(c) 2017 Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston

Bela Lyon Pratt

Norwich, Connecticut, 1867 - 1917, Boston

Biography(American sculptor, 1867-1917)

PRATT, Bela Lyon
American, 19th – 20th century, male.
Born 11 December 1867, in Norwich (Connecticut); died 18 May 1917, in Boston.
Sculptor, medallist, worker in precious metals.

Bela Lyon Pratt studied under John Ferguson Weir at the Yale School of Fine Arts from the age of 16. He continued his training under Augustus Saint-Gaudens and at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris. He settled in Boston in 1892. He exhibited, among others, in Paris at the Salon des Artistes Français in 1897, where he got an honourable mention.

Solo Exhibitions
1918, Bela Lyon Pratt Memorial Exhibition, Boston Museum of Fine Art

Museum and Gallery Holdings
Boston (MFA): Art and Science (1910, bronze); Water-Lily Girl (1914, marble); Portrait of Mrs. Harriett Lawrence Hemenway (1915, silver); Blind Cupid (1917, marble)
Cambridge, MA (Harvard University AM): Bust of George Cheyne Shattuck (1890-1908, marble); John Elbridge Hudson (c. 1900-1901, marble); John Codman Ropes (1902, marble); Henry Lee (1902, marble); The Bather (1904, marble); William, Cardinal O'Connell, Archbishop of Boston (1908, silver); John Ware (1912, marble)
Chicago (Grant Park): Alexander Hamilton (1917, bronze)
New Haven (Yale University): Nathan Hale (c. 1913, patinated bronze)
New York (Brooklyn Mus.): Nude Figure of a Girl Dancing (1910, marble)
Worcester (AM): Mother and Child (marble)
Auction Records
New York, 21 June 1979: George Washington on Horseback (1913, greenish-brown-patinated bronze, h. 21? ins/54 cm) USD 1,300
New York, 26 Sept 1991: Portrait of Nathan Hale (bronze, h. 35 ins/88.9 cm) USD 13,200
New York, 27 May 1992: Portrait of Nathan Hale (bronze, h. 35 ins/88.9 cm) USD 17,600
New York, 10 March 1993: Youth (1903, bronze, h. 31 ins/78.7 cm) USD 7,188

Bibliography
Grenthal, Kathryn/Kosol, Paula M./Ramirez, Jan Seidler/Fairbanks, Jonathan L.: American Figurative Sculpture in the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, catalogue, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 1986.

Person TypeIndividual

Last Updated8/7/24

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