HISTORY

1892
Paul begins his art studies at the St. Paul Institute of Art.

1904
Upon graduation, Paul moves to New York City and enrolls in the Art Students League.

1905
When not at school in New York, Paul serves as an assistant to sculptor Solon Borglum in Silvermine, Connecticut. There he meets Isabel McIlwaine, the daughter of Borglum family friends. They become engaged soon after.

1906
Paul has his Phrenological Character chart done in April. Phrenology was a pseudoscience developed in the 1700s that sought to connect the grooves on one’s head to aspects of the person’s character. An annotated bust of a human head was used to conduct readings and to reference locations on one’s head and physiognomy that were believed to define one’s personality and traits. The report stated that:

• Paul has a “quick ability to analyze, compare, and see differences that exist.” Comparison is his strongest intellectual faculty and it makes him a keen critic. Paul has a “dexterity in remembering the forms of the things that he creates himself…”
• “You care more for Nature in her wildest moods and in her most extravagant phases than you do for the smaller lines of expression, or for a business that is narrow and limited in its scope.”
• “Integrity, Ideality, and Constructiveness are three of the most important faculties that you have to work with.”

1907
For a brief period, Paul moves to Philadelphia to attend classes with Cape Ann summer resident and sculptor Charles Grafly at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts.

1908
Paul is an assistant to Viennese sculptor Isidore Konti. Isamu Noguchi is a fellow assistant of Konti at the same time.

1909
Paul becomes the youngest artist yet to be awarded the American Prix de Rome, affording him three years working and traveling abroad, with Rome as his base.

1912
Paul returns to New York City and moves into a studio at 27 Lexington Avenue.

1913
Paul Manship and Isabel marry on January 1st and welcome their first child Pauline Frances Manship in December.

1915
Paul is awarded the Gold Medal at the San Francisco Panama-Pacific Exposition, winning out over artists from over 24 countries. Manship has made it!

In the summer, along with many of the established and aspiring artists and cultural workers escaping New York City, Paul travels with his family to the Cornish Art Community in Plainfield, New Hampshire. During that summer up North, Paul visits Cape Ann with his New York City friend, painter Maxfield Parrish.

1918
Paul completes the bust of John D. Rockefeller, which is carved by his studio assistant, Gaston Lachaise. Lachaise, another 20th-century sculptor pioneer, was already an accomplished and highly-skilled sculptor, though his talent was yet to be recognized by the art world.

Paul attempts to volunteer for the war effort however his chronic asthma makes him ineligible to serve in the Army. He subsequently decides to join the American Ambulance Corps in Italy. However, during his passage to Europe he contracts the flu and by the time he recovers, the armistice is signed. Paul spends his recovery time in Italy playing cards with architect Lawrence White (son of Stanford White) at the Grand Hotel – the only available accommodations in Rome that had heat.

1921
The Manships move to London for the summer and later to Paris, where they welcome their second child, Elizabeth “Chou Chou” Robinson Manship.

1926
Grace Rainer Rogers commissions Paul to create the Paul J. Rainey Memorial Gateway. This fantastic entrance to the Bronx Zoo is almost three stories high. It costs $250,000 and eight years to realize the gateway.

Paul employs the animal figures from the Bronx Zoo gates in many other arrangements and at various sizes to create “new” works, such as the Group of Bears, illustrated in his Lanesville garden.// Paul completes Indian Hunter and His Dog and casts it at the Alex Rudier Foundry in Paris.

Paul completes Indian Hunter and His Dog in Paris and casts it at Alex Rudier Foundry in Paris.

1927
The Manship’s third child and only son, John Paul Manship, is born on January 16th in New York City.

1929
The Manship’s last child, Sarah Jane Manship, is born in Neuilly-Sur-Seine, France.

1930
The Society of Medalists commission Paul Manship to create the second issue published for its membership. Tongue in cheek, Manship shares his thoughts about Prohibition by creating a medal celebrating Dionysus, the Greek god of winemaking. The medal’s inscription reads: HAIL TO DIONYSUS WHO FIRST DISCOVERED THE MAGIC OF THE GRAPE.

1931
Nellie Simmons Meir analysizes Paul’s hands, including “Character Sketches From Impressions of the Hands of Paul Manship” in her 1937 book, Lions’ Paws: The Story of Famous Hands.

1934
Paul completes The Prometheus Fountain, the 18-foot-tall, eight-ton sculpture in New York City’s Rockefeller Center. The Paul Rainey Memorial Gateway is also dedicated at the Bronx Zoo, New York City.

1935
Paul is the first American artist (and only the second foreign artist – Rodin was the first!) to be offered a solo exhibition at London’s Tate Gallery.

1936
The Manship family moves to 319 E. 72 Street on Manhattan’s Upper East Side between First and Second Avenue. Today the site is a parking lot.

1937
Paul begins serving on the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts, which he does until 1941.

1939
Unable to travel abroad because of the war, Paul arranges for his founder to finish the Celestial Sphere and install it in Geneva, Switzerland at the League of Nations, today’s United Nations headquarters.

Paul creates a replica of the Celestial Sphere for the World’s Fair in New York.

1944
The Manship family purchases over 15 acres of quarry land on Leverett Street in Lanesville, MA on April 8. The cost of the land is $2600. The property encompasses two large quarries, Canney’s and Butman’s. The plan is to build a house on the edge of Butman’s Quarry and a studio building overlooking Canney’s Quarry. On the same day the property is purchased, Manship buys the Story House on Pigeon Cove for $600. The house is disassembled and the 2.5 story house is rebuilt as a 1.5 story house on the Manship property with an expanded footprint.

Reflecting on days gone by, Prudence Fish, a neighbor and friend of the Manship family, wrote a letter to the community about her neighborhood and its importance in 2017.

1945
The Manship family summers in Lanesville at their “Starfield” estate for the first time. Paul is awarded the Gold Medal for sculpture by the National Institute of Arts and Letters and a retrospective exhibition in its galleries.

1948
Paul is elected President of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. As a member of the Academy, Paul socializes with leaders in the arts and letters, including Marilyn Monroe and her then husband, Arthur Miller.

John Manship graduates from Harvard in 1948. He receives a generous cash gift from his godmother, Grace Rainey Rogers, allowing him to travel and paint throughout Europe from 1948 to 1952.

Margaret Cassidy lives in Northampton, MA where she teaches Home Economics at the Clark School for the Deaf and receives a Master of Arts Degree in Education from UMass Amherst. At the same time, she pursues her interest in art making and art history, studying with Henry Rox at Mount Holyoke and Randolph Johnston at Smith College.

1950
Paul is elected President of the Century Club. On April 29 the Manship family purchases a small 700-square foot piece of land from their neighbors, the Kleimolas.

1961
Paul Manship and Eric Gugler receive an award from the National Sculpture Society for their collaboration on American military cemeteries abroad.

In July, Paul Manship celebrates his wife Isabel’s birthday with fellow Cape Ann sculptors.

1963
John Manship marries Margaret Cassidy on October 12.

1966
Paul Manship dies at the age of 80 on January 31 at his residence in the National Arts Club in New York City.

1967
Paul Manship’s last sculpture of Theodore Roosevelt for Roosevelt Island in the Potomac River is dedicated.

1969
Margaret and John exhibit together in a summer show in Tinton Falls, NJ, one of the first of many joint exhibitions that would follow throughout their careers. They lived for a time as itinerant artists, traveling around the country working in communities where they have connections. Margaret would often model sculptural portraits of the local children, while John paints pictures of the neighborhoods they visit.

1989
John Manship publishes a biography on his father, ”Paul Manship”.

2000
John Manship dies at the age of 73.

2011
Margaret wins an award for her sculpture of Robert Frost at the North Shore Arts Association.

2012
Margaret Cassidy Manship dies.

2015
The Manship Artists Residency incorporates as a nonprofit on November 29th.

2016
Manship Artists Residency secures 501(c)(3) nonprofit status on February 11th.

The Smithsonian American Art Museum conservator researches Manship’s sculpture and visits Starfield.

The Mass Cultural Council awards a feasibility study grant and The Artists Communities Alliance endorses the Manship Artists Residency’s business plan.

2017
Neighbor and friend to the family, Pru Fish, writes a letter of support about their neighborhood, Starfield, and the community’s importance on behalf of Manship Artists Residency to the National Trust for Historic Preservation.

The Mass Cultural Council awards Manship Artists Residency $207,000 to purchase property.

Manship Artists Residency purchases Starfield and hosts its first visiting artist, Diane KW.

Manship Artists Residency acquires a Folly Cove Designer Acorn Press and loans it to Gloucester’s O’Maley Innovation Middle School.

Manship Artists Residency forms a partnership with the Addison Gallery of American Art at Phillips Academy in Andover, MA to support the first cohort of artists.

The Geoffrey Richon Company begins renovations of the residence at Starfield.

2019
The Massachusetts Cultural Council names Manship Artists Residency a Commonwealth Award Finalist.

In May, the first phase of renovation is complete. Manship Artists Residency hosts its first resident artists, Bina Venkatraman (writer) and Andrew Fish (painter).

The Willie “Loco” Alexander exhibition in October and November draws a far-reaching audience.

Manship Artists Residency receives a Preservation Award for Adaptive Reuse from the Gloucester Historic Commission.

Scenes from CODA, the Oscar winner of Best Picture in 2021, are filmed at Starfield.

The Founding Board transitions to a Governing Board, from 8 to 13 members, and hires an Executive Director.

2020
Manship Artists Residency hosts The Optimist’s Telescope Book Talk with author Bina Venkataraman and Christopher Lydon at the Shalin Liu in Rockport, MA.

An “Art + Science” talk is held with Manship Artists Kim Collins Jermain and Dan Jay at the Gloucester Marine Genomics Institute.

Emmy-nominated Caroline Goulding records Bach and Ysayë in the Manship Barn Studio.

Manship Artists Residency launches “Outside @ Manship,” an initiative that allows over 80 artists to seek solace and inspiration at the Starfield property during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic.

2021
Manship Artists Residency hosts the first Annual Firefly Fiesta in June.

An outdoor Jazz concert series held in the Starfield garden is attended by almost 400 guests in August.

The ALight on MARS outdoor exhibition with the Boston Sculptors Gallery draws an audience of over 1500 attendees from the New England region and across the country. The exhibition runs from September to November.

Manship Artists Residency offers robust online programming including “Salon Talks” and an online virtual exhibition featuring 57 “Outside @ Manship” artists.

A bookkeeper and summer intern join the staff.

2022
Manship Artists Residency receives a National Sculpture Society award for the preservation of Starfield.

The first international resident artist, Yásnaya Elena Aguilar Gil of the Mixe people, presents a public talk on Indigenous Futures.

Screening of CODA at the Cabot Theater in Beverly with academy award winners offering talkback + signback afterwards.

Manship rehabilitates an outbuilding into a small studio and begins renovations of the gazebo, cupola, and barn windows.

College intern joins the staff.

2023
Resulting from a call for a composer in residence, The Great Marsh Concert premiered two new compositions and featured 75 young voices perfomring at Rockport Music’s Shalin Liu hall.

Seventeen sculptors exhibited 78 works in CONTINUUM: Cape Ann Sculptors Today, including six site-specifi c works. Over 700 people visited the six-week-long show.

A newly-identified firefly species was discovered residing at Starfield.

A studio was renovated and Paul Manship’s gazebo was recreated according to his original designs with new pear trees planted around it and which will be espaliered.

Five women artists of color began a collaboration as residents at Starfield and the Cape Ann Museum to create a participatory public art project based on their research and discoveries about the local history of slavery.