On a beautiful day in the summer of 1932, Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt relaxed on the south lawn of their Hyde Park estate on the banks of the magnificent Hudson River. The photograph was taken for the 1932 presidential campaign and through it the Roosevelts introduced themselves and their home to Americans in the friendly and personal way that was to become the hallmark of their presidency.
The Roosevelts encouraged Americans—and eventually the world—to come to know Hyde Park and to feel at home here. Today’s visitors will feel the same sense of warmth and personal connection to the Roosevelts because this inviting photograph is being reproduced in bronze in a life-sized sculpture. Crafted by StudioEIS of Brooklyn and cast at the Tallix Foundry in Beacon, New York, the sculpture will welcome visitors as they leave the Wallace Center and enter the historic grounds of the Roosevelt estate. Inviting for all, there is plenty of room for modern visitors to pose for their own photographs with Franklin and Eleanor—even to sit on the Adirondack style bench alongside FDR to show friends and family back home that they were indeed welcome and important guests during their stay in Hyde Park.
StudioEIS
Since 1976, StudioEIS has been designing and producing museum figures worldwide. The firm is famous for Presidential Portraits – Washington, Lincoln, Nixon, Truman, and now Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt. StudioEIS’s figures of the Founding Fathers may be seen in the new Constitution Center in Philadelphia and the Truman Presidential Library commissioned a life-size sculpture for its permanent galleries, which opened last year. Other recent clients include the Smithsonian Institution and the National Civil Rights Museum.
Tallix
Since its founding in 1970, Tallix has grown to be among the world’s largest and most respected full-service foundries for art casting and fabricating. Recently Tallix has worked on the façade of the Folk Art Museum in New York City and the Korean War Memorial in Washington, D.C. It is a neighbor of the Roosevelts, located in Beacon, New York just 20 miles south of Hyde Park.
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The courtyard sculpture
is based on this 1932 photograph of Franklin and Eleanor
Roosevelt on their Hyde Park estate. Photo Credit: FDR Presidential
Library.
Clay models of the sculpture
under development at StudioEIS. Photo Credit: FDR
Presidential Library.