The bronze gazelle from "Gazelle Fountain" at Brookgreen Gardens

The bronze gazelle from "Gazelle Fountain" at Brookgreen Gardens

Animal sculpture--20th century.
Bronze sculpture, American--20th century.
Brookgreen Gardens
Fredericks, Marshall M., 1908-1998
Outdoor sculpture--United States.
Public sculpture, American

In 1936, Fredericks won a National Award Competition to design a fountain for the Levi L. Barbour Memorial, located on Belle Isle, an island park in Detroit, Michigan. Mounted 16 feet high on a granite pedestal, the bronze sculpture sits in a fountain basin. Four small carved granite animals surround the gazelle.

Fredericks said: “I used this gazelle which to me has always been…sort of the perfection of the four-leggeds. …[I]t’s just a marvelous expression of the animal kingdom, and the lines of it are so beautiful and it just seemed to set itself up as a natural in that marvelous natural environment [of] Belle Isle.”

Leaping Gazelle is the first commission Fredericks received and it initiated his career as a distinguished public sculptor.

Gazelle Fountain is located at Brookgreen Gardens, Pawleys Island, South Carolina.

Marshall M. Fredericks Papers
Series V, Box 14 Folder 1

n.d.

Use of this image requires permission from the Marshall M. Fredericks Archives.

V-14-01

image/jpeg

Image

Pawleys Island (S.C.)

Color print

3.5" x 5"