You are about to view a very rare film. The medal maker was made in 1929 of an important event in the arts, specifically in the fields of sculpture, numismatics, and one of sculpture's most ancient and esteemed forms, medallic art. The film records the actions of a master sculptor creating a very significant medal, the Special Medal of Honor of the National Sculpture Society The highest achievement award of America's oldest and most prestigious sculptural organization.
This rare film shows Laura Garden Fraser in all the many steps required to create this distinguished work at the very instant of its creation. We are privileged to view these rare images preserved on a film presumed lost for half a century. Later, I will have more comments on this valuable documentary of American art history.
First we will see Laura Fraser in her New York studio. Every sculpture is born in the mind of an artist working in plastic three-dimensional forms. Laura Fraser joined the famed Malvina Hoffman as the first women sculptors in this country who sought expression in metals. Artists test design ideas in sketches, ranging in size from thumbnail sketches to oversized drawings. They seek symbols to express their chosen theme.
Laura Fraser has chosen Pegasus, the age-old symbol of artistic inspiration for artists of all time, superimposed with a male nude holding a mallet, symbolizing the master sculptor. Perhaps Laura Fraser absorbed the principles of medallic design set down by Malvina Hoffman. and from her husband, sculptor James Earl Fraser, who designed the Buffalo nickel and stated, simplify your design, employ appropriate symbols, use care in spacing all elements, and execute the design with style. Preparing a model for a coin or medal, something Fraser had done dozens of times before, starts with a background plate.
She chooses to prepare hers on clay mounted on a wooden board. Another way is to use a plaster plate, often slightly basin-shaped, particularly for a coin model. Renaissance medalists preferred slate to wood to work on. They had learned that porous wood absorbs moisture from the clay, which can deform the model.
Shellac is applied as a barrier to moisture. Clay is applied a little at a time to form a layer about an inch or two deep. Plastilene, a modern form of modeling clay, which is oil-based as opposed to water-based clay, comes in varying degrees of firmness. The model is oversized three times the intended diameter of the metal. The clay is smoothed.
The surface of the clay is worked several times with a straight edge, a common technique. It is important as this surface will eventually be the background of the metal. The design from the final sketch is transferred to the clay by dividers, three times the size of the drawing. An outline of the design is formed on the clay surface with a wood boaster, a tool for carving and shaping the highly plastic clay. Detail and lettering will be formed at a later stage in the modeling.
Small clay pellets are added to the model, one at a time. and a technique of sculptural modeling as old as time. The artist's nimble fingers shape the pellets as she applies them to the background clay. The process of refining the three-dimensional shape continues throughout the entire stage of modeling. The suppleness of the clay allows her to mold the form in stylized or realistic ways.
realistic modulated relief the goal is to transform her original two-dimensional design into a bar relief surface which can be converted into a hard metal form that can be copied reduced and rendered into a die the die allows her original design to be struck into permanent metal miniatures Metals become timeless replicas of this bas-relief design. The height of the relief on the original model is important. Even though this will be reduced when cutting the die, at the same ratio as the reduction of the diameter, in this case by one-third, the relief determines the thickness of the metal and the number of blows on the press. As each blow increases the cost, only the most important medallic issues are designed as large as this medallion.
In addition to high, medium and low relief called by their Italian names Alto, Mezzo and Basso and sunken or intaglio relief, there is also very low relief for coins only a few thousands of an inch on the struck coin. The Fraser Studio assistant often has to serve as a live model for the human form that was taking shape. Just as models have always been used for sculpture in the round, here Laura Fraser's trained eye translates the anatomical form to pliable clay. Modifying, improving, refining, adding detail to bring the model to as perfect a three-dimensional relief as possible, the artist's work continues for days and weeks. The film was shot in the later part of 1929 and perhaps early 1930. The location we have seen so far was a Fraser's studio in New York City.
The cost of the film was underwritten by the Medallic Art Company, which had just come under the control of Clyde Curley Treese. Treese was an accountant from Indiana who had been hired a decade earlier by the founders of the company, Henri and Felix Wheel. Thank you. To put their fledgling company onto a sounder business basis, the Wheels, both sculptors'assistants, had acquired machines from their native France that would allow them to do enlarging and reducing work for sculptors, both reliefs and small statues.
Clyde Trees desperately wanted to promote and advertise to secure more business for the struggling firm. The conservative Wheels, who had obtained all their previous business from sculptors exclusively, did not want to spend a nickel for such frivolities. Threats of buying out each other came up during many arguments that ensued.
Finally, in 1929, Trees had succeeded in borrowing enough money to buy out the Wheel Brothers. But a provision of that purchase proved beneficial to the Wheels. They agreed that one of the two brothers would be at work at all times. This meant, in effect, each brother had a six-month vacation, often spent taking their families on a trip to their native France every year or so.
Tree started promoting, writing letters to firms and organizations, advertising in magazines, starting the Society of Medalists, and funding this film. Laura Fraser continues the creative process by adding lettering to her model. She has made the model for the reverse by the same method as the obverse.
Here the sculptor has modeled most of the lettering on the reverse. Only two letters remain to be completed. Lettering is often the most tedious part of modeling.
She rolls thin ropes of clay to be applied to her model to form the letters. Laura Fraser has chosen this technique to form the ideal rounded stems and curves of the letter forms. They will not have any undercuts if applied firmly to the clay background. Other techniques for modeling letters include carving each letter or making a negative cast of letters needed and applying the positive cast in clay or plaster.
Custom then dictated that lettering always appear in a positive cast. capital letters although Paul Manship once did a metal with caps and small caps on one side and caps and lowercase on the reverse the letter forms may be any typeface or style with or without serifs whatever the designer chooses the lettering should be in harmony with the theme of the metal as a type styles can have symbolic meaning as well The studio assistant prepares the plaster casting. A long strip of galvanized iron or other metal three or four inches wide forms a circular fence around the clay model. It is held tight as the weight of the plaster could distort it during pouring. A fairly thin mixture of plaster and water is spatulated, that is, stirred beneath the surface not to introduce air into the mixture.
Each minute of spatulation reduces the curing time by one or two minutes. It is first brushed into all crevices of the pattern, worked around into all parts of the design to eliminate air bubbles. Should bubbles appear, the caster blows on them until they disappear. The remainder of the plaster is poured until an inch to an inch and a half thickness is formed. After 30 or 40 minutes the plaster cast is hard.
It gives off heat as it hardens. When it is cool to the touch it can be separated by running a dull knife around between mold and cast. It can then be pried apart, but it must be lifted straight up not to harm the delicate edges of the relief.
Once removed, the cast needs to be touched up. Sometimes air is trapped in the mold near the rise of the relief and forms voids in the casting. Thus, the edges of device and lettering are closely examined and repaired where necessary.
The cast is separated with greater ease if the mold is first coated with a release agent. It is not shown here, but the trick of the trade at the time, and still used by sculptors today, was to lightly dust talc on a clay surface. For plaster, vegetable oil can be sprayed on, or after World War II, silicon spray is commonly used.
Laura Fraser touches up the positive plaster cast again, near the relief or lettering where casting flaws may occur. Working in the positive is somewhat easier because the final image, though larger in size, is constantly in front of the artist. Crisp detail is defined and sharpened. The reverse is cast in the same way. manner as the obverse shown earlier.
The reverse pattern is cast from the original clay. This negative model is made from that first plaster casting. It was necessary that the release agent be as thin as possible.
possible. A diluted vegetable oil is sprayed on the mold evenly before pouring the plaster. The positive reverse is cast from the negative mold.
Each of these has to be examined by the sculptor who removes casting imperfections, bubble voids and sharpens up all edges and detail. The positive plaster casts made in the artist's studio, when in perfect state, are taken to the bronze foundry. This is Roman bronze in New York City.
The caster closely examines... final plaster now serving as a pattern for a hard metal bronze casting. He places a pattern on a bed of green sand relief side up within the mold frame called a drag.
A cope is placed over the drag to contain the sand to form the mold from which the bronze will be cast. Fine sand is sifted over the pattern and green sand is shoveled over this. Then the caster packs the green sand with his fingers and a bench rammer. Laura Fraser has chosen this old technique to make the metal patterns for the two sides of the metal. She chose to have foundry casts made instead of having galvanos made by electroformed casting.
The master will now prepare a mold with a core in which to cast the pattern. The core material must be removed to form the thickness of the bronze casting. It is chipped away and discarded. This area will form the body of the casting.
Because it was made as a foundry cast, the final metal pattern will impart to the final metal somewhat of a more sculptural look, ideal for a sculpture award medal. Foundry workers pour the molten bronze metal after gates and sprues were formed in the mold to allow the metal to enter the mold and the air to escape. The pour is done with a two-man crucible. Metal casting is one of man's oldest techniques, yet experience is necessary at every step of the process.
Knowledge of metal composition, furnace temperature, metal flow, and a dozen other variants of metal casting are all necessary. All are required to make a successful cast. Even so, faulty castings can occur.
After cooling, the bronze casting is removed from the mold. The sand sticking to the casting is removed. is easily removed by a tap to the edge and by wire brushing.
The result is a perfect bronze cast, the exact replica of Laura Fraser's three-dimensional bas-relief design in hard metal form. The models for both sides of the medal are now complete. Next, the dyes are made from these patterns. Before we see how dyes are made, I will relate what happened when this film was first shown to a large group of sculptors. Because of the Depression in the mid-1930s, the showing was delayed.
Often at this terrible time in American history, the employees at Medallic Art Company worked only half days. There just was not enough demand. for medallic work.
It was not until spring 1937 that Clyde Trees decided to polish his company's image and give a sit-down dinner to which he invited the members of the National Sculpture Society. The highlight of the event was to be the showing of this film, The Medal Maker. He hired a caterer and a photographer. He ordered a Saint Gaudens medal struck as a party favor. This handsome plaquette with the inscription on the reverse, Sculptor's Dinner of the Medallic Art Company, April 9, 1937, was given to every person who attended.
He had sent out invitations hoping two dozen people would attend. Instead, 75 people accepted the invitation, severely straining the facilities of the tiny shop. Presses were shoved aside, machines pushed into a corner. Tables were set up on the first floor of the cramped premises at 210 East 51st Street in Midtown Manhattan.
They shoehorned everyone into the crowded offices on the second floor and showed this film before the dinner was served downstairs to those prominent practitioners of their art, whose names read today like a who's who of Mozart's sculptors. But the climax of the evening was still to come. After supper was served and speeches were delivered, The New York police came to the party.
A woman had been killed a block away earlier that evening. An eyewitness said the perpetrator was dressed like a sculptor. Although no one who attended the dinner wore a smock, the police had to interview every person in attendance.
As Felix Wiel said in his memoirs dictated a decade later, quote, I'm sure this event remained in the minds of all those who attended, unquote. in more ways than he and Clyde Treece ever intended. Laura Garden Fraser's models are used as patterns to be reduced and cut as dyes at this tiny two-story shop on New York's east side, now a frame shop. The key to metalmaking is a Janvier dye engraving pantograph invented by Victor Janvier in 1892. This amazing machine converts a sculptor's three-dimensional pattern into a die of the required size.
Modalic Arts founder Henri Riel learned of this machine in France, became proficient in its operation, and imported the first Janvier to America. The metal pattern is affixed in upright position to a large wheel that slowly rotates when the machine is running. A tracing point is attached to a long beam.
which is pivoted at the opposite end. The tracing point is allowed to move the beam in and out as it plays across the face of the pattern, somewhat like a phonograph player. The movement of the beam controls the depth of penetration and the cutting by the cutting point as it mills the face of the die. Thus the modulated relief in the pattern is reproduced with exacting fidelity. and perfect reduction in the dye.
After the dye is cut the first time, a finer tracing point and a finer cutting point is used. Three separate cuts will reproduce all the sculptor's original detail. During this amazing performance, oil is played across the face of the dye to carry away the tiny dye particles and to lubricate the cutting point. The steel die was cut in nearly dead soft state.
It is hardened by heating in an annealing furnace and slowly immersing it completely in water. Hardened tool steel from which the dye is made can withstand this treatment until it is capable of striking thousands of metals. The dye can become brittle in time, but with proper care it can last for decades.
This 400 ton press cuts out the circular blanks like a giant cookie cutter. A punch pushes the bronze through the circular aperture, producing blanks which fall into a tote basket below that. They are cut out of bronze strip of correct gauge. These four inch diameter blanks are the size of the intended metal.
They are then cleaned and annealed to soften them for striking. The decision was to strike this metal inside a collar, a restraining ring that forms the edge of the metal. Here the die is trimmed on a lathe to fit inside the collar.
This mammoth 1,000 ton press is required to deliver a blow strong enough to strike a medallion of such large size. Even so, it will require many blows to bring up all the relief. Metal striking is a result of technology developed over the last 200 years. Closely related to the manufacture of coins, where presses...
typically strike with a single blow, a coin of less than two inches. Metal presses must be strong enough to strike a much larger metal. The obverse die is placed on the bed of the press. The collar is placed in position on top of that.
The blank is placed inside the collar, flat against the lower die. The reverse die is placed on top to fit within the collar. The smaller blank on top of that is just a die shim. to concentrate the blow.
Rotating the dyes between blows is done to spread the pressure equally. This procedure requires considerable time and attention of the press operator. Normally both dies are locked in fixed position with the large bolts seen in the upper part of the press. Care must be taken by the press operator to see that the two dies are orientated correctly.
Individual metals are softened, annealed, by heating with a blowtorch and quickly immersing in water. This heat treating technique affects the molecular structure. It softens bronze while the same process hardens or tempers iron, as in a dye that we saw before, heated and slowly immersed in water.
Stamping with enormous pressure from this press causes only a portion of the surface metal to be displaced with each blow. The surface metal becomes work hardened and will not move irrespective of how many more blows are struck. Bronze metals need to be annealed repeatedly to be struck again and again.
For a medallion this size this process is very difficult. repeated at least a dozen or more times. The first step of any finishing is sand blasting. Fine grain granules of sand are blown out of this nozzle so fast it looks like liquid.
Striking makes the metal surface hard and smooth. Sandblasting breaks up this smooth surface, pelting the surface with microscopic craters which act as cups to hold liquid for all further processing. Liquid chemicals are always used either for patination or highlighting.
After sandblasting's first step, the metal is immersed in a chemical with high sulfur concentration, as ammonium sulfide, shown in the first bowl on the left. Time is critical here. the metal darkens. In 10 seconds it will be black.
It is then rinsed in water to stop the sulfide's action. The chemical in the third bowl is a pumice solution. It is used to highlight the surface to remove the dark coloration on the background and high points this dark coloration remains in the crevices and the two-toned look reinforces the relief character other patina processes could be used to give the metal other colors or finishes permanently enhancing the surface lacquer is sprayed on both sides of the medallion completing its creation Daniel Chester French, shown here in his New York studio, was the first to receive this special medal of honor.
His famous sculptures, including the Seated Lincoln in Washington, D.C., brought him this honor. Four presidents of the National Sculpture Society, past and present, assembled to confer the award. On behalf of the Society, Adolph Weinman makes a presentation statement as James Earl Fraser, the director of the National Sculpture Society, is here. Herman McNeil and Herbert Adams look on. French admires his award medal.
The design and execution of Laura Garden Fraser's medal meets their critical acclaim. It is indeed gratifying when other sculptors, the artist's own peers, display their enthusiasm for their colleague's design. James Fraser relates some of his wife's techniques in preparing the model.
and her choice of the symbols to those sophisticated and experienced sculptors. Aware of the effort that went into its creation, they appreciate the medal more than anyone else and recognize it as the culmination of inspired design and gifted sculptural execution worthy of their society's highest award. I'm Elizabeth Jones and I hope you have enjoyed our production as much as I have and that you learned about the art of metal making. Thank you.