Baltimore’s only monument to the soldiers and sailors who fought for the Union in the Civil War is getting restored with funding assistance from the Maryland State Arts Council.
Baltimore’s Board of Estimates on Wednesday approved a plan by the Friends of Wyman Park Dell to engage Fullick Conservation LLC to restore the Union Soldiers and Sailors Monument near the intersection of North Charles and West 29th streets.
The Friends of Wyman Park Dell received a Public Arts Conservation Grant in the amount of $48,009 from the state arts council to restore the monument. Board of Estimates authorization was needed because the monument is part of Baltimore’s public art inventory and any changes to it must be approved by the city.
The bronze and granite monument is a figural group sculpted by the artist Adolph Alexander Weinman and set atop a pedestal designed by architect Albert Randolph Ross. Erected in 1909, it is the only public Civil War monument in Baltimore honoring Union military personnel who fought in America’s Civil War. Several monuments in Baltimore that honored Confederate soldiers were taken down in 2017.
Weinman’s 10-foot-high sculpture depicts Bellona, the ancient Roman goddess of War, and the personification of Victory, together with a citizen-soldier turning from his plow and anvil as he puts on a uniform and belt for a sword. The granite base is 12 feet high and has three relief panels.
Work began several weeks ago and the monument is currently shrouded by a fabric screen. Passers-by may think at first that the sculpture has been removed but it’s still on the pedestal behind the temporary screen.
Devlin McDonald of DMC Masonry Restoration Corporation is a subcontractor working with conservator Diane Fullick. The work involves cleaning and repairing both the sculpture and the base, and treating the bronze with a hot wax coating to help protect it from the elements, McDonald said.
The sculpture was originally located in Reservoir Hill and was later moved to its present site, according to Sandra Sparks, one of the co-founders of the Friends of Wyman Park Dell, which was established nearly 40 years ago.
According to Martha Waldron, who now heads the Friends of Wyman Park Dell, the current project is the first of two phases of conservation work planned for the monument and is expected to be complete in late October or early November. A second phase, once funding is obtained, involves conservation of a curving granite ‘surround’ that’s next to the monument’s base, Waldron said.
Other recent works of public art in Baltimore that were restored with funds from the Maryland State Arts Council include the Redwood Arch by Linda DePalma at Paca and Redwood streets and the Nut and Bolt sculpture at the Mount Royal Elementary/Middle School in Bolton Hill by artist Art Benson and architect Jim Pettit, who died last year.
The Maryland Historical Trust holds a preservation easement on the monument in Wyman Park Dell, and plans for its restoration have been reviewed and approved by Baltimore’s Commission for Historical and Architectural Preservation.
