Walker Hancock studied at the St. Louis School of Fine Arts, the University of Wisconsin and the Pennsylvania Academy, working under Charles Grafly (q.v.) at the latter institution. He was a fellow at the American Academy in Rome from 1925 to 1928 and an instructor at the Pennsylvania Academy, becoming the head of the sculpture department after Grafly's death in 1929. Later, he was artist-in-residence at the American Academy in Rome in 1956-1957 and again in 1962-1963. He served as an officer in the armed forces during World War II.
Among his many works are a group of pedimental sculptures for the Department of the Post Office Building in Washington, frieze-work for City Hall, Kansas City, Missouri, and the figures of Courage and Sacrifice for the Soldiers' Memorial in St. Louis (1939). His work in portraiture includes the busts of Robert Frost (1952; Amherst College), Alben Barkley (State Capitol, Frankfort, Ky.) and two for the New York University Hall of Fame, Stephen Foster (1941) and Woodrow Wilson (1956). His statue of General MacArthur is at West Point and, in 1952, he designed the Eisenhower Inaugural Medal. In 1964, he was commissioned to complete the memorial at Stone Mountain, Georgia.
Hancock has won many awards, including the National Academy's Barnett Prize in 1935 (for The Diver, cat. no. 275) and the Proctor Prize in 1942 (for Ahti, cat. no. 271) and again in 1959 (for Sculptor's Daughter, cat. no. 37). He has lived and worked at the artists' colony at Lanesville, Gloucester, Mass., for many years.
