American, 1865 - 1925
Bartlett was the son of the sculptor, writer and teacher Truman H. Bartlett who served for many years as instructor in modeling at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In 1874, Paul's mother, Mary White Bartlett, took her son to Paris where he entered the Ecole des Beaux-Arts and studied under Pierre-Jules Cavelier and Emmanuel Fr‚miet. He began exhibiting at the Salon in 1880 and won an honorable mention there in 1887 for his Bohemian Bear Tamer (Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York). Bartlett's fame was assured when he showed a series of small, whimsical bronzes at the Salon of 1895, many of which were later seen in America at the Saint Louis Exposition of 1904. Fellow sculptors as well as critics were impressed by Bartlett's ability to explore new and colorful patinas, an interest he was to maintain for the rest of his career.
Though he continued to live in Paris, Bartlett made frequent trips to America where, in the late 1890s, he was involved with the execution of several figures for the Library of Congress. After the turn of the century he collaborated with John Quincy Adams Ward on the pedimental figures for the New York Stock Exchange; in 1909, he was awarded the commission for the pedimental sculpture for the House wing of the national Capitol. To carry out this project he set up an enormous studio in Washington. In 1916 he completed a group of allegorical figures for the attic story of the facade of the New York Public Library. Meanwhile, he had completed an equestrian Lafayette for the courtyard of the Louvre, a commission he had been awarded due, at least in part, to his French affiliations; Lafayette, begun in 1899, was unveiled in 1908.
Bartlett first exhibited in an Academy annual in 1892 but was infrequently represented thereafter, possibly due to his long residence in France, and the extraordinary diversity of his artistic and professional commitments. He was an associate of the Belgian Royal Academy, a member of the Institut de France, the director of sculpture at the Glasgow School of Art, and president of the National Sculpture Society in America.
The tribute entered into Academy minutes by Edwin H. Blashfield on the occasion of Bartlett's death reflect his fellow members recognition of the cosmopolitanism of his life. "His personality," it was recorded, "was a rather fascinating mingling of stiffness and subtlety. He was very French and very American, sudden and unusual in ways, but steadily persistent also. . . . He was always breezy."
Though he continued to live in Paris, Bartlett made frequent trips to America where, in the late 1890s, he was involved with the execution of several figures for the Library of Congress. After the turn of the century he collaborated with John Quincy Adams Ward on the pedimental figures for the New York Stock Exchange; in 1909, he was awarded the commission for the pedimental sculpture for the House wing of the national Capitol. To carry out this project he set up an enormous studio in Washington. In 1916 he completed a group of allegorical figures for the attic story of the facade of the New York Public Library. Meanwhile, he had completed an equestrian Lafayette for the courtyard of the Louvre, a commission he had been awarded due, at least in part, to his French affiliations; Lafayette, begun in 1899, was unveiled in 1908.
Bartlett first exhibited in an Academy annual in 1892 but was infrequently represented thereafter, possibly due to his long residence in France, and the extraordinary diversity of his artistic and professional commitments. He was an associate of the Belgian Royal Academy, a member of the Institut de France, the director of sculpture at the Glasgow School of Art, and president of the National Sculpture Society in America.
The tribute entered into Academy minutes by Edwin H. Blashfield on the occasion of Bartlett's death reflect his fellow members recognition of the cosmopolitanism of his life. "His personality," it was recorded, "was a rather fascinating mingling of stiffness and subtlety. He was very French and very American, sudden and unusual in ways, but steadily persistent also. . . . He was always breezy."
