The National Sculpture Society is delighted to announce that sculptor Morgan Dummitt, NSS will be the Walker Hancock Sculptor-in-Residence at Manship Artists Residency (MARs). The residency is an artist-in-residence program between the National Sculpture Society (NSS) and MARs, located in Gloucester, Massachusetts.

Dummitt will live and work at MARs for two weeks, January 2 – 16, 2024. Dummitt should feel quite at home in the beautiful setting, the former summer residence and studio of Paul Manship, one of the most celebrated artists of the 20th century and past NSS President.

In 2004, Dummitt began studying the figure at the Art Students League of New York. He earned a Certificate from the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and studied at the Florence Academy of Art and the Pelletieri Stone Carving Academy. He served an extensive apprenticeship with renowned marble carver Fred X. Brownstein, FNSS. Since 2013, he has been a member of the Philadelphia Traction Company, an artist community and communal workshop. In 2016, Dummitt had a residency at the St. Gaudens Historic Site in Cornish, New Hampshire. He has exhibited his bronze and marble sculpture with the National Sculpture Society (New York, NY), the Hudson Valley Art Association, the Harrisburg Museum of Fine Art (Harrisburg, PA), and the Springfield Art Association (Springfield, IL), among others.

Applications for the residency were accepted earlier in 2023 and reviewed by a jury of three that included two NSS Fellows, Meredith Bergmann and John Belardo, along with Kim Radochia, artist and member of the MARs Board of Trustees.

The Manship Artists Residency is part of a vibrant community of artists that has long flourished in the Lanesville section of Gloucester, Massachusetts. Located north of Boston on Cape Ann, this region has historically been a mecca for artists. The idyllic 15-acre property boasts two pristine quarries, scenic vistas, rocky summits, and several acres of forested land. MARs gives artists and the creative spirit time and space to flourish for the benefit of its local, national and international community. It promotes the creative process and the power of art by cultivating individual and collaborative creativity as a continuation of sculptor Paul Manship’s legacy, whose summer residence and studio serves as a permanent home for art-making and an international, interdisciplinary artist residency amid its magical natural setting.

The National Sculpture Society (NSS) promotes excellence in sculpture that is inspired by the natural world. Programs include Sculpture Quarterly magazine, virtual interviews and discussions, scholarships, grants, exhibitions and competitions. These educational programs are just a few of the ways NSS serves as a link between the public, sculptors, educators, and collectors. For more than 120 years, our members have created, exhibited, collected and supported the evolving tradition in American sculpture.

The residency is named after the late Cape Ann sculptor and Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts instructor Walker Hancock (1901-1998). Walker was a Fellow of the National Sculpture Society and was elected by his peers to Honorary Fellow in 1992. Best known for the ethereal Pennsylvania Railroad War Memorial located in Philadelphia’s Thirtieth Street railroad station, Hancock also served his country as an army officer and “Monuments Man,” responsible for the repatriation of stolen cultural treasures after World War II. The one regret of his career was his involvement with the Confederate Memorial at Georgia’s Stone Mountain, to which he offered technical support. One of Hancock’s last sculptures was a bust of W.E.B. Dubois for Harvard’s Memorial Hall.