Contents:
- Early Life - Russia, the Young Artist, Going to America
- Thomas Green Clemson Statue - The Original
- Thomas Green Clemson Statue - Version Two
- The Cannons
- A Lifelong Clemson Connection
- Artist and Educator - Greenville, Brenau College, A Body of Work
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Early Life
Russia
Abraham Wolfe Davidson was born in 1903 in the province of Vitebsk in Russia. The youngest of seven boys, he grew up close to the families of his parents Chaim Meyer Davidson and Chasia Hillman Davidson.
When Davidson was 11, his parents began planning to leave Russia to join his uncle and three older brothers already in the United States. They were anxious to escape the increasing violent pogroms and acts of oppression against people of the Jewish faith in Russia. In addition, the family was targeted after the oldest brother, Aaron, returned from the United States and was arrested, and intentionally infected with fatal tuberculosis, for pro-Revolution activities.
The Davidson family's departure was delayed by World War I and the Russian Revolution. During the next seven tumultuous years they suffered through famine, violence and other hardships. Davidson’s father disappeared. They later learned he died after being caught in a skirmish between German and Red Army soldiers.
The Young Artist
From a young age, A. Wolfe Davidson showed a talent for carving. During his teens he created heads of Russian authors and later heroes of the Russian Revolution.
In 1919, he was noticed by a Red Army officer while trying to sell carved canes and other items to support himself and his mother. Sympathetic to Davidson because of his oldest brother's fate, the officer helped arrange for him to study at the Russian National Art School in Vitebsk.
In 1980, Davidson reminisced about a photo of Russian National Art School students getting on a train sixty years earlier: “I am a former student of Kasimir Malevich, having studied under him in 1919-1920 at the Vitebsk Government Art School. . . The Vitebsk school was one at which first [Marc] Chagall and then Malevich held the foremost instructor’s position. During the year of 1920 I was among a number of students who were on hand to wish a hearty farewell to those fellow students chosen to attend the First International Art Show in Moscow. . . . I was there at the train depot and remember the experience vividly.”
Image: A. Wolfe Davidson at the Vitebsk Art School(Mss356_1172)
Going to America
In 1922, Davidson's brother Louis returned from the United States to smuggle him and his mother out of Russia. They eventually joined the family in Greenville, South Carolina where Davidson worked in his brother's store, continued to sculpt and also studied English.
Davidson eventually left Greenville to work at a variety of jobs in Atlanta, Savannah and then New York City where he also briefly studied at the Beaux Art School. Shortly after returning to Greenville in 1926, he became seriously ill from delayed effects of the famine he had experienced in Russia. He spent several years recovering, working when he could and continuing to sculpt busts and other figures for local patrons. He also became an American citizen.
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Thomas Green Clemson Statue
The Original
In 1934, Clemson College student George Chaplin posed for a bust by Davidson. Davidson was interested in studying at Clemson and they discussed the possibility of him creating a statue of founder Thomas Green Clemson in exchange for room, board and tuition.
Clemson administrators eventually agreed and gave Davidson a studio and materials to work on the statue over the next two years. He enrolled as a special student, lived at the Y.M.C.A and took several classes. Although he was more than a decade older than most of the other students, Davidson made friends and participated in some campus activities.
“I had Mr. Clemson’s hands clasped because of his melancholy nature... The look on his face contemplates the future, a desire to establish a college here.”
Davidson began the statue by trying to understand his subject. He gathered information from History professors Alester G. Holmes and George R. Sherrill who were researching the founder for their book Thomas Green Clemson : his life and work, eventually published in 1937.
He also studied the college's portrait of Thomas Clemson painted by Drawing instructor Williams Welch in 1891.
In addition, Davidson interviewed "a Black man who was his coach driver and remembered him well." As a young boy, William "Bill" Greenlee worked for Thomas Clemson, primarily taking care of his horses and carriage house. He took water to the laborers during the construction of the college and continued to do various jobs for the college and the local community into the 1950s, often using his horse-drawn wagon, which was also a favorite ride for local children. Davidson later remembered: "Most of my information I got from a man named Greenlee who was the coach driver for Thomas Clemson. He still lived in the area and told me a great deal. When he saw the finished sculpture, he couldn't believe how close the resemblance was."
Before beginning the large statue, Davidson completed a bust of Thomas Clemson for the college library. Several hundred nine-inch tall plaster miniatures of that bust also were created and sold to alumni. In addition, Davidson created several studies for the larger statue.
Davidson wanted the process of creating the Clemson statue to be an educational experience for students and the larger community. He completed a small clay model of the statue for display in the president's office so students could examine it. And he opened his studio to any and all visitors.
“The work on the statue of Clemson attracted quite a bit of attention in the schools of the area. Teachers brought classes in to see the process of making a statue, a novelty in this area. I found myself giving many talks to groups and answering questions. Much interest was shown in how long it would take to complete. Children pinched off small pieces of clay as souvenirs. . . . The Cadets also showed much interest in the statue as it progressed.”
Davidson and college officials hoped enough money would be raised to cast the statue in bronze, but the funds were not available in the middle of the Great Depression. In 1939, Davidson offered to complete the statue in cast stone, using an aggregate of marble and sand, for $500. He noted the cast stone was "an everlasting material in it always looks good." Fundraising organized by Blue Key honor society brought in contributions from more than a dozen student organizations to finish the statue.
After scheduling and then canceling one dedication over disagreements about where to place the statue, Thomas Green Clemson finally was installed in front of the Administration Building. The dedication on March 22, 1941 featured speeches by Governor Burnet R. Maybank, Judge J. Strom Thurmond and Board of Trustees chairman W.W. Bradley, as well as a parade by the Corps of Cadets.
A plaque with information about the founder was added to the base of the statue.
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Thomas Green Clemson Statue
Version Two
In July 1966, Clemson administrators asked A. Wolfe Davidson to prepare the Thomas Green Clemson statue finally to be cast in bronze. He first completed a mold and then made a plaster duplicate which was sent to a New York foundry to be cast in bronze. Hands and legs were cast separately and then welded to the main statue. In March 1967, the bronze statue was placed on a new base and the old one removed. Davidson called it the realization of a "thirty-year dream."
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The Cannons
The two cannons guarding Bowman Field, sometimes known by the nicknames Tom and Jerry, came to Clemson because of A. Wolfe Davidson and the original Thomas Green Clemson statue.
“While working on [a bust of Governor Ibra C. Blackwood] I did a bust of . . . the children of the Governor's secretary, Charles Gerald. Mr. Gerald showed interest in [the Thomas Clemson statue] and questioned me at length about it. One day he came to me with a suggestion. ‘In the basement of the Capitol there are some Civil War cannons, would you like to have these cannons to use for the casting of the Clemson statue? If you don't get them something will happen to them and they will get lost.’ Of course I gladly accepted them for the College.”
Davidson forgot about the conversation until his brother called to say that a highway truck with two cannons had arrived at their house in Greenville. He had them delivered to Clemson where they were stored in the machine shop. Davidson didn’t use the cannons for the statue and they remained stored in the machine shop for over a decade. They were installed in front of Tillman Hall in 1951 and moved closer to Bowman Field in the 1990s.
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A Lifelong Clemson Connection
The Thomas Clemson bust and statue were not A. Wolfe Davidson’s only works at Clemson. In 1934, two Clemson graduates commissioned him to create a plaster composite bust of John C. Calhoun for the Fort Hill house.
He also created a bust of President Enoch W. Sikes for the library under the federal government’s Works Progress Administration (WPA) Federal Art Project. The government program paid for the artist’s time while the institution paid for materials.
And he created a bust of Architecture professor Rudolph E. Lee.
Look Up
In 1940, Davidson created a cast stone relief representing the January 1, 1940 Cotton Bowl football game for the new front building of the Field House (now the entrance to Fike Recreation Center).
Image of "Cotton Bowl" relief (Mss356_0204)
Image of "Cotton Bowl" relief being installed on the Field House (ua100_001121)
In the 1950s and 1960s, Davidson created busts of Clemson presidents Robert F. Poole and Robert C. Edwards, business manager James C. Littlejohn, football coach and athletic director Frank Howard and trustee James F. Byrnes for various campus buildings. Several first were done in plaster and later re-cast in bronze.
In 1969, Tiger Brotherhood commissioned Davidson to create a cast aluminum tiger known as The Brotherhood of the Tiger to be placed in front of the new Littlejohn Coliseum.
In 1972, Davidson had an art show in Clemson's Rudolph Lee Gallery in celebration of his 50th year in the United States.
Shortly before Davidson’s death in 1981, he designed the Clemson Medallion, the award recognizing an individual who has extended a long and sustained commitment and significant service to Clemson University. Davidson based his design on the bust of Thomas Clemson he created in the 1930s. He spoke at the first presentation ceremony on April 9, 1981.
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Artist and Educator
Greenville
In 1936, Davidson married Katherine Harbin, a teacher in Greenville, South Carolina. They bought a home on Paris Mountain near Greenville while Davidson continued his work for Clemson and other projects. The Lancaster, South Carolina library commissioned Davidson, through the WPA Federal Art Project, to create busts of physician J. Marion Sims and President Andrew Jackson.
He also won a competition in 1936 to design a commemorative half dollar for the sesquicentennial celebration of the City of Columbia, South Carolina.
Davidson also helped organize and led the steering committee for the Greenville Art Association. From 1937-1938, he worked for the WPA Federal Art Project organizing an art gallery that eventually developed into the Greenville County Museum of Art. In addition, Davidson taught some of the first art classes at Greenville High School.
Davidson returned to New York in 1941 to study with William Zorach at the Art Students League. But his plans were cut short when the United States entered World War II in December of that year. He moved to Marietta, Georgia to work as an aircraft designer at Bell Aircraft to help the war effort.
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Brenau College
In 1948, Davidson, his wife and two daughters moved to Gainesville, Georgia where he became director of the Art Department at Brenau College. He taught at Brenau until he retired in 1966.
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A Body of Work
While in Greenville and Gainesville, Davidson continued to receive commissions for numerous portrait busts and portrait bas-relief medallions, mostly in Georgia and South Carolina. These included likenesses of many prominent educators, politicians and business leaders, as well as ordinary people, including family, neighbors and friends.
His works can be found in colleges and universities, public buildings, businesses, museums and private homes. In the late 1950s, he created busts of seven presidents of Furman University in Greenville in exchange for his daughter's tuition, room and board.
In addition to commissions, Davidson created busts on his own of prominent people he was interested in.
Throughout his career, Davidson studied and developed techniques that would reduce the cost of casting and firing his busts to make them more affordable to his patrons.
In the 1950s, A. Wolfe Davidson also began painting, primarily his impressions of the areas around his Georgia home and locations he experienced in his travels.
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A. Wolfe Davidson died on October 27, 1981. Earlier that year, Clemson President Bill L. Atchley wrote about him "We all love Abe and are proud of him. He is truly a Clemson spirit..."
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Digital exhibit created by Susan G. Hiott, Curator of Exhibits, Clemson University Libraries' Special Collections and Archives, April 2022
Documents and images reproduced in this exhibit are drawn from the holdings of Special Collections and Archives, primarily from Mss 356 - A. Wolfe Davidson Papers. All quotations in this exhibit are from correspondence, newspaper articles or drafts of Davidson's unpublished autobiography "The Pearls Brought Us to America" in the A. Wolfe Davidson Papers.
Sources:
A. Wolfe Davidson Papers. Special Collections and Archives, Clemson University, Clemson, SC. https://public.special.clemson.edu/repositories/2/resources/393
Clemson University Photographs. Special Collections and Archives, Clemson University, Clemson, SC.
Office of the Vice-President for Business and Finance Records. Special Collections and Archives, Clemson University, Clemson, SC. https://public.special.clemson.edu/repositories/2/resources/483
The Tiger, Clemson University, Clemson, SC https://tigerprints.clemson.edu/tiger_newspaper/