George Grey Barnard, Cloisters, Washington Heights | His Family, His Travels, His Sculpture

In his book, Modern Art: The Men, The Movements, The Meaning, Thomas Craven writes that George “passed his boyhood in the backwoods of Iowa, collecting birds and animals, and to preserve his specimens, stretched their skins over clay models. His facility with clay made him a local phenomenon, and when, at the age of thirteen, he modeled an astonishing portrait head of his sister, his career was signed and sealed.” (Source: © 1934, page 292)

Expanding on this, Calvin Tomkins writes, “Barnard spent a good part of his Iowa childhood stuffing birds and small animals, a hobby that led to his first job as a taxidermist for the Iowa Academy of Sciences.” (Source: Merchants and Masterpieces: The Story of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, © 1970, page 245)

“While still a boy he amused himself with his hobby of taxidermy, creating a little museum of stuffed birds and animals in the barn of the parsonage. But no one in the family gave much thought to his pursuing a career in sculpture, and eventually he was taken to a local jeweler to learn the skills of the engraver. He seems to have enjoyed his work and soon became quite proficient at it,” wrote Wayne Craven in his book Sculpture in America. (Source: © 1968, page 442)

In the 1880 U.S. Federal Census, we see that indeed the Barnard family has once again relocated. This time to Muscatine, Iowa [map]. GGB is listed as age 18 with an occupation of “clerks in jewelry store”. (Source: 1880 U.S. Federal Census, Second Ward, Muscatine, Muscatine County, Iowa, page 40, enumerated on the 17th & 19th day of June. Image obtained from Ancestry.com, and is being used for personal research purposes)