Birth Dates of Notable Kentuckians: October 6, 1869 – Enid Yandell

Image from filsonhistorical.org



From The Kentucky Encyclopedia -

Enid Yandell, sculptor, was born on October 6, 1869, to Louisville physician Lunsford Yandell, Jr., and Nashville native Louise (Elliston) Yandell. She studied at the Cincinnati Academy of Art and in Paris with Frederick MacMonnies and Auguste Rodin. Yandell's first major commission, designing the caryatids for the Women's Building of the 1893 Columbian Exposition at Chicago, earned a gold medal. Yandell is best known for her public statuary, including the Hogan Fountain (1905) and the Daniel Boone statue in Louisville's Cherokee Park, the twelve-foot statue of John Thomas (1907) for Nashville's Centennial Park, and a kneeling figure of Narraganset chieftain Ninigret (1913) in Watch Hill, Rhode Island. The Boone statue in Louisville, originally produced in plaster for the Filson Club to exhibit at the 1893 exposition in Chicago, was cast in bronze in 1906. In the 1960s a copy of the Boone figure was cast for Eastern Kentucky University's campus.

 Although most of Yandell's statuary is found in public and private collections along the East Coast, a few of her smaller works are in Kentucky. Plaster busts of John B. Castleman and the " Hunchback of Notre Dame" belong to the Louisville Free Public Library; a bust of James Rucker is on exhibit at Georgetown College; the Filson Club owns her bust of Reuben T. Durrett; and a bust of William Goebel , which Yandell modeled for his cemetery monument, is part of the Kentucky Historical Society collection. Following her death on June 13, 1934, Louisville's J.B. Speed Art Museum received plaster casts for about twenty of Yandell's figurines, bas reliefs, and busts.

Yandell was a member of the National Sculpture Society and the French Academy, and she exhibited her work in at least twenty-seven major shows in the United States and France. She was buried in Cave Hill Cemetery ,Louisville.

NANCY D. BAIRD, Entry Author

Selected Sources from UK Libraries:

Yandell, Enid., and Laura Hayes. Three Girls in a Flat. Chicago: Press of Knight, Leonard &, 1892. Print.

PS3364.Y3 T470 1892, Special Collections Research Center

O'Malley, Mimi. More than Petticoats. Remarkable Kentucky Women. Guilford, Conn.: Globe Pequot, 2012. Print. More than Petticoats Ser.

CT3262.K46 O43 2012, Special Collections Research Center - Room 019