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Avard T. Fairbanks’s World War I Memorials
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Shortly after the Armistice that ended fighting with Germany in November 1918, civic and cultural organizations began considering how best to remember those who had contributed to the effort to fight World War I (WWI). The mayor of Boston called such a group together late in 1918. One representative at the Boston Convention was the young artist Avard T. Fairbanks (1897–1987), who came from Utah and from a family of gifted artists. During his distinguished career, he was not only a prolific sculptor but also a teacher and an academic administrator. Fairbanks matured professionally in the 1920s and early 1930s, during which period he created four WWI memorials in the Northwest that are exceptional for their unique conception and visual impact. Fairbanks’s memorials must be seen against the complicated backdrop of America’s rapidly fading interest in Civil War monuments, shifting styles in the arts, and a naïveté about the worldwide political environment that had already sown the seeds of World War II (WWII), and the somewhat ineffective alliances between the nations. Avard Fairbanks’s grandparents, John Boylston Fairbanks and Sarah Van Wagoner, crossed the plains as Mormon pioneers and eventually settled in Payson, Utah. Avard’s father, also John B. Fairbanks, was born in Payson in 1855. John showed early promise as an artist and was mentored by another Utah artist, John Hafen.
In 1890, he studied art in Paris at the Académie Julian under the sponsorship of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to learn muralist techniques. Following his return to Utah, Fairbanks completed work in the Salt Lake Temple before moving to Provo, where he received an appointment at the Brigham Young Academy to teach art. Avard T. Fairbanks was born in 1897 in Provo. Avard’s mother, Lilly, died from an accident when he was a baby, and his siblings cared for the household. Even with these difficulties, Avard’s artistic talents were apparent early in his life.1 About 1910 John Fairbanks brought Avard to New York, where he gained permission for his son to copy art in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. During this period a benefactor became interested in Avard’s training and used her influence to obtain a scholarship at the Art Students League, where he studied with James Earl Fraser. He received a second scholarship the following year. Avard frequently modeled animals at the New York Zoological Park, where he probably received informal instruction from Charles R. Knight, A. Phimister Proctor, and Anna Hyatt.2 After two years in New York, financial difficulties forced the Fairbanks to return to Salt Lake City, but John wanted Avard to receive additional training. In 1913, therefore, he and
