Jørgen Christian Dreyer (December 26, 1877 – November 17, 1948) was a Norwegian-born American sculptor. He emigrated to the United States in 1903 and worked as a professor of sculpture at the Kansas City Art Institute from 1907 to 1909. In his career Dreyer created a number of monumental sculptures, some of which are located in Kansas City, Missouri. His major works include: Life Drift; The Goddess of Dawn; Sphinxes (pair); Biology and Chemistry (a pair of figures); Lionesses (pair); The Message (a bust of Archibald Butt); Bust of Sir Carl Busch; Mercury, god of commerce; and Bust of Major General Sterling Price.
Early life (1877–1909) Dreyer was born in Tromsø, Norway, on December 26, 1877. He was the son of Hans Dreyer and his wife Regina Dreyer (née Mikkelsdatter). He grew to become a tall man, of slender build, and had blue eyes and auburn brown hair. After schooling at the Latin School in Tromsø, he attended the Royal School of Art and Industries in Oslo. His first sculpture was in snow, of an old professor, which everyone recognized. So even though he had started in drawing and painting at the Royal Academy, he saw (and others recognized) that his true gifts were modeling and sculpting. He continued studies with Stephan Sinding, one of the greatest of European sculptors. Dreyer modeled a bust of an Ibsen character, which Ibsen saw at a school exhibition. Ibsen sought out Dreyer and complimented him in person.
After art school, Dreyer was considering a move to Paris to begin his career. But after a letter from his sister in Topeka, Kansas told of an awakening interest in art and a shortage of sculptors, the young sculptor decided to try America rather than the already overcrowded city of Paris. Dreyer went to America in 1903 and made Kansas City, Missouri, his home for more than 40 years.
He moved into a studio and an apartment at 407 Studio Building (previously at the northwest corner of 9th Street and Locust) in Kansas City. He was a sculpture professor at the Fine Arts Institute (which later became the Kansas City Art Institute) from 1907 to 1909. Dreyer was dismissed from the Art Institute because he used nude models, a charge for which Thomas H. Benton would also be dismissed from the Art Institute in the 1930s. He married Lorena E. McWilliams, one of his students, in 1918.
Early works (1909–1925)
One of his first works was a sculpture of a woman reclining on the ground. One cast of this sculpture was acquired in the first year of the City Art Museum of Saint Louis (which later became the Saint Louis Art Museum) in 1909. The museum sold this sculpture, titled "Life Drift", through Christie's East, New York, October 15, 1986, sale number 6215, lot 47.
A rush commission was given to Dreyer in 1912 following the sinking of the RMS Titanic. He sculpted a bust of Major Archibald Butt who was killed in the Titanic disaster. Butt was a close personal aide to presidents Roosevelt and Taft. The commissioned piece, which Dreyer completed on June 15, 1912 and titled The Message, was on a base representing a ship on the ocean.
Dreyer sculpted a bust of Sir Carl Busch in 1912. Busch was the founder of what became the Kansas City Symphony Orchestra, and was its conductor from 1911 until 1918. This plaster bust was previously in the foyer of the Music Hall of the Kansas City Auditorium, and was moved to the Carl Busch Papers and Musical Instrument Collection housed within the Sousa Archives and Center for American Music in Champaign, Illinois, in 1936. Dreyer sculpted a bust of Frank Marvin, founder and dean of the engineering school at the University of Kansas in 1914. This bronze bust was on a marble pedestal in a corridor of Marvin Hall at KU.
Dreyer was on the faculty of the Dillenbeck School of Expression from 1915 to 1917. In 1915 Dreyer created a bust of lumber magnate John Barber White, which is displayed in the main branch of the Kansas City Library, Missouri Valley Special Collections. Also in 1915 Dreyer made a bust of John Priest Greene, former president of William Jewell College. It is on the 2nd floor of Curry Hall of the college at Liberty, Missouri. In 1916 Dreyer made a bust of Delbert J. Haff which is located near E. Meyer Blvd. and Monroe Ave. in Kansas City. Haff was city Park Commissioner from 1908 to 1912. Although the Haff bust was completed in 1916, it went into storage until former Parks Director Frank Vaydik discovered the sculpture and had it installed in its present location in 1967.