Avard Fairbanks
(1897 - 1989)
Avard Fairbanks was born in Provo, Utah, March 2, 1897. He was a pupil of the Art Students League of New York under James E. Fraser; Beaux-Arts, Grand Chaumiere and Ecole Modern, Paris; Yale, BFA; University of Washington, MFA; University of Michigan, MA and PhD. Awarded Guggenheirm Fellowship, 1927. Somewhat like Lorado Taft before him, Fairbanks became an apostle of the art of sculpture in Utah and other Western States. He organized the teaching of sculpture in universities in Oregon and Michigan as well as in his native state. While teaching others, he never stopped studying, and produced a large number of statues and monuments in the American tradition of noble ideas embodied in realistic human figures.