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Burnett Memorial Fountain map_it

History

This text is part of Parks’ Historical Signs Project and can be found posted within the park.

This lovely garden sculpture and fountain honors the well-known children’s book author Frances Eliza Hodgson Burnett (1849–1924). Designed by Parks’s Chief Consulting Architect Aymar Embury II (1880–1966), with statues by Bessie Pooter Vonnoh (1872–1955), the memorial was dedicated in 1936.

Burnett was born Frances Eliza Hodgson in Manchester, England, moved to the United States, and settled in Knoxville, Tennessee, in 1865. She married Dr. Swan Moses Burnett in 1873. Burnett went on to have a highly successful literary career, which included such novels as That Lass o’ Lowrie’s (1877), Little Lord Fauntleroy (1886), and The Secret Garden (1910).

Two years after her death in 1924, friends and admirers of Burnett formed a memorial committee to honor her, not with a portrait sculpture, but with an intimate garden setting and work of art. It wasn’t until a decade later that the memorial finally found a home amidst the horticultural splendor of Conservatory Garden.

From 1899 to 1934, this area along the eastern perimeter of the park, between 103rd Street and 106th Streets, was the site of the lavish greenhouses known as the Conservatory. The Conservatory was demolished in 1934 when newly appointed Parks Commissioner Robert Moses (1888–1981) decreed it too costly to run. It was replaced by a landscape plan of formal gardens, lawns, alleys of trees, and an arbor, developed by chief landscape architect Gilmore Clarke (1892–1982) and Betty Sprout (1906–1962), who were later married. Though Conservatory Garden was not officially opened until September 18, 1937, the Burnett Fountain was completed in 1936, and dedicated in the spring of 1937.

Sculptor Bessie Potter Vonnoh, born in Saint Louis, Missouri, on August 17, 1872, was an accomplished and prolific artist. At age 19 she left to study art with Loredo Taft at the Art Institute of Chicago, and helped make sculptures for the façade of the Horticultural Building at the World’s Columbian Exposition at Chicago in 1893. There she saw statuettes by Paul Troubetzkoy, which inspired her to develop a style of intimate, impressionistic genre subjects, such as her Girl Reading, The Dance, and A Young Mother. Rather than mimic a stiff classicism, she strove to capture, in her words, “the joy and swing of everyday life.”

In the 1890s Vonnoh traveled and studied in Florence and Paris—taking time to visit the studio of the famous French sculptor Auguste Rodin (1840–1917). In 1899 she married painter Robert Vonnoh, and lived with him in New York City, Connecticut and southern France. Her work was frequently exhibited, and today may be found in numerous private and public collections. Her sculptural talent gained her prizes from many professional arts organizations, including the Watrous Gold Medal from the National Academy of Design in 1921.

In 1925 Vonnoh sculpted a group of children for a fountain at the Roosevelt Bird Sanctuary at Oyster Bay, Long Island. Her similar conception for the Burnett Memorial depicts in bronze a standing girl holding a bowl, a boy playing a flute reclining beside her, and swallows. Based on the characters of Mary and Dickon from Burnett’s The Secret Garden, the figures relate to several other versions of the subject in private collections. At the dedication of the memorial on May 28, 1937, Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia (1882–1947) was reported to look “a little rueful” as he recalled that as a child his mother made him wear a “Lord Fauntleroy suit” when he played in the local orchestra.

In 1980 missing portions of the sculpture were modeled, cast, and reinstalled. In 1994 the Central Park Conservancy again recast missing sculptural details; conserved and patined the surface of the statuary, and replaced the plumbing so that the fountain, long inactive, was again functional. Today the restored fountain beautifully complements the well-maintained seasonal floral displays.

Photo of the Frances Hodgson Burnett Memorial Fountain in the Conservatory Garden, Central Park

Burnett Memorial Fountain Details

  • Sculptor: Bessie (Onahotema) Potter Vonnoh
  • Architect: Aymar Embury II
  • Description: Standing girl figure and reclining boy figure on pedestal; tablet in pavement
  • Materials: Figures--bronze; Pedestal---Milford pink granite; Tablet--slate
  • Dimensions: Group H: 6'5" W: 3'8" D: 1' 11''; Pedestal H: 2'11" W: 3'6" D: 1' 11"
  • Cast: 1926
  • Dedicated: 1936
  • Foundry: Roman Bronze Works
  • Donor: Frances Hodgson Burnett Memorial Committee
  • Inscription: FOUNTAIN GROUP GIVEN TO / THE CHILDREN OF THE CITY / IN THE NAME OF / FRANCES HODGSON BURNETT / 1849-1824.

Please note, the NAME field includes a primary designation as well as alternate namings often in common or popular usage. The DEDICATED field refers to the most recent dedication, most often, but not necessarily the original dedication date. If the monument did not have a formal dedication, the year listed reflects the date of installation.

For more information, please contact Art & Antiquities at (212) 360-8143

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