Bela Lyon Pratt (December 11, 1867 – May 18, 1917) was an American sculptor.
Pratt was born in Norwich, Connecticut to Sarah (Whittlesey) and George Pratt, a Yale-educated lawyer. His maternal grandfather, Oramel Whittlesey, was a pianoforte maker and founder in 1835 of the first music school in the country authorized to confer degrees to teach music, Music Vale Seminary. At 16, Pratt began studying at the Yale University School of Fine Arts, whe...
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Bela Lyon Pratt (December 11, 1867 – May 18, 1917) was an American sculptor.
Pratt was born in Norwich, Connecticut to Sarah (Whittlesey) and George Pratt, a Yale-educated lawyer. His maternal grandfather, Oramel Whittlesey, was a pianoforte maker and founder in 1835 of the first music school in the country authorized to confer degrees to teach music, Music Vale Seminary. At 16, Pratt began studying at the Yale University School of Fine Arts, where his teachers included John Henry Niemeyer (1839-1932) and John Ferguson Weir (1841-1926).
After graduating from Yale, he enrolled at the Art Students League of New York where he took classes from William Merritt Chase (1849-1916), Kenyon Cox (1859-1919), Francis Edwin Elwell (1858-1922), and most important, Augustus Saint-Gaudens (1848-1907), who became his mentor. After a short stint in Saint-Gaudens' private studio, Pratt traveled to Paris, where he trained with sculptors Henri-Michel-Antoine Chapu (1833-1891) and Alexandre Falguière ...
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