Norfolk City Virginia USGenWeb Archives Obituaries.....Couper, William June 22, 1942
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Robert Woolfitt http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00034.html#0008401 April 3, 2025, 4:07 pm

Virginian-Pilot June 26, 1942
The ashes of William Couper, one of Norfolk’s most distinguished native-born, 
who won honors in Italy and America as a sculptor, are here for their last 
resting place and for private funeral services tomorrow morning at 11 o’clock at 
the home of his late brother, Charles C. Couper, 617 Fairfax avenue. Dr. Jason 
L. MacMillan, of the First Presbyterian Church, will conduct the services.
Mr. Couper, who would have been 89 years old in September, died Monday at the 
home of his son, William A. Couper, of Bozman, Md., who arrived last night with 
his father’s remains. Prior to his retirement in 1913, Mr. Couper was one of the 
most sought-after sculptors in the United States, specializing in ideal works, 
portraits, busts and bas-reliefs.
WORKS ARE HERE
He considered as his greatest work his fourteen heroic marble busts of well-
known scientists, which the Museum of Natural History in New York commissioned 
him to do for the museum foyer. Two of his works survive in Norfolk. One is the 
Confederate soldier atop the Confederate monument on Commercial place, and the 
other is the figure of the Recording Angel on the grave of his mother in Elmwood 
Cemetery.
The original plaster bust of the latter was presented to the Montclair, N.J. Art 
Museum during Mr. Couper’s long residence there. In the erection of the 
stonework of the Commercial place monument, his brothers, John D. Couper, Jr., 
and C. C. Couper, took an important part. The Couper Marble Works, founded by 
their father in 1848, and still in operation as the oldest business in Norfolk 
under the guidance of one family, was in charge of the late C. C. Couper until 
his death last April 13, and now run by Mrs. Couper.
After the services, there will be a private burial of the ashes in the Couper 
family lot in Elmwood Cemetery, where the wife of the sculptor, in addition to 
his relatives, are interred.
Surviving William Couper are the following: Two sons, Thomas Ball Couper, of 
Montclair, and William Alan Couper, of Bozman, Md.; six grandchildren, Thomas B. 
Couper and William M. Couper, Montclair, Clive R. H. Couper and Mrs. Ernest 
Nordlie, of California, and Anne Ellen Couper and H. Rusby Couper, of Bozman; 
and two great-grandchildren.
The following nieces and nephews also survive: Mrs. R. Guy Baldwin, of Norfolk; 
Mrs. H. Chester Prince, also of Norfolk; Col. William Couper, of Lexington; and 
Dr. Monroe Couper, of Wilmington, Del.
William Couper was born in Norfolk on Main street at the residence of his 
parents, John Diedrich Couper and Euphania Monroe Couper, on September 20, 1853. 
He came from Scottish forbears, his grandfather having arrived in Norfolk on 
July 29, 1801, at the age of 26, after a voyage from Scotland which required 75 
sailing days.
Family tradition says that young William often played about the marble works 
here, doubtless finding there the first suggestions of form in stone that later 
were to mature into so many works of sculpture. On one occasion, it is said, he 
modeled a likeness with clay which drew the favorable notice of a neighbor. 
“That boy,” the neighbor is reputed to have said, “should be encouraged and 
taught the art of sculpture.”
After attending a Norfolk private school, the young man went to New York to 
study at the famous Cooper Institute. There he won a scholarship or grant which 
enabled him to attend, in 1875, the Royal Academy at Munich. During his studies 
in Germany, his ideas on art underwent a change and development which foretold 
the careful research and conscientiousness that distinguished his work.
“I ran into difficulty at the Academy,” he confessed in an interview at 
Montclair during his retirement. “We were modeling figures from life, and I 
could get nowhere with my modeling. A model would stand before us, perhaps with 
one arm raised over his head. After a few minutes, that arm would sag slightly, 
and an entirely different series of lines would be presented to our gaze. There 
would be subtle changes in posture, and each would make it more difficult for me 
to reproduce the appearance of the model.
“After three weeks of it, I was almost ready to surrender in despair. Then I 
decided on the only possible course, to study the body so thoroughly that each 
change of position meant as much to me as the original position. I went to the 
surgical institute nearby and obtained permission to perform dissection with the 
medical students. I still remember the sick repugnance that overcame me as I was 
introduced to my first cadaver, but the chief surgeon laid the body open for me 
and I became absorbed in the study of anatomy.”
Because the climate in Germany did not suit him, Couper left Munich for 
Florence, where Thomas Ball, one of the best-known sculptors of his day-an 
American who gained great fame in Italy-offered him a place in his studio. In 
1878, Couper married his daughter, Eliza Chickering Ball, formerly of Boston, 
Mass., and related to the Chickering family so well known as piano 
manufacturers. Mrs. Couper died only a few years ago.
William Couper remained in Florence for 27 years, but returned to America to 
open a studio and settle down in New York in 1897. Before his retirement in 
1913, he produced a variety of sculptural works, several of which were created 
for Virginia settings. Besides those in Norfolk, he did public statues of Dr. 
McGuire and Joseph Bryan of Richmond, as well as the familiar statue of Capt. 
John Smith at Jamestown.
Other public statues done by Couper are in Trenton, N.J., Pittsburgh, Pa., 
Vicksburg, Miss., and Washington, where there is an heroic bronze of Longfellow. 
Another bronze of Longfellow is at Grand Rapids, Mich. Couper sculpted the 
likenesses of Charles Darwin, Rear Adm. Robert Peary, and other scientists in 
his famous series for the Museum of Natural History in New York, and in that 
city are several portrait statues in marble carved by him. The Darwin bust, done 
long after Darwin had died, was considered so faithful that a replica of it was 
ordered by Christ College at Cambridge University, England.
One of Mr. Couper’s larger works is the marble statue of Moses on the Appellate 
Court Building in New York. It was typical of his careful craftmanship that he 
should reveal the difficulty he experienced in completing it. “I worked on that 
statue for a year,” he once said, “then purposely smashed it and started over 
again before I could be satisfied with what I was accomplishing.” Another of his 
triumphs was his selection by John D. Rockefeller, above any other contemporary 
artist, to do a portrait bust of that noted magnate.
Besides many other bronze busts, he left large bronze reliefs at the Sailor’s 
Memorial at Annapolis and in the State House at Boston. Among his marble statues 
are the Crown for the Victor at Montclair; the Angel of the Resurrection at 
Chicago; and the Advent of Spring, a familiar creation which stands in the 
Mayflower Hotel in Washington.
Not many years before he died, Mr. Couper summed up in an interview his 
philosophy and motivation toward art. He was at the time 84 years of age. He had 
not since his retirement engaged in sculpture, contenting himself with painting 
in oils and watercolor. He spoke with care and evidently much reflection.
“This is a wonderful world,” he said, “so wonderful that no one can tell all 
about it. We should all study life without pride but with gratitude. We should 
use God’s gracious gift of observance. We start at zero otherwise, knowing even 
less than do animals at birth.
“In art,” he continued, “we have to know exactly what we are going to do, then 
do it. It is not easy, but if one is sufficiently inspired, one can do it. I 
have been inspired from my earliest years with the desire to leave something of 
beauty behind, something which was not in the world when I entered it.”
In accordance with his specific request-determined upon, he said, after his 
studies at the surgical institute in Munich had convinced him of the futility of 
preserving the mortal remains of man-his body was cremated.


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