Divine Stone

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.

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• 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