Q. David Bowers
COUSINS, William C.
William Charles Cousins, son of William
C. and Anna Donahue Cousins, was born in Philadelphia on July 13, 1930. After attending schools in Darby, Pennsylvania he studied advertising design and art, after which he worked in graphic arts for E.I. du Pont Nemours & Co. and the Thiokol Chemical Company.
From 1967 to 1990 he worked with the Franklin Mint, joining in the capacity of art director and a year later moving to the post of director of sculpture. A brochure issued by that facility noted in part: "William Cousins embodies an unusual combination of talents. Seldom does one find a creative artist who also functions successfully as a business executive.... As director of the Franklin Mint Sculptors' Studio, Cousins heads the largest studio of medalists in the world. By way of comparison, the Sculptors' Studio numbers among its artists more medallic sculptors than the national mints of the United States, Great Britain, France, Italy, and Japan combined. Cousins has also worked with many of the world's most prominent medalists in creating outstanding works of art and has maintained a working liaison with well over 100 artists on four continents. His own talent as an artist and sculptor is in great part responsible for his ability to sustain this rapport.... He received his training at the Philadelphia College of Art and the Fleisher Art Memorial."
William Cousins came to the Engraving Department of the U.S. Mint in 1990, bringing with him wide experience in engraving and management. Among his works are the following. Paintings: The Old Man Waiting (1952), Saxophone Mood (1952), Reverie (1957), The Quiet City (series of three watercolors, 1958), Jungle Gym (1962), and Turn of the Century (mural, 1958); etchings and woodcuts: Lombard Street (1952), Dejection (1953), Christmas Angel (1956), Spirit of the Dance (19458), and Mankind and Motherhood (1964); medals: Miami Palms (Token and Medal Society, 1967), The Garden of Eden (Biosciences Information Service, 1967), The Lion and the Lamb (Franklin Mint peace medal, 1969), Deborah (Judaic Heritage Society, 1969), and dozens of medals for the Franklin Mint including over 20 gaming tokens. William C. Cousins was a co-founder of the Pencader Art League.
In a Philadelphia ceremony in 1951 he married Eleanor LeMon. The Cousins family includes four children: Teresa, William, Lynda, and John. The artist's home and studio (Brandywine Creative) are in Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania.
Commemorative credits: 1991-W Mount Rushmore $5 (modeled the reverse from a design by Robert Lamb), 1991 U.S.A. silver dollar (modeled the obverse from a design by Robert Lamb).
DALLIN, Cyrus E.
Born in Springville, Utah, a Mormon settlement, on November 22, 1861, the first son of Thomas and Jane (Hamer) Dallin, Cyrus Edwin Dallin studied at local schools while pursuing the hobby of modeling in clay. As a teenager he accompanied his father on trips to mining camps, where the young artist created heads and other sculptures in the same medium. Later, Dallin studied art in Boston (under Truman H. Bartlett, father of Paul Wayland Bartlett) while he worked nights at the Boston Terra-Cotta Works. After a year under Bartlett, he went to the Quincy (Massachusetts) studio of Sidney H. Morse, where he created statuary and other work for cemeteries.
In 1883 he earned a $300 prize for his statue of Paul Revere. In 1888 the American Art Association of New York City awarded him a gold medal for his sculpture of an Indian hunter. The artist then spent time in Paris (with Hermon A. MacNeil, Charles Grafly, and Frederick MacMonnies at the Academic Julian under Henri Michel Chapu), returning to America in 1891.
In 1896 Dallin went to Paris to study with Jean Dampt at the Ecole des BeauxArts and remained there until March 1899. At the Paris Salon he exhibited a large-size plaster group, Apollo Mourning Over Hyacinthus and Don Quixote. His Medicine Man sculpture, now in Fairmount Park, Philadelphia, was shown at the Paris International Exposition in 1900 and earned a silver medal.
Over a period of time Dallin became a well known sculptor and was noted for his works depicting Indians (mostly equestrian) and New England historical motifs. His works include the Pioneer Monument and the Angel Moroni (atop the Mormon Temple, Salt Lake City), Sir Isaac Newton (Library of Congress), Signal of Peace (Lincoln Park, Chicago), Massasoit (plymouth, Massachusetts), Signing of the Compact (provincetown, Massachusetts), Storrow Memorial (Lincoln, Massachusetts), and Spirit of Life (Brookline, Massachusetts). His 1909 work, Appeal to the Great Spirit, at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, is the artist's best-known sculpture. Dallin maintained studios in Boston and Arlington, Massachusetts. During the late 19th and early 20th centuries he was awarded many medals at expositions and elsewhere.
On June 16, 1891, the artist married Vittoria Colonna Murray of Roxbury, Massachusetts. The couple had two children. Cyrus E. Dallin died in Boston on November 14, 1944.
Commemorative credit: 1920-1921 Pilgrim Tercentenary half dollar.
DAVIDSON, A. Wolfe
In 1936 A. Wolfe Davidson was 32 years old and was associated with Clemson College in South Carolina, at which time he was considered to be one of the best sculptors in the state.
Commemorative credit: 1936 Columbia (South Carolina) half dollar.
DE FRANCISCI, Anthony
Born in Palermo, Sicily on June 13, 1887, the youngest of 10 children, Anthony DeFrancisci began his interest in art as a child, when he worked in his father's marble-carving business. He came to America in 1903 and studied at Cooper Union, the Art Students League, and the National Academy of Design. Among his instructors were James Earle Fraser, Adolph A. Weinman, and G.T. Brewster. Going into business for himself in 1912, DeFrancisci became well known as a medalist and earned many honors.
Numismatically, he is best known for his design of the 1921 Peace silver dollar, for which his wife, the former Teresa Cafarelli, served as a model. The World War II veterans' discharge medal, an engineering society medal presented to Herbert Hoover, and a medal for the Ford Motor Company's 50th anniversary were among his numerous other works.
DeFrancisci died of a heart attack at his home in New York City on October 20, 1964, and was survived by his wife, Teresa, and a daughter, Mrs. Gilda Slate. Until the very end he was active as a medalist.
Commemorative credit: 1920 Maine Centennial half dollar (from sketches drawn by an unknown Maine artist).