Campus

Richard W. Bock Sculpture Museum

Hours: W, F 1:00 p.m. - 5:00 p.m., Sat 10:00 a.m. - 2:00 p.m.
Greenville College, Greenville, IL 62246
(618-664-6724)
sharon.grimes

The Sculptor

In the late summer of 1891, Richard W. Bock established his first permanent sculpture studio in downtown Chicago. He had just returned from three years of schooling in Berlin, and at the Ecole des Beaux Arts School in Paris, and was ready to begin his career in the city where he had been raised and trained as a carver and modeler after having come to America with his German-born family.

Almost immediately he obtained three major commissions. For the Chicago Columbian Exposition, which opened in 1893, he executed the exterior architectural sculpture for two of the Fair's major buildings, the Mining and Electricity Exposition Halls, and several less important projects for private groups. At this same time he won a national competition for a large bronze figural sculpture to be placed at the Indianapolis Public Library, and he also obtained the interior sculpture work in Chicago's famous Schiller Building, a structure designed by the noted American architect Louis Sullivan. It was in Sullivan's office that Bock first met Frank Lloyd Wright.

In 1895, after having won another national sculpture competition, Richard Bock completed work on the Elijah P. Lovejoy Monument at Alton, Illinois, and a bronze group at Chickamauga, Georgia. In the last years of the 19th century, he executed all of the sculpture for the vast Machinery and Electricity Building at the Omaha World's Fair of 1898, and the pediments of Omaha's new Burlington Railroad Station. During this time he was contacted by Frank Lloyd Wright and asked to execute several sculptures for the architect's home in Oak Park, and other works for several of Wright's architectural commissions.

The early years of the 20th century were spent in completing the work on several architectural sculptures in the Chicago area, the winning of another national competition sponsored by the State of Illinois for the Shiloh Battlefield, and the execution of a figural group for the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair. For a ten-year period beginning in 1903, Bock worked almost exclusively with Frank Lloyd Wright on a fountain project and executed architectural models for Wright's Unity Temple. The Mason City, Iowa bank figures (1909), and the reliefs at Wright's Midway Gardens were the last collaborations of Bock and Wright. They had been close friends, their families had spent considerable time together, and Wright had even designed a home and studio for his sculptor friend.

After 1913, Bock worked for several other Chicago-area architects, obtained commissions for funerary monuments, designed window displays for Marshall Field's on State Street in Chicago, and accepted several requests for portraits, including one of the Governor of Illinois and numerous individuals at Northwestern University's Dental School. Prior to becoming the head of the Sculpture Department at the University of Oregon in 1929, he spent three years completing the many figural works for the Hippach Chapel at Chapel Hill Gardens West in Villa Park, Illinois.

While at the University of Oregon, Bock executed a series of lunettes and capitals for a courtyard of the new Museum of Art, and also undertook several portraits in Portland and Eugene. He retired in 1932.

After returning to his home in River Forest, Illinois, he completed his career with a design for a colossus for the 1933 Century of Progress Exposition at Chicago, but the project was never realized. Many of his works were crated in hopes that they would be part of a national traveling sculpture exhibition, but they remained in storage.

In the 1940s, the sculptor and his wife moved to California, where with the help of his son and the architect William Gray Purcell, he compiled his autobiography. Succumbing to Parkinson's Disease in 1949, Bock died at the age of 84.

The Collection

A former Greenville College art history professor, Donald P. Hallmark, while researching the life and work of Richard W. Bock, learned that after Bock's death in 1949, Bock's son, Thorwald Methven, and daughter, Dorathi Bock Pierre, had kept many of their father's works in storage and maintained all of the drawings, documents, and photographs. The children preserved the collection because they shared their father's dream that some day the objects would be displayed.

In 1972, they presented the Richard W. Bock Sculpture Collection to Greenville College on the condition that the works be placed on permanent exhibition. In the fall of 1972, Hallmark brought the first collection pieces from Los Angeles, California to Greenville, Illinois. Many of the art objects had been in storage since 1932. Under Hallmark's direction, his wife Linda, the art department, and volunteers began the process of cataloging, cleaning, and restoring the many works. The last major shipment of art objects arrived at Greenville College in early 1975. The museum opened the fall of 1975.

The collection consists of over 300 plaster and bronze sculptures of varying development of Bock's ideas and early conceptions for projects and commissions. A number of the renderings were made in the 1880s in Europe.

The collection also contains several architectural drawings by Frank Lloyd Wright, which have never before been publicly displayed. Bock served as Wright's sculptor for many years, during which time they became close personal friends and collaborated on numerous projects. Several items designed by Wright are in the collection, including a rectilinear oak table and a leaded stained glass window.

There are numerous personal letters in the collection written by Richard W. Bock, Frank Lloyd Wright, Alphonso Iannelli, Karl Bitter, and William Gray Purcell. The Bock family art library contains several hundred volumes on artists, and architects, and there are numerous photographs of the sculptor's projects, and studios. Paintings by Harry Wallace Methven (1864-1947), the sculptor's brother-in-law who resided in Paris; ornate gilded picture frames; and wood working tools belonging to Bock's father are also on display.

The Museum

The historic Almira College House, constructed in 1855, serves as the museum facility for the Richard W. Bock Sculpture Collection. Steeped in 19th century tradition, the home was briefly used as a classroom building until Hogue Hall was constructed. In 1892, the institution was renamed Greenville College, and the house passed into private hands.

In 1962, the house was reacquired by the college and served as a residence for college students. Today the home has been restored in keeping with the graciousness of the 19th century that provides a complementing environment for the display of the Bock Collection.

The Curator

In 2000, Sharon E. Grimes was appointed the curator/director of the Richard W. Bock Sculpture Museum after serving as the assistant curator since 1996. Ms. Grimes is an art historian and teaches art history in the Art Department of Greenville College. She has a BA degree from Greenville College, where she majored in art history (ITEP), and a MA degree in art history and criticism from Webster University.

Ms. Grimes has helped with the loaning of several pieces from the collection that have traveled to noted museums for temporary exhibits, and has aided people doing research on Bock and related items.

Last updated: May 2, 2005