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

A newspaper clipping from the Waukesha Plaindealer mentioning George’s father and dated June 20th, 1872 states: “Rev. J. H. Barnard from Kankakee, Ill. [map], came here on Tuesday last to exercise one of his official duties. We are glad to see his genial face again among us.”

In the 1880 U.S. Federal Census, GGB’s sister, Mattie is listed as being age 5 with a birth place of Illinois.

The Kankakee County Museum web site states, “George Grey Barnard spent the formative years of his life, from age 5* to age 13, in Kankakee. Those childhood years were imprinted indelibly on his mind. For the rest of Barnard’s long lifetime… through his years of growing fame and success as a sculptor… childhood days and childhood friends in Kankakee remained a vivid presence.”

*This is contradicted by the 1870 Census which places the Barnard family in Waukesha, Wis. GGB would have turned age 5 in May 1868.

In his article, “Dramas in Stone,” W. M. van der Weyde writes that George “played with modeling wax as a boy of ten, but he had no thought then of being a sculptor.” (Source: The Mentor, Vol. II, No. 2, Serial No. 241, March 1923, page 20)

Several years before GGB past away, he donated a number** of his studio plaster statues and studies for display in Central School (at Merchant Street and Indiana Avenue, demolished in 1964). The surviving pieces from that gift, George Barnard’s legacy to Kankakee, form the core of the Museum’s collection.

**The Kankakee School District #111 web site states: “the sculptor donated 100 of his studio plaster statues and studies. Twenty of these statues are now displayed at the Kankakee Historical Society Museum.”