FROM THE PUBLISHER

Few artists have achieved the national prominence of Mahonri Young (1877-1957). A grandson of Brigham Young, he conceived and sculpted the Sea Gull and This Is the Place monuments. As a New York artist, he received accolades for his statuettes of street workers and for the first life-size statue of an African American. In Hollywood one of his bas-reliefs featured a woman in nylon stockings. For all of this Life magazine called Young "the George Bellows of American sculpture."

His friends included Gertrude and Leo Stein, who took him to Pablo Picasso's first exhibit in a Parisian furniture store; Alfred Maurer; Paul Manship; Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney; and Robert Henri and the Group of Eight, principals of the Ash Can School of American realism. Young helped organize the first International Exhibition of Modern Art in New York. He taught at the Art Students League. His works were collected by major American museums.