The Hiker

“The Hiker,” the most famous creation of Allen George Newman, dedicated 1915.  The small plaque embedded in the boulder below the statue was by Charles Keck, who created the statue known as “The Eagle,” atop Conkling park.

This 1915 statue memorializes the Spanish American War, and it is one of approximately 20 full-sized casts of this work, by Allen George Newman (1875-1940), in the United States.   “The Hiker” is Newman’s best-known work.

Utica’s Munson-Williams-Proctor Arts Institute has in its collection a smaller bronze version, the first to be cast from the original plaster model Newman used as the basis for the larger versions (another, somewhat later cast of the artist’s model  is in the collection of the New-York Historical Society in Manhattan).

The boulder on which this statue sits also carries a bronze plaque dedicated to the memory of the USS Maine (whose sinking instigated the Spanish-American War), one of two works by American sculptor Charles Keck in Utica (the other being The Eagle, found in Roscoe Conkling Park.

“The Hiker” shortly after its dedication. Roscoe Conkling Park is at right—note the early tennis courts in the background.

Closeup of “The Hiker” in winter.