“Pandora” Lead Sculpture “Childhood of the Gods” Wheeler Williams

FYI:
Pandora’s box is an origin myth – the attempt to explain the beginning of something.

People have always wanted to know why things happen in the world the way they do. Before there was much science, they did not have much understanding of how the world works, but they still wanted to know, just as much as we do. Human curiosity always asks why  and then human creativity finds ways of giving an answer.

Williams studied sculpture at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. He attended Yale where he graduated Magna cum Laude in 1919. He received a Master of Architecture degree from Harvard in 1922. Williams studied at the E´cole des Beaux-Arts in Paris.

He was one of a dozen sculptors invited to compete in the Pioneer Woman statue competition in 1927, which he failed to win. His model for that competition was later enlarged, cast and placed in front of the public library in Liberty, Kansas.

Williams was a recipient of a Gould Medal at the Paris Exposition in 1937. He was a member of the National Academy, past president of the Fine Arts Federation of New York and longtime president of the National Sculpture Society. Wheeler was also the founder and president of the American Artist Professional League.