City of Newburgh Historian and HSNBH Secretary Mary McTamaney will discuss the work of Newburgh sculptor Henry Kirke Brown in a presentation entitled “Monumental Newburgh: The Brown Family’s Contribution to America’s Public Sculpture.” Come and enjoy an evening at the Crawford House while sipping on a cocktail or mocktail. Light refreshments will be served.

As Mary McTamaney will explain, Newburgh’s artistic talent isn’t limited to brushwork. Sculptors have thrived here as well. Henry Kirke Brown, a friend of Longfellow (who visited him here) designed monuments for the U.S. Capitol and West Point. His life-sized statue of George Washington graces Union Square in lower Manhattan. This New York City landmark is the first American equestrian statue erected since colonists pulled down the statue of King George III in 1776. President Ulysses S. Grant visited Newburgh in June 1871 for the purpose of seeing the progress Brown was making on a statue of General Nathaniel Greene, one of Grant’s favorite Civil War officers.

Henry K. Brown’s nephew, Henry Kirke Bush-Brown, studied with him and went on to a celebrated career of public commissions too. The statue of Byzantine Emperor Justinian at the entrance to the New York Appellate Court is by H.K. Bush-Brown.