John Burroughs

Artist Cartaino di Sciarrino Pietro (American, 1886-1918)

Place of OriginUnited States

Date1918

DimensionsSculpture: 47 × 54 1/4 × 32 in. (119.4 × 137.8 × 81.3 cm)
121.9 × 281.9 × 188 cm (48 × 111 × 74 in.)

Mediumbronze

ClassificationSculpture

Credit LineGift of William E. Bock

Object number

1918.2

On View

Toledo Museum of Art (2445 Monroe Street), Sculpture Garden

Label TextFamous naturalist John Burroughs (1837–1921) visited the Toledo area in the 1910s to design a garden for admirer and patron William E. Bock of Rossford. Bock also commissioned for the garden this sculpted portrait by Cartaino di Sciarrino Pietro, a mostly self-taught artist born in Palermo, Sicily. After the sculpture was finished, Bock decided it should be enjoyed by the public and so presented it to the Toledo Museum of Art for the benefit of the city’s school children. On April 12, 1918—declared “Burrough’s Day” by the mayor—20,000 children gathered at the Museum to honor Burroughs as he attended the dedication of the sculpture. His pose, peering into the distance through a cluster of trees, is a fitting one for the nature lover. Burroughs believed firmly that the wonders of the natural world open up through careful and quiet observation—what he called “sharp looking.”Published ReferencesToledo Museum News "Mr. Bock's gift of the Burroughs Statue," no. 37, October 1920, pp. 446, 447, repr. on cover.

Who was Who in America, Library Edition, vol. I, 1897-1942, Chicago 1943, p. 973.

"Cultural service to the Community," The Ohio Bell Voice, vol. 12, no. 3, May 1965, repr. (col.) p. 8.

Coates, Ruth Allison, Great American Naturalists, Minneapolis, 1974, repr. p. 62.

Campen, Richard N., Outdoor Sculpture in Ohio, Chagrin Falls, 1980, p. 77, repr.

Curtin, John, "The Art Museum's Lonely Sentry," Toledo Magazine, The Blade, June 11, 1978, pp. 20, 22, repr. (col.) p. 20 (in scrapbook).