"I have always felt beauty as well as strength, and loved them. These are important things in sculpture. To mould feeling, strength and wisdom, to see through the outer form and bring to the surface the unconscious joys of life, this is my task."
Best known for her sculpture of Simon Bolivar, Sarah better known as Sally James Farnham was born to a prominent family in Ogdensburg, NY in 1869. Her father Col. Edward James was a Civil War veteran and noted trial lawyer and her mother was Sarah Welles Perkins. Sally’s mother died when she was very young. Afterwards her father moved to New York City with Sally to practice law and they travelled extensively throughout Europe and Japan.
Sally was raised to be self-reliant. She enjoyed riding horses and reportedly scandalized her neighbors in Ogdensburg by breaking horses on Main St. At age 28 she married George Paulding Farnham (called Paul), who was a designer for Tiffany. They had three children. After the death of her father and a prolonged illness, Paul gave her modeling clay to help her to keep busy and improve her depression. Sally found that she loved sculpting and with the help of her husband and artist Frederic Remington, began to pursue sculpting professionally.
Her first attempts were “ugly as sin,” noted Frederic Remington, but “full of ginger”. Soon Sally’s society friends commissioned her to create sculptures of them and their children. As her notoriety grew, so did her designs. In 1903 she created a fountain for Col. Isaac Emerson’s gardens in Baltimore and the following year she submitted two designs for a Civil War memorial to honor soldiers from Ogdensburg. Her Spirit of Liberty, which many Ogdensburg residents call The Soldiers and Sailors Monument, was critically acclaimed. It led to two more commissions to design monuments in Rochester, NY. In 1907 Sally was chosen to design large panels that would adorn the Pan-American building. After that she received commissions from the countries of Peru and Bolivia.
Farnham did not ignore the domestic side of her life, however. When the committee for the Rochester monument requested a meeting with her, she replied that she had a piece of work that would take six weeks to complete. At the end of that time the committee again contacted her to ask if her prior job was finished, she replied: "The new job is satisfactorily accomplished, and weighs ten pounds. I am nursing him at present and have my oldest boy to install in school and am moving into town for the winter, and I also have a few guests to entertain, but I think I can tackle your monument next week."
In 1914 Sally and her husband divorced after he quit working for Tiffany and drained family funds on get rich quick schemes. At this time in history it was unusual for women to ask for a divorce and even more unusual for them to work full-time as artists, but Sally did just that. Her success as an artist continued to grow.
In 1916 Sally won an international competition to design a monument of Simon Bolivar, a gift to this nation from Venezuela. It took five years, but was the largest bronze ever created by a female artist at that time. Its dedication took place in 1921 at Central Park with President Warren G. Harding giving the keynote address. Later Sally would sculpt a bust of Harding. In addition, her sculpture of Father Junipero Serra was dedicated in 1925 at the San Fernando Mission in California. After that she completed a World War memorial in Fultonville, NY.
Farnham would continue to sculpt until she was involved in a car accident in 1941 that caused a broken leg and head lacerations. She never regained the ability to walk and died after contracting pneumonia in 1943. In Ogdensburg, Sally James Farnham’s Spirit of Liberty still stands in Library Park and she has been recognized by the Frederic Remington Art Museum with a permanent exhibit, which houses the largest collection of her work in the world.
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