Philip Kearny, (sculpture).

Philip Kearny, (sculpture).

Brown, Henry Kirke, 1814-1886, sculptor.

Robert Wood & Company, founder.

Philip Kearny, (sculpture).

General Philip Kearny, (sculpture).

Cast 1873. Dedicated Dec. 28, 1880. Relocated 1925. Rededicated Aug. 20, 1925. Relocated 1959-1961.

Digital Reference:

Sculpture: bronze; Base: granite.

Sculpture: approx. 6 ft x 3 ft. 10 in. x 3 ft. 10 in.; Base: approx. 7 ft. x 5 ft. 5 in. x 5 ft. 5 in. (800 lbs.).

(On front of bronze base:) GEN. PHILIP KEARNY U.S.V.A. (On left side of bronze base:) H.K. Brown SCULPT/1873 (On bronze base:) Robert Wood & Co / Bronze Founders (On front of granite base, in raised letters:) PHILIP KEARNY./MAJOR GENERAL U.S.VOLUNTEERS/BORN JUNE 2, 1815,/KILLED IN BATTLE AT CHANTILLY VA./SEPTEMBER 1, 1862 (On lower front of granite base:) KEARNY (On back of base:) ERECTED BY AUTHORITY OF THE STATE OF NEW JERSEY/A.D. 1880 signed Founder's mark appears.

A bronze portrait of General Philip Kearny portrayed in his Civil War uniform standing before his troops. His military overcoat is draped over his proper left shoulder to disguise his missing left arm lost during the Mexican War. In his proper right hand he holds a sword vertically out in front of him. The sculpture rests atop a tall square base adorned with recessed inscription panels.

Portrait male -- Kearny, Philip -- Full length

Occupation -- Military -- General

Dress -- Uniform -- Military Uniform

Outdoor Sculpture -- New Jersey -- Newark

Administered by City of Newark, Newark, New Jersey

Located Military Park, Newark, New Jersey

Formerly Located State House, Trenton, New Jersey 1873-1880.

General Philip Kearny, son of a wealthy Newark family, joined the Army at age twenty-three after studying law. He became a member of the First United States Dragoons, a cavalry troop that fought the Native Americans in the West. He also fought in the Mexican War where he lost his left arm while fighting in the 1846 Battle of Churubusco. Later he joined the French forces fighting in Algeria and helped to liberate Italy from under Austrian rule. He was killed during the Civil War at the Battle of Chantilly, Virginia on Sept. 1, 1862.

In March 1868, the New Jersey legislature approved funding for a bronze portrait of Major General Philip Kearny to be placed in Statuary Hall at the U.S. Capitol. The cast was finished in 1873, but on its way to Washington, the statue was diverted to the State House in Trenton where it ended up in an obscure hallway. In 1880 the mistake was discovered and concerned citizens of Newark petitioned to relocate the sculpture to its original destination in Statuary Hall, and if not there, then to a suitable location in Newark where Kearney was born and raised. The petition was successful and in 1880, the statue was installed to Newark's Military Park on a Quincy granite base designed by Henry Kirke Brown and architect Paul G. Botticher to resemble an embankment in a war fortification.

In 1925, the sculpture was moved from the southern section of Military Park to the northern section to make way for the installation of Gutzon Borglum's "Wars of American" monument. During the 1925 move, the sculpture was given a new base. In 1954, public officials from Kearny, New Jersey lobbied unsuccessfully to have the statue relocated to their city named in honor of General Kearny. Newark public officials refused to move the statue, noting that Newark was Kearny's ancestral and boyhood home.

In 1959, the statue was removed from Military Park during the construction of the Military Park underground parking garage. When the statue returned to its Military Park site in 1961, the new landscape designs called for the general to face west instead of east, and thus his back was turned to Kearny, New Jersey. This concerned Kearny public officials and in response, Newark turned the statue around to the east so that the general was again facing in the direction of Kearny, New Jersey.

During the statue's 1925 relocation from southern end to the northern end of Military Park, a zinc box containing newspaper articles from 1880, documents, photos, coins, etc. was discovered in the statue's base. The box was in good condition and was relocated to the statue's new base at the northern end of Military Park. After the statue was removed in 1959, construction workers excavating for Military Park underground garage rediscovered the box and the contents were then documented. IAS files contain a listing of the documents.

In April 1993, vandals knocked the statue off its base. During the fall, the rivets holding the head popped and the head came off. The general's sword was apparently stolen in an earlier act of vandalism. When the statue was taken away for conservation, Kearny public officials seized this opportunity to request that a mold be taken so that a second cast of the statue could be made for the city of Kearny. Newark officials agreed and in September 1994, the city of Kearny dedicated its own statue. In return, Kearny officials allowed Newark to make a copy of the replacement sword created for the Kearny statue.

IAS files contain a copy of the minutes from Newark's Feb. 3, 1880 Assembly meeting discussing the statue's relocation to Newark; transcriptions of newspaper articles appearing in The Sentinel of Freedom (Newark, NJ), Feb. 10, 1880 and March 23, 1880; the Newark Sunday Call, Feb. 8, 1880; and the Newark Daily Advertiser from Nov. 8, 1880 to Dec. 28, 1880; newspaper articles from the Newark Call, Jan. 17, 1926; the Newark News, July 23, 1954; July 25, 1954; July 29, 1954; May 10, 1961; May 11, 1961; May 14, 1961; The Star-Ledger (Newark, NJ), May 10, 1961; May 11, 1961; New York Times, May 11, 1961; April 2, 1993; April 10, 1993; and Sept. 8, 1994. Additional information on the statue is available in the Newark Library's New Jersey Reference files.

Index of American Sculpture, University of Delaware, 1985

"Newark Museum Quarterly," Newark, N.J.: Newark Museum Association, Winter 1975.

Save Outdoor Sculpture, New Jersey survey, 1995.

The Star-Ledger (Newark, NJ), April 10, 1993.

The information provided about this artwork was compiled as part of the Smithsonian American Art Museum's Inventories of American Painting and Sculpture database, designed to provide descriptive and location information on artworks by American artists in public and private collections worldwide.

Inventories of American Painting and Sculpture, Smithsonian American Art Museum, P.O. Box 37012, MRC 970, Washington, D.C. 20013-7012

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