Albert Laessle
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 Museum Without Walls - Billy by artist Albert Laessle, Association for Public Art
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Albert Laessle (March 28, 1877 – September 4, 1954) was an American sculptor and educator. He taught at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts for more than twenty years. He won the 1918 Widener Gold Medal.
Albert Laessle was born on March 28, 1877, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. His parents immigrated to the United States from Württemberg, Germany. Laessle had an older brother, Henry who was supportive of his artistic ambitions, whereas his parents were not.
Laessle studied art at several institutions; Spring Garden Institute in 1894, Drexel Institute (now Drexel University) 1894-1895, and the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts where he studied under Thomas Anshutz and Charles Grafly. He spent three years, from 1904 to 1907 in Paris working with Michel Beguine.
In 1907, he returned to Philadelphia and worked in Grafly's studio.
In 1901, he was a contender for a gold medal from the Philadelphia Club for his famous plaster work Turtle and Crab, the turtle was so accurately sculpted, critics alleged it was cast. Laessle did not address the accusations which cost him the medal, but rather retaliated by producing another sculpture of a turtle out of wax which can not be cast, proving he did not cast the first work.
In 1910, he won a medal at the Buenos Aires International Exposition and in 1915, he won a gold medal at the Panama-Pacific International Exposition. In 1916, he won first place in the Americanization Through Art exhibition in Philadelphia.
Laessle's famous sculptures can be found at the Carnegie Institute, the Peabody Institute, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. In Philadelphia's Rittenhouse Square is his famous bronze Billy (1914) – a sculpture of a goat that is known to be a favorite of children who love to sit on it – which was given to the City of Philadelphia by Eli Kirke Price II through the Fairmount Park Art Association (now the Association for Public Art). At the Philadelphia Zoo is his group of bronze Penguins (1917), which was purchased by the Fairmount Park Art Association and installed at the entrance to the zoo's Bird House. Laessle's studio was close to the Philadelphia Zoo, which allowed him easy access to animal models.
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