During Leisure Hours He “Found Himself” and Abandoned the Law for Art.
THERE is a charming lesson in the way Henry Merwin Shrady, the
sculptor, “found himself.” A few years ago, this talented artist, whose
splendid buffalo and moose ornamented the entrance of the Pan-American
Exposition at Buffalo, was employed as an assistant manager in the
match business of his brother-in-law, Edwin Gould. It was by attempts
at self-improvement through painting in oil, during leisure hours, that
he discovered his capacity for art, and, finally, for sculpture of a
high order of merit.
“I always secretly wished,” he said modestly, “to become a great
painter, and, with that in view, dabbled in oils from childhood. My
family wished me to study medicine, but my nature revolted at the
cutting of flesh; so, after a course at Columbia University, I studied
law. An attack of typhoid fever, caught at a Yale-Harvard boat race,
after my graduation, incapacitated me for work for a year. Then I went
into the match business, instead of practicing law.
“After business hours and on holidays, I taught myself painting. I have
never taken a lesson in drawing, in painting, or in sculpture, in my
life. I joined the Bronx Zoölogical Society, that I might the better
study animals, and it was at these gardens that I made the sketches for
my buffalo and moose.”
Mr. Shrady taught himself the art of mixing oils, and then, in spare
hours, called on William H. Beard, at his studio, for the delineator of
“The Bulls and Bears of Wall Street” to criticise his sketches. Once
Mr. Beard said, prophetically, “Some day you will forsake all for art.”