Find Art All Around Orange County Florida
Sponsored by Arts & Cultural Affairs
Albin Polasek Museum and Sculpture Gardens
About the Artwork
Originally sculpted in 1924, this bronze statue was cast in 1964.
This beautiful bronze group is one of the most perfect and exquisite conceptions in the (Art Institute’s special) exhibition, in either oil or sculpture. The wonderful modeling of the deer and fawn mark it for a masterpiece. The tender union of the dryad and her wild forest companions is a beautiful achievement. Mr. Polasek has done different things in sculpture and splendid things but never a better group than this.
- Eleanor Jewett
Chicago Tribune
Winter, 1924
Inspired by Henry Wadsorth Longfellow’s epic poem “The Song of Hiawatha,” Polasek created this work depicting a wood nymph carrying a fawn in her arms while a doe sniffs anxiously at her baby. This was a popular piece for art buyers who wished to purchase a lovely, small sculpture. Another casting of this work was contributed to a gallery in New York, where Daniel Chester French, the renowned sculptor of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC, won it in a drawing of the gallery’s supporting members. During his year at the American Academy in Rome in 1931 as an honorary professor, Polasek set to work on creating a life-sized version of “Forest Idyl” for sculptor Anna Hyatt Huntington for her estate, Brookgreen Gardens, in Murrells Inlet, South Carolina, the first public sculpture garden in the United States. A copy of the 1931 version is at Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana at the library on campus. There, students call her “The Naked Lady.” The last casting of this composition was done by Polasek in 1964 and resides on the Polasek Museum’s front lawn. There also another casting located in front of Winter Park City Hall as well.
About the Artist
Albin Polasek
Albin Polasek is heralded as one of America’s foremost sculptors of the twentieth century. Born in Frenstat, Moravia (now Czech Republic), he immigrated to the United States at the age of twenty-two. He attended the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and was formally trained under Charles Grafly. He was awarded in the Prix de Rome competition of 1910, with a three year fellowship at the American Academy of Art in Rome. At the age of thirty-seven, he became the head of the Sculpture Department at the Art Institute of Chicago. In 1927, he was elected an Associate Member of the National Academy of Design and received full Academician status in 1933. At the age of 71, Polasek retired to Winter Park, Florida, on picturesque Lake Osceola, now the site of the Albin Polasek Museum. A few months later, his artistic efforts were slowed dramatically by a stroke. Yet with determination and resolve, he continued to complete eighteen major works. In his lifetime, Albin Polasek created over four hundred works of art, leaving behind the legacy of a “man carving his own destiny”.
Did you know?
The tiniest art museum in Orange County with the longest name is the Zora Neale Hurston National Museum of Fine Art in historic Eatonville
Discover Art in Central Florida!
For those who have eyes to see, there are hundreds of works of art around them.
This web site provides some information on many of those works of art that can
be regularly viewed in Orange County by any member of the public without an
admission fee. They are outside in public view, or located in an interior area
that is normally open to the public.
Look around this web site and find something that interests you. Then go see it
in person. The information you find here will add to the pleasure of exploring
public art in Central Florida.
If, in your travels around Orange County, you come across some public art that
is not listed here, please let us know so we can add it. If you are aware of
additional information about art or artist that is included here, again, please
let us know. Together we can make this an incredible resource for people seeking
to spice up their life through exploring art.