The Pioneer Woman statue is a work created by sculptor Leo Friedlander

Leo Friedlander

Leo Friedlander was an American sculptor who has made several prominent works. Friedlander studied at the Art Students League in New York City, the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Brussels and Paris and the American Academy in Rome...

. It is located at the Texas Women's University (TWU) in Denton, Texas

Denton, Texas

The city of Denton is the county seat of Denton County, Texas in the United States. Its population was 119,454 according to the 2010 U.S. Census, making it the eleventh largest city in the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex...

 and was commissioned as part of the Texas Centenary celebrations to mark the 100th anniversary of Texas Independence from Mexico

Mexico

The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...

.

The beginning

On June 3, 1935 the Board of Regents at TWU passed a resolution stating that it urged "the Centennial Commission of Control to allocate the sum of $30,000 for the erection of a statue to the Pioneer Women of Texas to be erected on the campus as a part of the Centennial celebration. The idea for this statue originated with this institution, and . . . . . . the erection of this statue on the campus will serve the women of the entire State, and will inspire their daughters to continued reference for the heroism and sacrifice of the pioneer women of the past who helped to make the Texas of the present."

University President L.H. Hubbard, proposed the a statue to the Centennial Commission who agreed and responded by announcing an open competition for sculptors to design the statue. However "the design of the statue, including the choice of the sculptor, the design, etc, were to be handled under the direction of the State Board of Control, and that the College had nothing whatever to do with the matter." The Board at that time had to be satisfied with recommending a site on campus where the statue would be placed.
In June of 1936 the TWU Board of Regents passed a motion requesting that the Texas Centennial Commission "erect a Memorial Chapel to Pioneer Women on the campus instead of the Statue as proposed at the present time." Had either the Regents or the members of the Centennial Commission known what lay ahead they might well have agreed to this request, and as it turned out, the university did eventually get its chapel, the Little Chapel in the Woods

Little Chapel in the Woods

The Little Chapel in the Woods is a chapel constructed mainly for meditation and prayer. It was built in 1939, on the Denton campus of Texas Womans University, and was dedicated by First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt. Inside the chapel, there are many pieces of artwork, as well as stained glass windows....

, designed by architect O'Neil Ford

O'Neil Ford

O'Neil Ford was a major regional architect of the mid-20th century in Texas and a leading architect of the American Southwest. He is considered one of the nation's best unknown architects, and his designs merged the modernism of Europe with the indigenous qualities of early Texas...

. First lady Eleanor Roosevelt

Eleanor Roosevelt

Anna Eleanor Roosevelt was the First Lady of the United States from 1933 to 1945. She supported the New Deal policies of her husband, distant cousin Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and became an advocate for civil rights. After her husband's death in 1945, Roosevelt continued to be an international...

 spoke at its dedication in 1939.

The competition

By October 1936 plans for the statue were moving forward by "inviting a group of leading American sculptors, about 80 in number, to submit photographs of their of their work and from this group several sculptors are to be chosen who will be required to submit models of the proposed statue to the Centennial Commission of Control and if the first model submitted is not acceptable other models will be submitted until an accepted group is submitted." Foreshadowing if ever there was.

Among the artists who entered the competition was the Texas sculptor Waldine Tauch

Waldine Tauch

Waldine Amanda Tauch, was an American sculptor born in Schulenburg, Texas to William and Elizabeth Heimann Tauch....

, who entered seven different competitions conducted by the Commission. She was to win three of them (memorials to Moses Austin

Moses Austin

Moses Austin played a large part in the development of the American lead industry and is the father of Stephen F. Austin, a leading American settler of Texas. He was the first to be allowed to gather Anglo Americans for settlement in Spanish Texas...

, Isaac and Frances Van Zandt

Isaac Van Zandt

Isaac Van Zandt was a political leader in the Republic of Texas. Van Zandt County, Texas, was named in his honor....

 and First Shot Fired For Texas Independence monument

Battle of Gonzales

The Battle of Gonzales was the first military engagement of the Texas Revolution. It was fought near Gonzales, Texas, on October 2, 1835, between rebellious Texian settlers and a detachment of Mexican army troops....

) but she was not able to garner the Pioneer Woman statue. However she was to play a part in the ensuing drama
It is not yet clear how many plaster models were submitted, but a "jury of professionals" unanimously chose the one submitted by William Zorach

William Zorach

William Zorach was a Lithuanian-born American sculptor, painter, printmaker, and writer. He won the Logan Medal of the arts.-Life and career:...

, a sculptor from New York, which included not just a pioneer woman, or a woman and child as did Tauch's model, but the entire family, mother, father, son and daughter. And they were all nude. Nudity was seen, by some, as being appropriate for Classical, allegorical or symbolical portrayals but was unacceptable for Texas pioneer women. Upon learning of the commission's decision Tauch "wasted no time telephoning and writing letters to many friends throughout the state to report the incident."
"Anguished protests from Texans swelled into a controversy dwarfing all previous ones (in Zorach's career). One astute observer noted the woman had no wedding ring .... while a chapter of the Daughters of the Republic of Texas

Daughters of the Republic of Texas

The Daughters of the Republic of Texas is a sororal association dedicated to perpetuating the memory of Texas pioneer families and soldiers of the Republic of Texas. The Daughters of the Republic of Texas is best known for its role as caretakers of The Alamo. They also operate a museum in Austin...

 declared it, 'the greatest insult that could be offered to these women who believed and practiced the virtue of modesty' ." Zorach wrote "The newspapers said that if a Texas pioneer had gone around in such a state of nudity he would have been strung to the nearest tree. ... Gutzon Borglum

Gutzon Borglum

Gutzon de la Mothe Borglum was an American artist and sculptor famous for creating the monumental presidents' heads at Mount Rushmore, South Dakota, the famous carving on Stone Mountain near Atlanta, as well as other public works of art.- Background :The son of Mormon Danish immigrants, Gutzon...

 was down there at the time and I was told that he said my figures looked like a bunch of apes, a remark that was widely quoted by opponents of the statue at the time.
Richard Foster Howard, then director of the Dallas Museum of Art

Dallas Museum of Art

The Dallas Museum of Art is a major art museum located in the Arts District of downtown Dallas, Texas, USA, along Woodall Rodgers Freeway between St. Paul and Harwood. In 1984, the museum moved from its previous location in Fair Park to the Arts District, Dallas, Texas...

 defended Zorach and the sculptor went so far as to revise his model so that the figures were clothed , but the damage had been done.

It did not take long for the public outcry to induce the commission to reverse its decision, to declare that there was no winner of the competition. "The commission was given quietly and without publicity to Leo Friedlander, a sculptor who had not ever entered the competition. "
The statue was modeled, and then following it's approval by the various committee's in Texas, carved by the Piccirilli Brothers

Piccirilli Brothers

The Piccirilli Brothers were a family of renowned marble carvers who carved a large number of the most significant marble sculptures in the United States, including Daniel Chester French’s colossal Abraham Lincoln in the Lincoln Memorial, Washington, D.C.-History:In 1888, Giuseppe Piccirilli , a...

 in New York City. At some point in the carving process someone, either Friedlander or the Piccirilli carvers became concerned that the statues right hand and her right thumb and fore finger might be too weak to be self-supporting, so a small block of marble was left to add strength. Often such aids are removed in the works final carving, they were not in this case.

For the base of the statue the Dean of Women, Jessie H. Humphries, composed the following inscription:

"Marking a trail in a pathless wilderness pressing forward with unswerving courage she met each untried situation with a resourcefulness equal to the need. With a glad heart she brought to her frontier family her homelands cultural heritage. With delicate spiritual sensitiveness she illuminated the dullness of routine and the loneliness of isolation with beauty and with life abundant and with all she lived with casual unawareness of her value to civilization. Such was the pioneer woman. The unsung saint of the nations immortals."

On another side of the base the carvers included Leo Friedlander's name.

Years later Zorach's statue, still without clothes was cast in bronze and obtained by a Colorado bank. It was "discovered" in a courtyard of the bank's branch in Pueblo, Colorado

Pueblo, Colorado

Pueblo is a Home Rule Municipality that is the county seat and the most populous city of Pueblo County, Colorado, United States. The population was 106,595 in 2010 census, making it the 246th most populous city in the United States....

. Later it was moved to Denver

Denver, Colorado

The City and County of Denver is the capital and the most populous city of the U.S. state of Colorado. Denver is a consolidated city-county, located in the South Platte River Valley on the western edge of the High Plains just east of the Front Range of the Rocky Mountains...

 and now (2010) resides in front of the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center

Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center

The Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center is an arts center located just north of downtown Colorado Springs, Colorado. Located on the same city block are the American Numismatic Association and part of the campus of Colorado College....

.