Eugene Morahan

Eugene H. Morahan (August 29, 1869 – November 14, 1949) was an American sculptor.

Art Moderne-style saintly mother

Morahan was the sculptor for this fountain in memory of Alfred Gwynne Vanderbilt, who died with the Lusitania in 1915.

Born in Brooklyn, New York,^[1] he was a student of Augustus Saint-Gaudens.^[2][1]

Morahan sculpted:

• the Alfred Vanderbilt Memorial Fountain in Newport, Rhode Island
• the Samuel Manning Welch memorial^[3][4] and the Elks Memorial in Buffalo, New York^[5]
• the McGregor Memorial Fountain in Fort Myers, Florida^[5]
• panels of the Carroll Gardens war memorial in Brooklyn^[6]
• the Cuddy Memorial, a portrait panel of a British naval officer, at St. Barnabas' Church, Bexhill, England^[7][1]
• ”many portrait busts in New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, and Washington, D.C.”
• in 1934, the PWAP-sponsored Santa Monica sculpture that sits at the end of Wilshire Boulevard.^[7]
• the bronze equestrian statue of Father Eusebio Kino in the Tumacácori National Historical Park museum^[8]

During his time in California, Morahan was acquainted with the comedian Will Rogers and created an equestrian statue of him from memory after his death.^[9] Gutzon Borglum, a friend, and the sculptor of Mount Rushmore, took a break from that project to help him finish Santa Monica on time for the unveiling.^[10]

Morahan was married to Grace Storey Putnam (an artist and the creator of the Bye-Lo baby doll) from 1927 to 1941.^[11][12] Morahan and his wife moved to Santa Monica in 1930.^[8] He had a daughter, Adele Morahan, and a stepson, George C. Putnam^[1] (whose biological father was the sculptor Arthur Putnam).^[12] Morahan died in 1949 in Santa Monica, at the age of 80.^[1]