Artwork Details
- Title
- Major General George Gordon Meade
- Artist
- Alexander Milne Calder (1846 – 1923)
- Year
- 1887
- Medium
- Bronze, on granite base
- Dimensions
- Height 11'6″, width 4', depth 10' (base height 12′, width 10'8", depth 16'6")
Artwork Description
General Meade commanded the Union Army of the Potomac during the Civil War, and is best known for defeating General Robert E. Lee at the Battle of Gettysburg in 1863. Meade also served as military governor for the Georgia district during Reconstruction, and a commissioner of Fairmount Park. He is responsible for designing many of Fairmount Park’s drives, walks, and bridle paths.
Following Meade’s death, Association for Public Art (then known as Fairmount Park Art Association) initiated a campaign to finance an appropriate memorial. Though fundraising was slowed by Jay Cooke’s September panic of 1873 and competition from the Centennial, the Meade Memorial Women’s Auxiliary Committee finally raised the balance and a competition to select an artist began. The artist chosen was Alexander Milne Calder, sculptor of William Penn atop Philadelphia’s City Hall.
Calder based his rendering of Meade on his own memory, photographs, and the recollections of family members and friends. In 1887, over thirty thousand people watched Meade’s grandsons unveil the Meade statue, which was Calder’s first large-scale bronze and the first major commission project of the Association. General Meade and his horse “Baldy” continue to gaze out across the park landscape in the direction of Laurel Hill Cemetery where Meade was buried.
Content on this page was adapted from Public Art in Philadelphia by Penny Balkin Bach (Temple University Press, 1992). Bach was the longtime Executive Director of the Association for Public Art, working with the organization from 1980 to 2022.
Artwork Credits
Commissioned by Association for Public Art (formerly Fairmount Park Art Association)
Owned by the City of Philadelphia
Artwork Media
Museum Without Walls
Voices:
JAMES MUNDY is the Director of Library and Historical Collections for The Union League of Philadelphia, a civic organization that was founded during the Civil War to preserve the Union.
ROB ARMSTRONG is the Preservation and Capital Projects Manager for Philadelphia Parks & Recreation, where he works on projects related to historic preservation and park improvements.
MICHAEL PANHORST is the Curator of Art at Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts in Alabama. He is the former Director of Chesterwood, the studio of Daniel Chester French, now a National Trust Historic Site.
Producer: Marit Haahr