By Kinen Carvala

What sculpture in Golden Gate Park was made by someone accused of cheating because his sculpture was too lifelike?

Albert Laessle was born in 1877 in Philadelphia to German immigrant parents. Albert’s older brother Henry supported Albert’s enrollment in art school and also knew prominent sculptor Charles Grafly. The younger Laessle became Grafly’s student and later assistant. Albert married another assistant of Grafly’s, Mary Prudden Middleton, in 1905, according to the book “Rediscoveries In American Sculpture: Studio Works, 1893-1939.”

Laessle and Grafly participated in the 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exposition (PPIE) held in San Francisco in today’s Marina District. Laessle submitted several sculptures, winning him a gold medal, while Grafly was on the Group Jury for Sculpture, according to PPIE’s official catalogue. The PPIE also included the unveiling of Grafly’s Pioneer Mother sculpture, which today is in Golden Gate Park and was featured in this column in May, 2020.

Laessle’s fascination with animals started when another student of Grafly’s brought in a snapping turtle for dinner, which was mentioned in an interview with D. Roy Miller for October, 1924’s International Studio. The turtle’s shell and movement inspired Laessle to submit a sculpture of a turtle and crab locked in a struggle to an art exhibition in Philadelphia.

While the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (PAFA) had its Fall 1901 exhibition focused mostly on photography, only two sculptures were part of the exhibition: Laessle’s Turtle and Crab and a submission by William M. MacIntosh, reported the Philadelphia Times.

MacIntosh accused Laessle of making Turtle and Crab by not using sculpting skills, but by just casting a mold onto an animal’s body. MacIntosh also said Laessle had annoyed him in various ways, leading to a charge of breaching of the peace against Laessle and a bail of $400 at the time (equivalent to several thousands in today’s dollars), according to The Philadelphia Times (Feb. 8, 1902).

Laessle in his retrospective interview noted that the same newspapers that accused him of cheating were silent once he made another realistic sculpture, Turtle and Lizard, where “the modeling of the wax showed very plainly” that Laessle created the realistic details himself. PAFA purchased Turtle and Lizard and had it cast in bronze for its permanent exhibit.

PAFA also established the George D. Widener Memorial Gold Medal in 1912 to honor a board member who perished on the Titanic, and Laessle was commissioned to design the annual medal. The first medal in 1913 went to Grafly. In 1918, Laessle himself won the medal for the sculpture Penguins; the sculpture now outside the de Young Museum. It was one of four pairs of penguins that were cast, according to the Smithsonian’s online catalog. The pair of (de Young) bronze penguins stands on a bronze pedestal. The sculpture size is 35 1/2” by 32”, according to the de Young website. The back of the Penguins’ pedestal has the inscribed lines:

Albert Laessle Germantown Phila. 1917

Roman Bronze Works N.Y.

Germantown is the Philadelphia neighborhood where Laessle had his studio when he was working on Penguins, according to Rediscoveries. Laessle’s 1924 interview described his studio being closer to the Philadelphia Zoo, where he had permission to study animals and keep clay handy there.

Roman Bronze Works in New York specialized in a casting technique using a gelatin mold that replicated more detail in texture compared to the simpler sand molds used by other American bronze casters, according to Thayer Tolles writing for the Met Museum.

In 1929, Laessle was a participating sculptor in an exhibition held by the National Sculpture Society in San Francisco’s Palace of the Legion of Honor. The exhibition catalog mentions “bronze penguins, Fairmount Park, Philadelphia” as one of his works. In 1930, the Legion of Honor purchased a 1917 bronze cast of Penguins, the one now held by the de Young. In 1931, the Legion of Honor and de Young Museum had the same director, and the two museums formally merged in 1972 to form the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco (FAMSF). 

Laessle taught at PAFA from 1920 to 1939. He had two children with wife Mary. Their son Paul Laessle (1908-1988) was also an artist. Mary died in 1944, and Laessle remarried to Albertine DeBempt in 1946. Laessle died in 1954 at age 77, according to the New York Times.

Today, Penguins are in the tree-covered northeast corner of the George and Judy Marcus Garden of Enchantment next to the de Young Museum. The Garden’s western edge is a path running from the Music Concourse north to JFK Promenade and 10th Avenue, passing the de Young’s side entry near the base of the Hamon Observatory Tower. 

While at the Music Concourse, consider visiting the live African Penguins at the Academy of Sciences, where the Steinhart Aquarium just celebrated its 100th anniversary on Sept. 29.