James Earl

James Earle Fraser

Born 1876, Winona, MN

Died 1953, Westport, CT

 

James Earle Fraser spent his youth on the frontier, an experience that created a lifelong interest in western life and provided powerful subjects for his art.  The emotional force of his work captured the public’s imagination. When he died in 1953,

The End of the Trail was perhaps the best known sculpture in America.  It was inspired by the poetry of Marion Manville Pope: “The trail is lost, the path is hid, and winds that blow from out the ages sweep me on to that chill borderland where Time’s spent sands engulf lost peoples and lost trails.” Although a smaller version had been produced, exhibition of an enlargement in plaster at the 1915 Panama-Pacific Exposition at San Francisco, where it earned a gold medal, introduced it to America.  To the public, The End of the Trail became known as a symbol of the decline of Native American culture at the height of American industrialism.

 

The End of the Trail

Bronze, 1915

40 x 23 x 8 in.

Signed: © 1915 J. E. Fraser. SC.

S.1932.011