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What: “Rudolph Thiem and Billy Yank: What the Artist’s Life Tells Us About His Magnum Opus” with Jon Thiem
When: 7 p.m. Monday, Sept. 21
Where: First St. John United Church of Christ, 412 S. Front St., Hamilton
Admission: Free
Info: (513) 896-9930
HAMILTON — Long before there was a City of Sculpture, German immigrant and Berlin-trained sculptor Rudolph Thiem landed the commission to create a piece of art that would become a symbol for his adopted city.
The sculpture’s official title is “Victory: Jewel of the Soul,” but is better known in Hamilton as Billy Yank.
On Sept. 21, Thiem’s great-grandson, Jon Thiem, will reveal how the statue’s creator influenced one of Butler County’s most recognizable landmarks, the Soldiers, Sailors and Pioneers Monument.
His design for “Victory,” a 3,500-pound, 14-foot bronze statue of a Union soldier standing on an exploded shell and waving his hat jubilantly, was selected in a national competition in 1906.
“There is a great deal of family lore about my great-grandfather and the statue,” Thiem said. “My father, who died in 2004, knew his grandfather and loved him and knew lots of stories about him. As I grew up, I collected stories and information about him.”
Jon Thiem, cultural historian at Colorado State University and a finalist for the 2009 Colorado Book Award, is working on a book about his family history and its German roots.
Born in Germany in 1857, Rudolph Thiem emigrated from his native Berlin to the United States through New Orleans, according to information provided by the Butler County Historical Society.
His talents as an artist were noticed by Hamilton stove-maker Lazarus Kahn. Offered a position as model-maker and designer at Kahn Brothers, Thiem relocated to Hamilton in 1886. Not long after, he established his own business as a model-maker, designer and ornamental carver.
He served as his own model for Billy Yank and did the work in a studio across the Great Miami River on A Street, which has a special skylight built into the ceiling.
“The irony of this is that he was a German immigrant who created a patriotic work of art,” Jon Thiem said. “It was controversial at the time because most of the victory statues were allegorical, depicting goddesses with wings.
“It was a time of reconstruction in the country and there was a movement to heal wounds, but this cry of victory was pretty direct. So it was unusual to see a common Civil War soldier in such an active position.”
His work also adorns regimental monuments on Civil War battlefields such as Chickamauga and architectural details at St. John’s United Church of Christ, where his great-grandson will deliver his presentation.
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