Hell on Color, Sweet on Song: Jacob Wrey Mould and the Artful Beauty of Central Park

by Francis R. Kowsky, Lucille Gordon (With)

Overview

WINNER, VICTORIAN SOCIETY IN AMERICA BOOK AWARD
WINNER, 2024 PUBLICATION PRIZE, FRIENDS OF THE UPPER EAST SIDE HISTORIC DISTRICTS

Reveals new and previously unknown biographical material about an important figure in nineteenth-century American architecture and music.

Jacob Wrey Mould is not a name that readily comes to mind when we think of New York City archi­tecture. Yet he was one-third of the party responsible for the early development of the city’s Central Park. To this day, his sculptural reliefs, tile work, and structures in the Park enthrall visitors. Mould introduced High Victorian architecture to NYC, his fingerprint most pronounced in his striking and colorful ornamental designs and beautiful embellishments found in the carved decorations and mosaics at the Bethesda Terrace. Resurfacing the forgotten contributions of Mould, Hell on Color, Sweet on Song presents a study of this nineteenth-century American architect and musical genius.

Jacob Wrey Mould, whose personal history included a tie to Africa, was born in London in 1825 and trained there as an architect before moving to New York in 1852. The following year, he received the commission to design All Souls Unitarian Church. Nicknamed “the Church of the Holy Zebra,” it was the first building in America to display the mix of colorful materials and medieval Italian inspira­tion that was characteristic of High Victorian Gothic architecture. In addition to being an architect and designer, Mould was an accomplished musician and prolific translator of opera librettos. Yet anxiety over money and resentment over lack of appreciation of his talents soured Mould’s spirit. Unsystematic, impractical, and immune from maturity, he displayed a singular indifference to the realities of architecture as a commercial enterprise. Despite his personal shortcomings, he influenced the design of some of NYC’s revered landmarks, including Sheepfold, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the American Museum of Natural History, the City Hall Park fountain, and the Morningside Park promenade. From 1875 to 1879, he worked for Henry Meiggs, the “Yankee Pizarro,” in Lima, Peru.

Resting on the foundation of Central Park docent Lucille Gordon’s heroic efforts to raise from obscurity one of the geniuses of American architecture and a significant contributor to the world of music in his time, Hell on Color, Sweet on Song sheds new light on a forgotten genius of American architecture and music.

Funding for this book was provided by: Furthermore: a program of the J. M. Kaplan Fund

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781531502584
Publisher:	Empire State Editions
Publication date:	05/30/2023
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	304
File size:	94 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.

About the Author

Francis R. Kowsky is SUNY Distinguished Professor Emeritus and Fellow of the Society of Architectural Historians. He has written numerous articles on nineteenth-century American architects and is the author of Country Park and City: The Life and Architecture of Calvert Vaux and The Best Planned City in the World: Olmsted, Vaux, and the Buffalo Park System. Frank was a longtime member of the New York State Board for Historic Preservation and has prepared numerous nominations for the National Register of Historic Places.
Lucille Gordon (1929–2021), a lifelong resident of New York, founded and ran Gordon Associates, which specialized in marketing books for technical publishers. She volunteered as a docent in Central Park, leading educational tours, and later devoted many years to researching and drafting a biography of Jacob Wrey Mould, the lesser-known third architect of Central Park who created the majority of its decorative elements such as Bethesda Terrace.

Table of Contents

Preface: Discovering Jacob Wrey Mould | ix

Introduction | 1

1. Family Territory: England, Africa, Ireland, America | 17

2. Youthful Years in London: Architecture and Music | 27

3. Fresh Prospects in New York | 54

4. Embellishing Central Park | 96

5. Building a Career | 149

6. Greater Expectations | 195

Acknowledgments | 241

Notes | 243

Illustration Credits | 259

Index | 263

Color images follow page 130

Editorial Reviews

Central Park is one of the country’s most important works of American art, in part due to the contributions of the decorative genius of artist and architect, Jacob Wrey Mould. At long last, architectural historian Frank Kowsky, together with the brilliant research of Lucille Gordon, has brought this important and mysterious figure out into the light. In Hell on Color, Sweet on Song, we are seduced by fascinating—even shocking—aspects of Mould’s private life while gaining insight into the ideas behind his professional masterpieces, particularly those in Central Park. This biography is a must-read and—who knows—maybe the basis for a major motion picture. It is that good!—Sara Cedar Miller, Historian emerita of the Central Park Conservancy, and author of Before Central Park

Hell on Color, Sweet on Song is an excellently researched book about a very influential yet oft-forgotten architect of the mid-nineteenth century, Jacob Wrey Mould. While introducing vibrant colors and polychrome to the United States, Mould also changed the nature and look of New York’s architecture and impacted some of its most important designers. Mould rediscovered, hurrah!”—Richard Guy Wilson, Commonwealth Professor of Architectural History, Universityof Virginia

From the Publisher