Ames Van Wart (1841-1927)

He was born and grew up at 33 Lafayette Place in New York City with summers spent at Craigville, founded by his great-grandfather, Hector Craig. His paternal grandmother, Sarah (Irving) Van Wart, was the favorite sister of the author Washington Irving. As a boy, he was interested in mechanics and the arts. When his family moved to Paris in 1859, he admired the bronze sculptures he saw in various galleries and began to teach himself to model in wax. He was most heavily influenced by Pierre-Jules Mêne - one of the pioneers of animal sculpture in the 19th century - and Antoine-Louis Barye. It was also most likely in Paris that he met the sculptor Richard Greenough (brother of "the first American sculptor" Horatio Greenough), who encouraged him to pursue his studies in Italy. In 1861-62, he went to Florence where he studied under Hiram Powers and in 1864 he illustrated the book A Recollection of Wondrous Wanderings written by his twin brother, Irving. He remained in Europe until the late 1860s during which time he sculpted marble busts of his grandfather, Henry Van Wart; Horace Greeley; Washington Irving; Peter Cooper; and, his future father-in-law, Marshall O. Roberts.

He returned to New York where in 1869 he married Caroline, daughter of Marshall Owen Roberts, President of the Pacific Mail Steamship Company. In 1870, he became a member of the Century Association, an exclusive private social, arts, and dining club in New York City where he exhibited several busts, etc. He also exhibited at the National Gallery of Design (1872) and at the Vienna Exposition (1873) he displayed his most ambitious piece, Day Dream, a full length reclining figure inspired by the poem of the same name by Tennyson. It was later moved to the Central Park Museum in New York where it was destroyed by a fire in 1881. Van Wart and his wife and family returned to Europe in 1872.

They spent the winter of 1872-73 in Rome where Van Wart enjoyed his friendship with fellow sculptor William Wetmore Story. Next, they set up home in London at 2 South Street in Park Lane where they became acquainted with the artist and sculptor, Lord Frederic Leighton. Staying in London, it was there that Van Wart sculpted the Indian Vase (see image), now on display at the Metropolitan Museum in New York - "not because (it is) a great work of art but because it represents a phase of aboriginal life in this country which is fast passing away...". In 1883, he produced his other critically acclaimed piece, Centaurs at Play, cast at the Barbedienne foundry in Paris and exhibited at Tiffany & Co.; the Met Museum; and, the Century Association where it was destroyed in 1942.

Independently wealthy, he didn't have to rely on commissions, "whatever I produced was 'con amore' (with love), despite many drawbacks, impelled by my love of art, being really an 'amateur'". After Caroline died in 1893 he stayed in London where he remarried and with his new wife they made their home at 34 Boulevard Maillot, Neuilly-sur-Seine, near Paris. While there he sculpted a bronze statuette, The Youth of Lincoln, which was exhibited with several of his marble busts at the Paris Salons of 1904 and 1905. He published his memoirs Reminiscences & Nonsense (1923) in Paris where he died four years later. After his second marriage his only daughter, Evelyn, separated from him.