In the context of this artwork, explain the The models of the Design and construction.
At that point Marland sent out invitations to many of America's leading sculptors, offering them each a $10,000 honorarium to produce a roughly 3 feet (0.9 m) tall bronze model for the statue. He further proposed that the models tour the United States and that the American public vote as to which of the models would be erected in Ponca City. Several sculptors, Daniel Chester French, George Grey Barnard and Paul Manship turned Marland down, also declining were the only two women invited, Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney and Anna Hyatt Huntington, leaving him with an even dozen artists, all males. The artists who submitted models were Bryant Baker, A, Stirling Calder, Jo Davidson, James Earle Fraser, John Gregory, F. Lynn Jenkins, Mario Korbel, Arthur Lee, Hermon Atkins MacNeil, Maurice Sterne, Mahonri Young, and Wheeler Williams. The models were to tour America and everyone who visited the sites where they were exhibited was allowed to vote for their favorite.Marland's original idea was to have a woman in pioneer dress accompanied by a child, and so he provided a sunbonnet to each sculptor. While the artists were not limited to these ideas, nine of the twelve models included a sunbonnet and all save for Jo Davidson's included a child. Both Davidson and Calder visited Oklahoma to gain further inspiration.Mahonri Young's biographer Thomas Toone relates that Young produced not only the required three foot tall statuette, but also a plaster version of the entire Pioneer Memorial as he envisioned it, replete with detailed bas-reliefs of western scenes around the base of a massive pedestal and platform, on top of which the pioneer woman "holds her child in the embrace of a Renaissance Madonna." A pair of spirited bison guard the stairs leading up the base. The voting public was not privy to Young's vision and his work showed poorly in the balloting. Young, who described not winning the competition as the worst disappointment in his career, did manage to get some of his ideas out in later works.
Toone also adds that the winning sculptor, Baker Bryant used, "a professional actress as his model, which produced a glamorous figure, representing Western myth more than reality."There are some questions raised about the winning design by Donald De Lue, at that time Baker Bryant's chief assistant. De Lue's biographer, D. Roger Howlett makes several points about the Pioneer Woman statue."it was especially on the "Pioneer Woman" that De Lue manifest his talent ... ... Baker claimed that the conception and movement of the final monument was developed in an eight-to-ten inch sketch model made by him a few hours after he learned about the competition. De Lue executed the thirty-three inch competition model for the sculpture in 1927, with Baker supervising and completing the face." Baker was also the last sculptor to enter the contest having only one month to prepare his model.James Earle Fraser based his almost Impressionistic statue on his favorite aunt, Dora, who was herself a pioneer woman. This model is unique among the ones submitted to the competition, and perhaps in the entire world of Pioneer Women Statues, in that the woman, caught breast feeding her child, exposes a bare breast. No stranger to multi-tasking, she still manages to hold on to her rifle while feeding the baby.Many years after the competition Wheeler Williams' model was re-discovered, enlarged, cast, and now sits in front of the public library in Liberty, Kansas.
Donald De Lue John Gregory Maurice Sterne George Grey Barnard Hermon Atkins MacNeil James Earle Fraser Mario Korbel Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney Liberty, Kansas Ponca City F. Lynn Jenkins Mahonri Young Daniel Chester French Bryant Baker Oklahoma bas-relief Arthur Lee A, Stirling Calder Jo Davidson Paul Manship Anna Hyatt Huntington Wheeler Williams