AKU-2016-002

Walker Hancock, American, 1901–1998

Portrait Bust of Andrew W. Mellon and Andrew Carnegie (Double Study)

1955

Bronze, cast 1955

Two busts, each approx. 48 × 30 × 25 cm; shared plinth: 120 cm height

Acquisition

Gift, 2016

Curator’s Note

Carnegie Mellon University was formed in 1967 by the merger of Carnegie Institute of Technology, founded in 1900 with a gift of $1 million from Andrew Carnegie, and the Mellon Institute of Industrial Research, funded by Andrew and Richard Mellon. Carnegie had made his fortune in steel; Mellon in banking, oil, and aluminum. Both gave heavily to educational institutions in the later periods of their lives. This double portrait bust, the only such pairing in the AKU collection, was commissioned in 1955 for a building that was never constructed. It is displayed on a shared plinth with a gap of eleven centimeters between the two subjects, which the sculptor described in correspondence as 'deliberate.'

Exhibition

gilded-age-digital-age