Felix de Weldon

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Bronze of Senator Bob Bartlett in the National Statuary Hall

Felix de Weldon (April 12, 1907-June 3, 2003) was a sculptor based in the United States. His most famous piece is the USMC War Memorial of marines raising the Flag of the United States on Iwo Jima.

Biography

Born in Vienna, Austria,he later joined artist's communes in France, Italy and Spain in the 1920s. De Weldon eventually moved to London, where he gained a number of commissions, among them a portrait sculpture of George V.

A consequential trip to Canada to sculpt prime minister Mackenzie King delivered de Weldon to North America, and he decided to settle in the United States. De Weldon became an American citizen, and served in the navy during the World War II.

Work

Approximately 1,200 de Weldon sculptures are located in seven continents. (A de Weldon monument of Richard Byrd is in McMurdo Sound, in Antarctica).

At the conclusion of the war, the Congress of the United States commissioned de Weldon to construct the Iwo Jima statue in the realist tradition, based upon the famous photograph of Joe Rosenthal, of the Associated Press agency, taken on 23 February 1945. De Weldon made sculptures from life of three of the six men raising the flag. The other three, who had died in action later, were sculpted from photographs. De Weldon took nine years to make the memorial, and was assisted by hundreds of other sculptors. The result is the 100-ton bronze statue which is on display in Washington DC.

De Weldon also contributed in creating Malaysia's Tugu Negara (National Monument) when the country's first Prime Minister, Tunku Abdul Rahman saw the USMC War Memorial statue in his visit to America in October 1960 and personally met him for favour to design the monument. de Weldon was later conferred with the title Tan Sri, the Malaysian equivalent of a high-ranking knighthood.

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