Siberian Ram [Plaster]

Siberian Ram [Plaster]

Animal sculpture--20th century

Siberian Ram, 1941
Plaster, 1987

Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Marshall M. Fredericks
1991.053

Fredericks first made Siberian Ram in 1941, but the first documented bronze cast was not installed until 1966, when a 24-inch tall sculpture was placed in the rose garden of the Henry Ford estate in Dearborn. Fredericks carved a Siberian Ram in limestone on commission for the Birmingham-Bloomfield Bank, and that 30-inch tall stone sculpture was donated, in 1972, to the Baldwin Public Library in Birmingham. In the late 1980s, Fredericks made molds from that sculpture and cast bronzes for his personal collection and for the museum. He created the 9-inch tall reduction in the mid-1990s.

The museum displays three located in the Sculpture Garden, the Main Exhibit Gallery, and the 1963 limestone (formerly at the artist's residence), in the museum offices and archives room.

Fredericks, Marshall M., 1908-1998

1987

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

Sculpture

University Center (Mich.)

32" x 23" x 28"

Plaster full-scale

1991.053

Main Exhibit Gallery

1988 January, 24 Gift to Museum and SVSU Board of Control

From Michale Panhorst (Director)
Memo dated November 14, 1991:

"RE: The Siberian Ram:

Fredericks called perplexed about the sizes of our plaster and bronze rams. He indicated that the limestone carving in his backyard (from which he made the mold to cast our plaster and another plaster, one of which is supposedly the original for our bronze) is 44 inches high, as is the limestone carving he made that is now at the Baldwin Public Library. He is unsure how our intermediate model came about. There is a smaller (roughly half-size) version."



From Jennifer Lentz (Collection Documentation Intern 1991-1992)
Memo dated February 17, 1992:
"RE: Siberian Ram

In 1987 Fredericks made a rubber mold of the limestone Siberian Ram in his garden in order to make the bronze for the gallery. However this mold cannot be used again. It is now in storage at the stable. The plaster cast in the gallery was made from the limestone in his garden also."

MF, Sculptor copy:
Examples of his exceptional skill in stone carving are the Torso of a Dancer in black Belgian marble and the Moray Eel and Fish in green granite, both in the Cranbrook Art Museum, and the Siberian Ram in limestone in front of the Baldwin Library, Birmingham, Michigan. Outstanding examples of the use of stone as part of a monument, both in imaginative concept and technical facility, are the four massive groups, in emerald-pearl granite, at the base of the Cleveland War Memorial Fountain. In fact, he seems to have been equally at home in either stone or metal (E. P. Richardson).
Other label copy:
Fredericks has captured the essence of the Siberian Ram by creating a balance between the delicate grace and massive strength of its body. The density of the body and the strength it possesses is counterbalanced by the elegance of its rounded form and the curving lines which culminate with the great spiraled horns. In 1941 Fredericks created a SIBERIAN RAM about half the size of this one. He did not enlarge the sculpture to this size until 1966 when the Fidelity Bank of Michigan commissioned a limestone version. In 1972 the bank gave the stone statue to the City of Birmingham, and the City placed it in front of the Baldwin Public Library.

Notice that the texture of this plaster cast is different from that of other plasters in the gallery. This cast does not show the tell-tale hand of the artist in the soft clay of his original model (as is especially evident in the quarter-scale model of the SPIRIT OF DETROIT), because it was not cast from the clay original. It has a coarse sandpaper-like surface because Fredericks cast this plaster from molds made on the limestone statue at the Baldwin Public Library. The bronze cast in the MFSG Garden was made from this plaster or another made from the same rubber mold, yet its surface is extremely smooth. That smoothness probably resulted from peening the metal, a standard step in finishing bronzes cast in sand molds as was our bronze RAM.

Molly Barth copy:
The next plaster model is The Siberian Ram. Originally, that was carved in limestone to be used in front of a Birmingham bank. They then gave it to the Birmingham Public Library, and now it is located in front of the library, in downtown Birmingham. We have the bronze cast out in the sculpture garden. Fredericks carved one more out of limestone for his own garden at his home. But, I love the ram. The horns, and it's as though, if he gets those back legs right up beneath him, he's going to hop right up off that boulder.