Fountain Figures (in Grant Park)

Crane Girl, Fisher Boy, Turtle Boy, and Dove Girl are delicate-looking bronze figures installed in the center of each of four circular fountains in Grant Park. Amidst the lush rose bushes flanking the Clarence Buckingham Memorial Fountain, the graceful figures have found their second home. Full-sized plaster models of the sculptures were originally displayed in an outdoor art exhibit in Humboldt Park in 1908. The Chicago Tribune explained that the purpose of the exhibit was to “demonstrate the beauties and the wonderful possibilities of a skillful combination of landscape gardening and sculpture.” Jens Jensen, who is now recognized as the dean of the Prairie style in landscape architecture, placed the figures at the four corners of a rectangular reflecting pool in the center of the circular rose garden. The artworks were so well-liked within this setting, that the West Park Commissioners soon had them recast in bronze for permanent installation. In the 1960s, soon after the Daniel O. Flaherty Rose Garden was planted in Grant Park, the fountain figures were relocated to Chicago’s Front Yard. Leonard Crunelle (1872-1945), an artist especially well-known for sculpting figures of children, created the four fountain figures.