arts, the National Sculpture Society (NSS) elected John Quincy Adams Ward (1830-1910), the prestigious sculptor of public monuments, to serve as its first president, an office he held from 1893 to 1905. During the last twenty years of his life, ward dedicated much time to public and private organizations that promoted public art. To the end, he headed the NSS committee that oversaw the sculptural decoration of the Library of Congress Reading Room in Washington D.C. as well as the building and decorating of the Dewey Arch—a monument in New York to honor Admiral George Dewey. He was a champion of the City Beautiful Movement— an effort to increase the presence of urban art—and defended the central role that sculpture played in its national program.
The National Sculpture Society promoted the production of sculpture by standardizing procedures for competitions, enhancing the professional status of sculptors, and encouraging commissions for American sculpture in homes, public buildings, parks, and squares. Moreover, ii included members in its organization who were not sculptors, hoping to close the gap between artists and the great body of the people, not merely well-to-do patrons, bui the working public. The NSS encouraged the commission and purchase of sculptures for both private consumption—home and garden—and for public enjoyment—parks and squares. Through this campaign, small-scale sculptures—either reductions of monumental artworks or smaller-sized originals—were brought to the attention of an interested public.
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