User:Leeann Wacker/Drafts

Artist	Robert Tait McKenzie
Year	2011 (2011)

Ideal Boy Scout is a public artwork by Canadian born artist Robert Tait McKenzie, located on the Walter and Olive Stiemke Scout Service Center, which is near Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA. The bronze life-size sculpture of a Boy Scout in uniform is five feet and ten inches high and rests on a brick pedestal.

Description

Scores of replicas of this statue have been cast by the Modern Art Foundry, Long Island, New York. The Boy Scouts make the copies available to any community that wants to purchase one, provided that it will be properly sited and landscaped to the best advantage.

Historical information

McKenzie actively supported the Boy Scouts organization in Philadelphia, where he served on the executive board for over twenty years. Asked to produce a figure of "an ideal scout," the sculptor chose several young scouts to model in uniform. In 1915 he gave the executive board an 18" bronze figure, together with rights to the royalties resulting from sales of copies. He said that the boy's uncovered head denoted reverence, obedience to authority, and discipline. The hatchet held by the scout is a symbol of truthfulness and the hope it would never be unsheathed for wanton destruction, but "applied unceasingly to the neck of treachery, treason, cowardice, discourtesy, dishonesty, and dirt." Many copies of this sculpture exist located all over the United States. The Smithsonian American Art Museum online database lists 18 statues all over the country.

Location history

In 1911 Milwaukee established a Boy Scout office on East Mason Street between North Water Street and North Broadway. As scouting became more popular, a larger office was leased in 1959 at West 37th Street and West Wisconsin Avenue. The need for a new building became apparent as a result of a long-range study completed by community leaders in 1977; after several years of study and planning, the architectural firm of Plunkett Keymar Reginato designed the building. In 1980, an initial gift of $220,000 from Wayne F. Weiss Trust enabled the Council to purchase and begin to develop the property. Other funding came from a variety of sources - the largest contribution of $500,000 being from Walter and Olive Stiemke. Upon the completion of the building in June of 1985, the employees of Gammex Inc. donated the statue of the Ideal Boy Scout.

Artist

Main article: Artist

See also

• Artwork of similar media, type, or style
• Other work by artist

References

Smithsonian Institution Research Information System." Smithsonian Institution Research Information System. Smithsonian American Art Museum, Jan. 2011. Web. 16 May 2011. <http://siris-artinventories.si.edu/ipac20/ipac.jsp?session=V3055F9013293.86647>.