Donald De Lue

Born Donald H. Quigley in Boston, the artist took the name De Lue in 1918 from the maternal side of his family. At an early age he studied with Bela Pratt at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, but most of his training came from working in the studios of older sculptors. In Boston De Lue spent three years with Richard Recchia, and another three with the Englishman Robert P. Baker. After World War I he spent five years in France, where he worked for several sculptors, including Alfredo Pena.

Returning to the United States, De Lue served for about eleven years as chief assistant to Bryant Baker in New York City. His work first won recognition in 1938 when he was runner-up in a competition for the Federal Trade Commission Building in Washington, D.C. This led to several government commissions, the first of which were reliefs for the Philadelphia courthouse, completed in 1940. In the next almost fifty years, De Lue probably executed more monumental commissions than anyone else of his generation. Among his works are Spirit of American Youth Rising from the Waves for the Omaha Beach Memorial in France and Rocket Thrower for the 1964 World's Fair in Flushing Meadows, New York. He was also an accomplished medalist and a member of the National Sculpture Society.

National Museum of American Art (CD-ROM) (New York and Washington D.C.: MacMillan Digital in cooperation with the National Museum of American Art, 1996)