Benjamin Paul Akers. Benjamin Paul Akers was an American sculptor, from Maine.
Born in Saccarappa, Maine in 1825, into a large and indigent family of rural Maine. When his father, Deacon Akers, moved the family from Saccarappa to Salmon Falls on the Saco River, he started a wood-turning mill.
For six years as a young man he worked in his father's wood turning mill. There he invented beautiful patterns and turned toys.
His brother, Charles Carl Akers was also a sculptor and crayon portrait artist. He wrote articles on art for the Atlantic Monthly and also The Crayon, a short-lived, New York art magazine in the mid-19th century.
He spent the winter of 1849 in Boston learning the art of plaster casting with the sculptor, Joseph Carew. In 1850 he opened a studio in Portland, Maine. He received a Commemorative Silver Medal in the 1854 Exhibition and Fair of the Maine Charitable Mechanic Association. He moved to Boston in 1849 where he was an apprentice. The award was for his bas relief called Peace. In 1855, at age 30, he went to Rome, Italy where he worked for several years. Among his works are busts of Edward Everett and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, a head of John Milton and The Dead Pearl Diver, on display at the Portland Museum of Art in Portland, Maine. Nathaniel Hawthorne described Dead Pearl Diver as an important work of the protagonist, Kenyon, in his novel The Marble Faun, acknowledging his debt
Born in Saccarappa, Maine in 1825, into a large and indigent family of rural Maine. When his father, Deacon Akers, moved the family from Saccarappa to Salmon Falls on the Saco River, he started a wood-turning mill.
For six years as a young man he worked in his father's wood turning mill. There he invented beautiful patterns and turned toys.
His brother, Charles Carl Akers was also a sculptor and crayon portrait artist. He wrote articles on art for the Atlantic Monthly and also The Crayon, a short-lived, New York art magazine in the mid-19th century.
He spent the winter of 1849 in Boston learning the art of plaster casting with the sculptor, Joseph Carew. In 1850 he opened a studio in Portland, Maine. He received a Commemorative Silver Medal in the 1854 Exhibition and Fair of the Maine Charitable Mechanic Association. He moved to Boston in 1849 where he was an apprentice. The award was for his bas relief called Peace. In 1855, at age 30, he went to Rome, Italy where he worked for several years. Among his works are busts of Edward Everett and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, a head of John Milton and The Dead Pearl Diver, on display at the Portland Museum of Art in Portland, Maine. Nathaniel Hawthorne described Dead Pearl Diver as an important work of the protagonist, Kenyon, in his novel The Marble Faun, acknowledging his debt
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