The Solitude of the Soul by Lorado Taft at AIC

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Lorado Taft, an American sculptor from 1860 to 1936, created The Solitude of the Soul in plaster in 1901 and then recast it in marble in 1914. The sculpture is made entirely out of marble with a height of 231.1 cm; the base measures 129.5 x 105.4 cm (91 in.; base 51 x 41 1/2 in.). Lorado Taft signed "Lorado Taft Sc 1914" on the sculpture. The Friends of American Art Collection owns this piece, with accession number 1914.739. This sculpture can be found at the American Art Gallery 161. In the second half of the nineteenth century, the style of sculptors like Harriet Hosmer and Randolph Rogers gave way to more realistic and naturalistic techniques developed by French-trained sculptors such as Lorado Taft. For twenty years, Taft taught modeling classes at the School of the Art Institute in Chicago and created public monuments that made Chicago a hub for sculpture. The figures in this work are only partially freed from the marble, highlighting the mass and outline of the stone. According to Lorado Taft, "The thought is the eternally present fact that however closely we may be thrown together by circumstances . . . we remain unknown to each other."