1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Taft, Lorado

TAFT, LORADO (1860–), American sculptor, was born at Elmwood, Illinois, on the 29th of April 1860. He graduated from the University of Illinois in 1879, and from 1880 to 1883 studied in the Ecole des Beaux Arts, Paris. In 1886 he became instructor at the Art Institute, Chicago, lecturing there, at the Chicago University, and elsewhere in the United States. He is the author of an exhaustive and authoritative work, The History of American Sculpture (1903). Among his works, in addition to much portraiture, are: “Sleep of the Flowers” and “Awakening of the Flowers,” both made for the Columbian Exposition; “Despair” (1898); “Solitude of the Soul” (1900), and “Fountain of the Lakes” (1903).