Richard Bock - Early Years

Early Years

He was born on July 16, 1865 in Schloppe, Germany but moved to Chicago, Illinois with his family as a youth, where he grew up in German neighborhoods.

Three years in school at the Berlin Academy studying with Schaper was followed by more studying at the Ecole des Beaux Arts School in Paris under Alexandre Falguière and then a tour of Florence, Italy. In 1891 he returned to his American hometown of Chicago to establish a permanent sculpture studio downtown. Almost immediately upon Bock's return to America, he received three major commissions. For the World's Columbian Exposition in 1893, he sculpted major architectural works for two of the event's primary buildings, the Mining and Electricity Exposition Halls. He took on a 14-year-old apprentice, James Earle Fraser, who would later design the famous sculpture The End of the Trail and the Buffalo nickel.

• Columbian Exposition, Electricity Building

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• Mining Building|Columbian Exposition Mining Building

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He also won a competition to execute an exterior sculpture at the Indianapolis Public Library in 1892.

He created interior bas-reliefs for Chicago's famous Schiller Building, during which time, in the winter of 1891 to 1892, Bock studied under its architect Louis Sullivan. It was in the Sullivan's office that Bock met Frank Lloyd Wright.

Bock also created the Elijah P. Lovejoy Monument in Alton, Illinois along with a bronze group of sculptures in Chickamauga, Georgia. For the Trans-Mississippi Exposition in Omaha, Nebraska in 1898, Bock composed all the sculptures for the Machinery and Electricity Building, a centerpiece of the fair. At the same time, he made the pediments for Omaha's Burlington Train Station.

On November 1, 1899, Bock married Martha Higgins Methven, sister of his colleague Harry Wallace Methven. After returning from their honeymoon, Bock won a competition to help create the Illinois monument at the Shiloh Civil War battlefield. He also worked on sculptures for the Missouri State Building at the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair.