Category: Profiles in Stone

(This is an encore post following Robert F. Rodriguez’ article on the Kincannon brothers. – The original post appeared December 22, 2021 and was written by Joseph Kincannon.-RM)

Jeep, or rather D’Ellis Kincannon, started his apprenticeship in the stoneyard in 1980 after working in the Cathedral mail room for a year. He came to NYC to go to art school, but found it wasn’t for him. When the stone yard program started up it seemed a perfect fit, and it was.

He excelled as a banker mason. I think it’s fair to say that he and Jose (Tapia) were the top stone cutters. The Cathedral showcased their work for fundraising purposes. They were featured in multiple magazines and news publications.

The Banker Mason

Jeep was also one of the first few to apprentice under Chris Hannaway. He had the highest regard for Chris and was disappointed to see him return to England. He often made reference to Chris’ mastery in banker masonry and anything stone related. Jeep’s prize possession was an old mallet that Chris had given him from his early days in Liverpool.

Master Builder James Bambridge was impressed enough with D’Ellis’ work to once state that “his masonry is as perfect as if it had been poured into a mold”. It was obvious that this discipline was one that Jeep immediately embraced. He also had a gift for drafting and setting out. He was a natural at perceiving 3-dimensional intersections.

To advance Jeep’s skills even further, the Cathedral sent him to the Bath School for Architectural Trades in England. This was very rewarding for Jeep as he completely immersed himself in the trade. Aside from the school, he was taken aback at finding himself in a city that the Romans had built, in part. He was also astounded that one of the local pubs had been in operation since the “Black Death”. This place became a regular haunt for Jeep and many of the other students.

After a year, Jeep returned to NYC and continued working as a banker mason. By this time, Alan Bird had replaced Chris Hannaway and the yard was humming along. Later Jeep advanced into the setting-out shop with fellow apprentice, Cynie Linton. He had real misgivings about leaving banker masonry. I remember him grumbling despite the promotion.

The Setting-Out Shop

Jeep and Cynie worked directly with James Bambridge transferring the original architect’s drawings into full-scale tower drawings that would later be numbered and patterned into various zinc templates for the banker masons’ shop. The masons used to laugh when he would step in to help an apprentice understand the complex templates. “Uh oh, Jeep’s got that look on his face!” This is not a look you wanted to see, as it usually meant an irretrievable mistake had been made in the stone work. If you had trouble understanding the templates he and Cynie were the ones to see.

As things slowed down in the setting-out shop, a new opportunity arose; a competition for the new carving apprenticeship under the tutelage of Nick Fairplay. Jeep scored in the top five. He served his three years and was later appointed as head carver. During this period, he contributed many celebrated carvings to the tower. Jeep continued on in that position for a year until he was positioned as the head of the drafting and setting-out department.

As Chief Draftsman, Jeep also worked on the tower with Master Mason Steve Boyle, for whom he had the greatest respect. Boyle was not one to embrace the limelight and Jeep ofter commented on how he was the unsung hero who quietly puzzled together the massive stones on the tower, a truly monumental task.

Working on the Tower

Steve relayed a story about how instrumental Jeep was in the setting of the first course of stonework:

“It should be mentioned that Jeep deserves credit for the tower actually fitting on the building. Delays in scaffold erection meant that the first stones that we laid were rather hurriedly positioned. The deadline for the installation of the Jerusalem Stone rapidly approached. The setting of this historic cornerstone included a well-publicized ceremony featuring high wire aerialist, Philippe Petit delivering a silver trowel to the Bishop of New York for the official blessing. Since the scaffolding was only partially in place, it hadn’t been possible to lay out all of the building lines as planned before Bambridge had to return to the UK.

This was alarming to me at the time as it meant this task might fall to me. Sure enough, as we began to set more stone it was clear that the first stones had been set too far over to the North resulting in the new stone overhanging by about a half inch. I called Bambridge in the U.K. and he told me I would have to do the setting out. He understood my uneasiness, but told me I could always rely on Jeep for help with this and he was right. Jeep had a thorough understanding of the whole project by this time and knew exactly what to do. Great thanks to him; everything ended up where it was supposed to be”

-Master Mason Stephen Boyle

Cathedral Stoneworks

In 1989, he stepped away from drafting to join the carving team working on the West Front. Work on the Central Portal statuary had recently resumed under the direction of Simon Verity. For Jeep, the carving ended too soon. The Jewish Museum awarded a major contract to the stoneyard. It was an early 20th Century Gothic Revival building on 5th Avenue. The drafting department was about to become a very busy place.

This was the beginning of a new era. A commercial venture was underway with the goal of replenishing the depleted Cathedral coffers by taking on independent projects. It was a good effort, but the partnership with Cathedral Stoneworks ultimately marked the end of the tower project and any dream of completing the Cathedral. Jeep continued working as Chief Draftsman until he left in 1993.

He Wore Many Hats

He was one of the few who wore most of the hats available in the Cathedral stone yard. Those hats included sawyer, estimator, banker mason, setting-out, stone carver and fixer mason (on the tower). He would laugh and say that the only job he didn’t do was to run the planer. That position belonged to Nelson Otero, and to only Nelson Otero.

D’Ellis often expressed his admiration for other modest people who produced great stone work for the tower. He often referred to Yves Pierre and Angel Escobar. He once said that “The very first time Angel picked up a chisel, he knew what to do with it. And, it was a little unnerving.” These guys were natural stone cutters, but not inclined to talk in front of the T.V. cameras.

Beyond the Cathedral, he would spend the next eight years teaching, designing, cutting and carving stone on large public and private projects with Kincannon Studios in Texas until his death in 2001. I can say that throughout this period, as busy as we were, he was ready to drop everything and return to NYC if the team reunited to finish the tower. There’s no doubt about that.

■

• The author of this post, Joseph Kincannon, is the younger brother of D’Ellis “Jeep” Kincannon. Joseph is a teacher and architectural sculptor. Professor Kincannon is the Chair of Stone Carving at the American College of Building Arts.

We hope you enjoyed the recent video showing the sculptor John Angel working on the statues for the Cathedral. In this post we have two more John Angel videos showing his work. They are digitized copies of original 16mm film taken between 1931 and 1938.

The first one is titled VTS 01 2. It opens with Angel sculpting the Apostle Paul. The finished statue is the trumeau of the South Tower Portal.

Next up on the video are two relief sculptures. The theme on the first one seems to be the birth of Jesus. The second one appears to be Jesus appearing before Pilate. They are shaped like they may have been intended to be tympanum above doorways. I do not know where these two ended up in the Cathedral. Perhaps one of our subscribers can shed some light on this.

To view video Click Here. Push back button to return to this post. The video says it is 20 minutes and 25 seconds but it is blank after 9 minutes and 30 seconds.

The Second Video

The second “more John Angel videos” is titled VTS 01 3. It opens with an assistant removing the waste mold from the plaster cast of the statue of St. Vincent (raven on his shoulder). Next, removing the waste mold on St. Denis, revealing the plaster cast. Angel is then seen sculpting the full size St. Catherine in clay and then St. Lawrence. Next, there is the sculpting in clay of the niche statue above St. Lawrence. I do not know which saint or person this is supposed to be. It ends with more waste mold removal on St. Denis.

To View Video Click Here. Push back button to return to this post. The video is 13 minutes and 8 seconds.

The plaster casts were then handed over to the stone carvers. The Piccirilli Brothers carved many of the West Front statues during this period. The Ardolino Brothers may also have contributed some of these carvings.

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• We are grateful to Wayne Kempton, Cathedral and Diocesan Archivist, for providing the digital videos.

John Angel, Sculptor (1881 – 1960), created various works at the Cathedral from the mid 1920’s through the decade of the 1930’s. He was a British-born architectural and ecclesiastical sculptor. At the age of 14, he entered a 5 year apprenticeship with an English firm specializing in ecclesiastical carvings and restoration. He received formal training at the Exeter School of Art, the Lambeth School of Art and the Royal Academy School. The Royal Society of British Sculptors elected Angel to membership in 1919 when he was 30 years old.

In 1925, he brought his family to the United States. The architect Ralph Adams Cram had invited him. Cram would write later…

“John Angel had come to America for a visit, and we had induced him, rather against his will I fancy, to do for us…Out of the blue, so to speak, had fallen upon us the very sculptor we had dreamed of but hardly dared hope for.”

-Ralph Adams Cram

The Bapistry

His earliest work, may well have been on the Stuyvesant Bapistry which Cram & Ferguson designed. There are 8 statues in a frieze high up around the octagonal room. John Angel modeled these statues. Eduardo Ardolino was possibly the carver of these pieces. Ardolino was an Italian-born American stone carver and architectural sculptor. There are 6 prominent Dutch figures and two English figures that taken together form a history of the Netherlands including Peter Stuyvesant the Governor General of New Netherlands. Construction on the Bapistry began in 1924 with the consecration held on Easter Sunday 1929. The Stuyvesant family heirs funded it. From then on Angel became a vital part of Cram’s organization. He was at once assigned all the sculpture for the two tower portals of the west front of the Cathedral.

The Trumeau of the Main Portal

The trumeau, or center post of the Portal of Paradise is the statue of St. John. The namesake of the Cathedral is front and center at the main entrance. It is 8 1/2 feet tall and was dedicated in 1935. Below the figure of St. John is a unique pedestal featuring the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. Angel’s method involved sculpting a small model in clay, then enlarging it to full size in clay. A plaster cast was then created. At this point it was handed over to the stone carver with Angel putting finishing touches on the piece. Contrast this method to the work of Simon Verity, some 40 years later. Verity’s jamb statues and pedestals on either side of the Angel piece were done by the direct carving method. Verity was assisted by Jean Claude Marchionni, and carvers from the Stoneyard Institute at the Cathedral.

The North Portal – The Martyr’s Portal

The sculptor John Angel’s largest work at the Cathedral was the grouping of statues at the North Portal. The trumeau is of St. Peter pictured below.

The jamb statues are as follows; they are 8 feet tall.

It is likely that the carving of the full size models for the North Tower Portal were done by the Piccirilli Brothers of Brooklyn. Seeing these images, we are longing for a Tom Fedorek guide to the liturgical symbolism of all these carving.

John Angel, Sculptor – Archival Footage

Cathedral and Diocesan Archivist, Wayne Kempton has made available on YouTube, digital copies of 16mm movie footage of Angel creating the full size clay model.

In this video we see John Angel completing the head of Joan of Arc, the detail of a pedestal from beginning to end, construction of an armature, working on St. Vincent, use of a pointing machine to enlarge from a smaller model, finishing Thomas a Becket. Click HERE to view video

Two additional digitized films of Angel’s work, modeling the carvings of the North Tower Portal will be in a future post.

• Cram, Ralph Adams (1936), My Life in Architecture
• Time Magazine, June 2, 1947, Art: Gothic with a Difference
• Wayne Kempton, Cathedral Archives, John Angel Film
• A Guide to the Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine in the City of New York, Hall, 1928
• Remarks by Dr. Ralph Adams Cram at the unveiling of Mr. John Angel’s statue of the Founder, June 8, 1930, Rice University

Konti wrote the proposal above a little over 100 years ago. Primarily Isidore Konti’s proposal covered the task of modeling and carving the recumbent figure of Bishop Potter as well as the five saints in the niches. First came a sketch model, then a full size one. Lastly the limestone figure was carved. The combined sum of the work in 2021 dollars would be roughly $60,000. However with the small number of architectural sculptors around today as compared to 1920 New York, it would likely be considerably more. This document, this connection to the man is precious. Konti carved the sculpture 37 years after the death of the sixth bishop of New York, the Founder of the Cathedral. For that reason he used photographs like the one below.

In a letter to architect Thomas Nash, Potter’s daughter, Mary Chauncy, wrote,

I have been thinking a great deal of my visit to Mr. Konti’s studio, and the wonderful results that he has obtained from photographs.

– Mary Chauncy to Nash, August 31, 1920

Additionally. several of Konti’s Yonkers friends posed for the saints figures, specifically Edward the Confessor (extreme right) and St. Theodosius (far left). Thomas Nash, the architect, designed the sarcophagus. The saints figures and as well as the Potter’s recumbent figure are Konti’s work.

The Architect’s Proposed Drawing

Above is an early proposed design for the tomb. Above all you will notice that the five saints are missing. The richly carved canopy of American oak has also been modified. It is now supported on corbels springing from the granite columns on either side.

Thomas Nash died in 1926. Bishop William T. Manning, the tenth bishop of New York (1921-1946), paid tribute to the architect in the New York Times.

“For many years he acted as architect for Trinity Parish, and he has left his impress upon some of the important monuments of the city, among them the fine tomb of Bishop Horatio Potter.

His interests and his gifts were many, but his highest trait was his genius for friendship.”

– William T. Manning, New York, Feb 2, 1926

When we look back, these three prominent men, whose lives connected in the 1920’s, keep us mindful of the multitude of stories and connections due to the Cathedral of St. John the Divine.

• We are indebted to Wayne Kempton, Archivist of the Diocese of New York and the Cathedral of St. John the Divine for his many contributions to this post, especially. Isidore Konti’s proposal.
• More on Bishop Potter’s Tomb in our previous post
• The Sculpture of Isidore Konti, 1862-1938, Isidore Konti, Hudson River Museum.
• The Late Thomas Nash, New York Times, Feb 4, 1926

Joseph Kincannon started work at the Cathedral in the gift shop. It was located in the North Transept. His brother D’Ellis “Jeep” Kincannon was a messenger in the administrative area of the Cathedral. He had his eye, however, on the stoneyard. Soon Jeep became the seventh apprentice after Poni Baptiste.

I graduated from High School one day, moved to Manhattan the next, and was working at the Cathedral the following day.

-Joseph Kincannon

Joseph remembers the day the first stones arrived at the infant stoneyard. Heading to lunch down Amsterdam Avenue, crossing the green area on the north side of the Cathedral he saw the activity and knew right away something very important was happening. He waited and watched in the gathering crowd.

Apprentice Kincannon

While still at the gift shop, he and some mates played some friendly soccer with Chris Hannaway on that Green… Chris, of course, in shirt and tie and tweed jacket. Some time later, Jim Bambridge invited himself to a frisbee tossing with Joseph and friends. Ultimately, Joseph found his own way into the stoneyard. As most everyone did, he started on the saws. While there, he developed a way to preserve the job ticket instructions despite the deluge of water that came with the saws.

Joseph said he was quite happy working on the saws, but his brother encouraged him to join the cutters when an opportunity presented itself. Jeep told him that there was a path to growth. A cutter position opened and Joseph was a natural. Later, when Nicholas Fairplay came on board, he was one of three cutters to be trained as carvers. Along about now, Joseph Kincannon’s lifelong journey as an architectural sculptor began.

The Bull Gang

The bull gang was the crew that moved the stone from the ground up to the tower. Of those days Joseph says – ” Sometimes the job was tricky and dangerous as the stones could be quite large. Along with chain hoists (hand operated), we relied on planks and rollers a fair amount of the time. The term (bull gang) applied to those who positioned the stones as close as possible to where the masons needed them on the building. The masons would take it from there.

“We also had to make sure the masons were supplied with bricks and mortar – masons’ tenders. A busy job. Al Rivera and I were tasked with this. We moved a lot of stone up onto that tower. Young man’s work – moving stones up and down all day with a beautiful view, built up the muscles, etc. Al kept us laughing all day. Steve (Boyle) had his hands full with us, though.”

It’s so quiet up there, it’s like working on a ship. All you see is the sky and your crew. Up there, each worker depends on every other crew member.

-Joseph Kincannon

Head Carver

Joseph became head carver in the stoneyard through his growing skill and leadership. The Cathedral contracted Simon Verity to carve the statues at the Portal of Paradise on the West Front of the Cathedral. He had the carvers from the stoneyard carve the bases. Joseph’s base for the combined statue of the prophets Isaiah and Jeremiah is shown below. He carved that base in the late 80’s. After vandals damaged the base, the Cathedral asked him back to repair and restore it in 2019.

All who passed through the stoneyard in those 12 years knew Joseph Kincannon. They were used to his steady hand, his help when they needed it and his unending special humor. He only left when the stoneyard shut down.

• Kincannon Studios – www.kincannonstudios.com
• American College of Building Arts – www.acba.edu