Thomas Ball (artist)
| Thomas Ball | |
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Thomas Ball carte de visite
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| Born |
June 3, 1819 Charlestown, Massachusetts |
| Died | December 11, 1911 (aged 92) Montclair, New Jersey |
| Nationality | United States |
| Known for | sculpture |
Thomas Ball (June 3, 1819 – December 11, 1911) was an American sculptor and musician. His work has had a marked influence on monumental art in the United States, especially in New England.
He was born in Charlestown, Massachusetts, to Thomas Ball, a house and sign painter and Elizabeth Wyer Hall. His father died when he was twelve. After several odd jobs to help support his family he spent three years working at the Boston Museum, which he later described as a "place of amusement" rather than an art museum. There he entertained the visitors by drawing portraits, playing the violin, and singing, and repaired mechanical toys. He then became an apprentice for the museum wood-carver Abel Brown. He taught himself oil painting by copying prints and casts in the studio of the museum superintendent.
Ball was an accomplished musician and from his teenage years worked as a paid singer in Boston churches. He performed as an unpaid soloist with the Handel and Haydn Society beginning in 1846 and with that organization sang the title role in the first United States performance of Mendelssohn's Elijah, and the baritone solos in Rossini's Moses in Egypt. On a visit to Boston years later he performed the baritone role in Boston's first performance of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony with the Germania Orchestra on April 2, 1853.
As commissions started to come in he moved from studio to studio until he settled in a studio in Tremont Row where he remained for twelve years. There he painted several religious pictures and a portrait of Cornelia Wells (Walter) Richards, editor of the Boston Evening Transcript. He then turned his attention to sculpture.
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