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Confederate Memorial

By George Julian Zolnay
Category: Miscellaneous

About

The granite shaft of Confederate Memorial has a high-relief bronze of life-size figures depicting a southern family sending a youth off to war. Above it is a low-relief carving of an allegorical figure, the Angel of the Spirit of the Confederacy. On the reverse is a quote from General Robert E. Lee: “We had sacred principles to maintain and rights to defend for which we were duty bound to do our best, even if we perished in the endeavor.”

The monument was commissioned by the Ladies’ Confederate Monument Association through a design competition. Zolnay, who succeeded Robert Bringhurst as Professor of Sculpture at Washington University, entered the competition along with Bringhurst and Frederick Ruckstull. The models were publicly displayed and led to a heated newspaper controversy between Zolnay and Ruckstull about artistic merit.

REMOVED: June 29, 2017

Dimensions: 23′ x 9′ 5″
Year Completed: 1914
Material: Bronze and limestone
Owner: City of St. Louis
Donor: Ladies Confederate Monument Association

*Photo Courtesy of Forest Park Forever.


About the artist:

George Julian Zolnay

1863-1949

Zolnay, a native of Hungary, came to New York in 1892 after studying at the Imperial Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna and the Royal Academy in Bucharest. He played a prominent role in the design of the sculpture exhibits at the 1904 World’s Fair. In the next few years he received commissions to design the statue of Pierre Laclede on the grounds of St. Louis City Hall and the Confederate Memorial in Forest Park. He remained in St. Louis to teach at Washington University and later at Lewis’s Art Academy. Eventually he settled in Washington, D.C.