Rain
Bronze statue by Avard Tennyson Fairbanks

Rain
Bronze statue by Avard Tennyson Fairbanks
The figure of a girl is gracefully curved in circular rhythms, the knees drawn up and the arms behind the down-bent head. Water drips from the headdress and over the arms. The statue embodies the sculptor's idea of rain, "It enfolds itself and drops to earth to give growth and beauty to life."

Avard Tennyson Fairbanks
Born at Provo, Utah, on March 2nd, 1897, of a pioneer family from New England.
He began to study sculpture at the age of thirteen, when his copy of Barye's Lion and Snake attracted the attention of James Earle Fraser and won the boy a scholarship at the Art Student's League with Fraser as his teacher. Two studies of animals modeled at the New York Zoological Park procured for him a second scholarship; another was exhibited at the National Academy of Design in 1911. Two years later he went to Paris to study until the outbreak of the war forced him to return to the United States. While instructing others he found time to execute important public memorials in the American tradition of elevated ideas combined with realistic details. Many of the themes of his memorials are drawn from the period of Western expansion in which his own family had taken part.

All images on this sculpting site were photographed, scanned and edited by Rod and Gail Lang. Information is obtained from "Brookgreen Gardens Sculpture" Volumes I and II. To obtain a copy of these magnificent books which provide photos and detail on hundreds of sculptures in Brookgreen Gardens call the gardens at 843-237-4218.