James Earle Fraser

American, 1876 - 1953

BiographyIn public school in Minneapolis, Fraser carved blackboard chalk when that was the only available medium. His father was a railroad engineer in charge of laying track across the Western plains. Their home was a railway car, and Fraser was in the Dakotas as a boy, familiar with Indians and buffalo bones. At 18, Fraser went to the Art Institute of Chicago for drawing classes and was the pupil of Richard Bock for sculpture. At 20, he entered the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris under Falguiere, the Julien Academy, and Colarossi. At 22, he became assistant to the major sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens, remaining until 1902 when Fraser opened his own studio in NYC. His first important commission was a bust of Theodore Roosevelt now in the Capitol. In 1913, Fraser married his former student, Laura Gardin, who was an accomplished sculptor in her own right.

Fraser designed the five-cent “buffalo nickel” that was issued in 1913. He used three different Indians to obtain the portrait. One was the Sioux chief Iron-Tail. The bison on the reverse was modeled after Black Diamond in the New York Zoo, slaughtered in 1915 and mounted. Fraser made the figure full, intending no inscription, so there was no room for “In God We Trust.” His statue The End of the Trail was the most popular work at the Panama-Pacific Exposition at San Francisco in 1915. There were more requests for purchase of this design than any other work. It was also issued in various usual bronze sizes, and has been reissued by Modern Art foundry.

In 1968, the Cowboy Hall of Fame acquired and restored the original 16’ plaster of The End of the Trail.

Resource: SAMUELS’ Encyclopedia of ARTISTS of THE AMERICAN WEST,
Peggy and Harold Samuels, 1985, Castle Publishing

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