Work
Approximately 1,200 de Weldon sculptures are located in seven continents. (A de Weldon monument of Richard Byrd is in McMurdo Sound, in Antarctica).
At the conclusion of the war, the Congress of the United States commissioned de Weldon to construct the statue for the Iwo Jima memorial in the realist tradition, based upon the famous photograph of Joe Rosenthal, of the Associated Press agency, taken on 23 February 1945. De Weldon made sculptures from life of three of the six men raising the flag. The other three, who had died in action later, were sculpted from photographs. De Weldon took nine years to make the memorial, and was assisted by hundreds of other sculptors. The result is the 100-ton bronze statue which is on display in Arlington, Virginia.
De Weldon also contributed in creating Malaysia's Tugu Negara (National Monument) when the country's first Prime Minister, Tunku Abdul Rahman saw the USMC War Memorial statue in his visit to America in October 1960 and personally met him for favour to design the monument. De Weldon was later conferred with the title Tan Sri, the Malaysian equivalent of a high-ranking knighthood.
Dr. de Weldon died on June 2, 2003 at age 96 in Woodstock, Virginia. De Weldon is survived by his wife, Joyce Swetland de Weldon, of Warwick, Rhode Island and two sons Byron & Daniel DeWeldon. Daniel is collaborating with Allen Nalasco on a biopic of his father's life titled "DeWeldon - The Man Behind The Monuments". Daniel will play the part of Felix during the height of his career.
Read more about this topic: Felix De Weldon
Famous quotes containing the word work:
“The last thing one discovers in composing a work is what to put first.”
—Blaise Pascal (1623–1662)
“But the doctrine of the Farm is merely this, that every man ought to stand in primary relations to the work of the world, ought to do it himself, and not to suffer the accident of his having a purse in his pocket, or his having been bred to some dishonorable and injurious craft, to sever him from those duties.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“only an aching heart
Conceives a changeless work of art.”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)