Critical DMs: The Father of Waters statue at the Minneapolis City Hall
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Critical DMs are lightly edited Slack conversations by members of the MPR News arts team about Minnesota art and culture. This week, arts editor Max Sparber and senior arts reporter and critic Alex V. Cipolle discuss the “Mississippi — Father of Waters” statue at the Minneapolis City Hall.
Alex V. Cipolle: First time in Minneapolis City Hall. Check out this fella. (Shares photos of “Father of Waters” statue.)
Max Sparber: It’s my favorite piece of public art.
I feel like he’s the exact moment when American neoclassicism almost straight-up turned into paganism. The statue has a very interesting history.
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By the way, look for the shiny toe and give it a rub. It’s good luck.
Cipolle: All his toes look equally shiny. So I rubbed a few.
Sparber: I’m sure they are all lucky. How do you focus luck into just one toe?
Oh crap, we’re Critical DM’ing.
Cipolle: I know.
Sparber: Maybe we should just go with it.
Cipolle: Just asked the security guard who is stationed right in front of it how he feels. He said it took some getting used to it.
A little intimidating at first. But now he likes it.
Sparber: To have the Father of Waters staring at him?
Cipolle: 👍
Sparber: Give a quick description of it. There is one very fun element.
Cipolle: It’s our own colossus. But in repose. Big marble hunk of a man. Zeus vibes but with a fairly gentle expression. Beard curly like Shirley Temple. He’s got corn on the cob and a hungry alligator (or croc?) by his side.
Sparber: Alligator! And you know what we don’t have in Minnesota?
Cipolle: Going out on a limb and I’m going to say alligators.
Sparber: That’s right, and therein lies a tale.
So the statue is by Larkin Goldsmith Mead, whose name screams “I am a dude from the Edwardian era.”
Cipolle: Yes, it’s got a nice foppish ring to it.
Sparber: He became famous as a child for making a massive snowman.
I don’t know how big a snowman had to be for Edwardians to find them to be massive.
Cipolle: I saw that, it was actually a snow angel. It seems like snow was a great gateway medium for this sculptor.
Sparber: It definitely led to a storied career as a neoclassical sculptor, which was very en vogue.
Cipolle: He also did Lincoln’s tomb in Illinois.
Sparber: Yep. That’s about as big a deal as a neoclassical sculptor can get.
Cipolle: It seems that “Mississippi — The Father of Waters” was likely his last major work. The plaque at city hall dates it to 1904. Which makes Old Man River 120 years young!
Sparber: Yes, and it wasn’t meant for us. It was meant for someplace with alligators.
Cipolle: Really?
Sparber: The other end of the Mississippi. New Orleans.
Cipolle: Makes sense. At least there’s corn.
Sparber: Let me track down the exact reason why it ended up here. As I recall, NOLA defaulted.
Cipolle: *bated breath*
Sparber: By the way, the statue is made from a single piece of marble. At the time, it was the biggest piece ever exported from the Carrara quarries in Italy.
Cipolle: So the plaque on the sculpture doesn’t even cite the artist’s name. The shade! Only funders, it seems.
And the info panel on the second floor does not cite his name either.
Sparber: Rude.
Cipolle: It doesn’t even mention the presence of the artist. Just like the sculpture appeared one day.
Sparber: According to a pamphlet from the Municipal Commission, New Orleans just couldn’t afford it and so 12 Minnesota civil leaders pulled together the money to bring it here.
Having lived in New Orleans, it feels more New Orleans than Minnesota. There is a lot of bananas neoclassicism in that city. Streets are named after Muses.
I can imagine some NOLA civic father being like WE NEED A STATUE OF A RIVER GOD ATOP A MIGHTY CROCODILE!
Everybody got jealous of New Orleans’ swagger and tried to steal it.
Omaha had a parade called Ak-sar-ben (Nebraska spelled backward) that was just Mardi Gras transported north. Aquatennial was partially lifted from Mardi Gras.
Cipolle: Well I’m glad Minneapolis got it. It’s quite stunning when you walk in.
Sparber: Yeah, I would like to see more New Orleans influence here, I miss it. More stuff like Father of Waters.
Cipolle: Not just New Orleans. This is the kind of stuff that Europe is drenched in. You can’t toss a euro without hitting a neoclassical sculpture.
Sparber: Neoclassical is a guilty pleasure for me. I just love it.
Cipolle: And neoclassical is often used in official state buildings. Because it’s a return to antiquity, and thus the birth of democracy, it’s supposed to lend some gravitas. and I gotta say, it does. Even the security guard was like yeah, it’s an imposing figure.
Sparber: We need to get really weird with it. Like huge public sculptures about the guy who got eaten by his horses, Diomedes.
Cipolle: Relatable!
Sparber: Or the war of the centaurs, the Centauromachy.
Cipolle: I wonder what other neoclassical gems are tucked away in Minnesota?
Sparber: We should create a map.
Cipolle: Siri, please create map of Neoclassical sculpture in Minnesota.
