WORLD WAR I ROTUNDA SCULPTOR

Bruce Wilder Saville

Sculptor Bruce Wilder Saville created the large bronze "Victorious Soldier" sculpture and 4 bas-relief panels that were originally part of the War Memorial Wing of the old State Museum in what is now the Cartoon Library lobby.  Saville began art studies at the Boston Art Normal School and traveled to Paris to study art. At the beginning of WWI, Saville enlisted in the French Ambulance Corps and served for for a year transferring to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in 1917 when the US entered the war.

Saville’s military service during World War I gave him artistic insight into the emotions of war, H. Hobart Holly wrote in an article published in the Spring 1986 newsletter of the Quincy Historical Society. “His art career was then interrupted by service in World War I, an experience which undoubtedly gave him true feeling for the war memorials he would create,” Holly wrote.  

After working for four years in the studios of Theo Alice Ruggles Kitson and Henry Hudson Kitson, Saville moved to Columbus, OH in 1921 where he headed Ohio State’s department of sculpture (1921-1925) and also taught a modeling class at the Columbus Art School (now CCAD) until 1925. In 1925 he returned to Boston to sculpt full-time and later moved to New York City. In the 1932 he moved to Santa Fe, New Mexico to study American Indian crafts and culture and he resided and worked there until his death in 1938 from influenza at the age of 46.

Saville has twenty-three works listed in the Smithsonian American Art Museum’s Art Inventories Catalog.