Lampert Bemelmans, Coral Gables Womans Club Fountain.
Born in Belgium, Lampert Bemelmans came to the United States in 1905 and to Miami in 1925. Bemelmans purchased land in what was then the wilderness section of southwest Miami and began building cottages for winter tourists. As soon as they were up the hurricane of 1926 destroyed them. During the Depression Bemelmans conducted sculpture classes at the Coral Gables Art Center as supervisor of the Coral Gables sculpture unit of the Florida Art Project. The Miami Herald, June 23, 1940, “While the sea is carving and building in its mysterious way, man is also planning and executing works of art. Lampert Bemelmans is a sculptor of renown who retains the vigor and enthusiasm of youth. He is the supervisor of the sculptor department of the Florida Art Project, located in the old fire station where Salzedo and Alcazar streets meet in the Gables. Mr. Bemelmans and his assistants are busy executing commissions for statuary and designs for public parks and buildings. Including a fountain for the Homestead library and a frieze for a door at Matheson’s Hammock Park. And on March 8, 1942: “The adult clay modeling class conducted by Lampert Bemelmans, sculptor at the Coral Gables WPA Art Center is exhibiting glass work in the lobby of the Theater of the Fifteen, Douglas Entrance, Coral Gables, through two more weeks. Twelve students are represented.” Bemelmans obtained copyrights for two small heads of male and female Seminole Indians from which busts or bookends were to be made for sale. When the City of Miami Beach wanted to honor its founder, John S. Collins, Bemelmans was given the commission and on December 29, 1928, in celebration of Collins’ birthday, the bas relief sculpture was unveiled at the Beach City Hall. When Amelia Earhart took off from a small North Dade County airport on the first leg of her overseas flight on June 1,1937, Miami officials commissioned Bemelmans, working for the Federal Art Project, to create a bronze bas relief of her with her plane before she left. Earheart posed beside the plane before taking off. After her disappearance, a ten-foot chunk of coral rock from Key West was quarried to hold the bas relief. The Earhart monument was dedicated at the airstrip, January 6, 1939 by the Dade County Federation of Woman’s Clubs to the roar of 550 planes passing overhead in the largest mass flight of private aircraft in history. * In 1939 Miami Beach commissioned Bemelmans for a cast bronze figure of honoring Carl Fisher, who teamed with John Collins to develop the city.
Bemelmans designed the sculpture Hurricane Memorial at mile marker 81.5 on Islamorada, in the Florida Keys, as part of the WPA and Florida Arts Project. The Memorial, dedicated to the U. S. Army veterans who lost their lives in the storm, was made of native Florida Keystone. Inlaid on the tile crypt is a map that traces the path the hurricane took through the Florida Keys.
Born: 1871, Belgium. Died: May 11, 1951, Miami. Exhibits: Miami Woman’s Club, 1st Annual Artists’ Salon, February 1929; Miami Woman’s Club, 2nd Annual Artists’ Salon, February 1930.
*Today the airstrip is Amelia Earhart Park. The bas relief of Earhart was lost but the coral rock remains with a new plaque for Earhart dedicated in 1989. From the Miami Herald, March 24, 1997.
