 M.L. Snowden, the ultimate protégé of Auguste Rodin, has spent her life surrounded by sculpture. Her earliest memories and every waking moment of her life include sculpture. From the age of four, she played in her father’s sculpture studio watching him with the unwavering attention of a child enthralled and enchanted. At the age of seven she began working with clay along side her father.
As she grew, she learned Rodin’s transcendental sculpting techniques from her father, George Holburn Snowden, who had in turn been a favored student of Robert George Eberhard, a protégé of the great French sculptors Auguste Rodin, Antonin Mercié and Victor Peters. Each of the generations -- the French masters, Swiss-born Eberhard, and American-born George Snowden -- has contributed to the evolution of a unique heritage of sculpting that finds its contemporary expression through the spectacular works of M.L. Snowden.
Part of that heritage comes through the original sculpting tools of Auguste Rodin that have been passed from mentor to protégé for three generations. The tools, some of which she uses in sculpting her own works, are a symbol for Snowden -- a symbol of the awe-inspiring foundation upon which her work is based. They provide a physical connection with the artistic inheritance that has been passed down to her and represent the utter devotion to sculpture of the artists who are part of Rodin’s legacy.
Snowden’s own devotion to sculpture has been acknowledged through the awards that have been bestowed upon her and her work. Early in her career, she was awarded post-graduate study grants to the Vatican Collections in Rome, the Uffizi in Florence, and the Louvre in Paris. At the age of 36, she received the inaugural Alex Ettl Grant from the National Sculpture Society for “Lifetime Achievement in American Sculpture”. In 1992, she was awarded the world’s most prestigious sculpture prize -- the International Rodin Competition Special Grand Prize -- for her sculpture “Cataclasis”; which is currently in the permanent collection of the Hakone Museum in Japan and the White House in Washington DC.
In 2000, Snowden was commissioned from a field of 8,000 international portfolios, to be the sculptor for the Main Altar of the new 200 million dollar Los Angeles Cathedral dedicated in 2002. For this commission Snowden has created a composition of Angels which uphold the 8 ton main altar. In addition, Snowden is the sculpture of the Angel Frieze for the Cathedral’s visitor center, the first representation of a group of Angels for a permanent public setting in the history of the City of Los Angeles.
M.L. Snowden created a 14 foot high Glendale Police Memorial for the new $56 million civic plaza in the city of Glendale, CA. Most recently, M.L. Snowden was awarded the inaugural Presidential Order of merit “In Recognition of Significant Contributions to the Betterment of Humanity Through Art” which has been added to the presidential permanent art collection at the White House.
M.L. Snowden’s current body of work evokes a geological theme of the impact of mankind on his environment. Snowden’s sculpture humanizes the forces in nature, which lead to the formation and evolution of our Earth. Snowden’s sculptural genius demonstrates itself in her ability to personify these forces and allow the viewer to feel and intuitively understand the phenomena that is otherwise only accessible as an abstract geological science. In the same forms, she communicates the nobler side of man’s endeavors and issues a call to humanity, challenging us to recognize certain truths that are universal to all creation - whether it is organic or geologic in nature.
In 1992, M.L. Snowden became the fourth artist to receive the coveted Rodin Prize for sculpture. The work, entitled Cataclasis, won kudos from artists and critics throughout the world, and was selected from a field of over 500 juried entries. The unique fortuity behind Snowden’s receipt of the prize, however, rests in her compelling history and extraordinary legacy, for Cataclasis was sculpted with both Rodin’s technique and his original sculpting tools, passed directly down to her through generations.
Mary Louis Snowden is the daughter and protégé of master sculptor, George H. Snowden, whose numerous accomplishments throughout his 65 year career include over 100 public placements (the pediment of the U.S. Postal Service Building and the altar of the Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C. being among them), sculptural design for many major Hollywood films including “Ben Hur” and “The Robe”, and the design of many of the original sculptural elements for Walt Disney’s Disneyland and Epcot Center theme parks.
George H. Snowden came upon sculpture as a career quite by accident. In the early 1920s, a Catholic priest arrived at the doorstep of Yale University sculpture professor, Robert Eberhard, with an exquisite clay sculpture of the head of Christ in his hands. Upon seeing the sculpture, Eberhard immediately demanded that the artist be brought to Yale and interviewed for enrollment. The young sculptor, an indigent laborer in a small rural town, was George H. Snowden.
After a grueling interview process in which the elder Snowden accomplished the impossible task of producing three years’ worth of meritorious work in a single summer, the Yale faculty admitted him to the university and hired him as a sculpture assistant to Professor Eberhard.
The Swiss-born Eberhard had been the protégé, friend and sculpture assistant to the great Auguste Rodin at his Villa studio at Meudon, France. Rodin bequeathed the very tools he had used in sculpting his master works to Eberhard in recognition of his contributions and artistic potential.
When Rodin passed away in 1917, Eberhard emigrated to the United States and was quickly accepted as a sculpture professor at Yale University. When George H. Snowden entered the fold, Eberhard adopted him as the recipient of the Rodin legacy, eventually passing down the Rodin tools to Snowden in a celebration of his achievements and masterful skill.
M.L. Snowden received the Rodin tools upon her father’s death in 1990, an event that sent her spiraling into a deep reclusion. As the imaginative daughter of a renowned sculptor, Mary Louise had spent much of her young life in her father’s studio. She learned to sculpt using Rodin’s transcendent technique by watching her father’s masterful hand and sculpting her own work under his guidance.
It was during her self-imposed reclusion from 1990 to 1997 that M.L. Snowden created the Rodin Prize-winning sculpture, Cataclasis. Since 1998, she has been openly sharing the Rodin legacy with the world. Her work, which is now available as select bronze limited edition sculptures, tours the country along with the Rodin tools.
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