Venezia

Larkin Mead grew up in Vermont, studied sculpture in New York City, and spent much of his career in Italy, especially Venice, which profundly influenced him. The subject of Venezia exhibits Mead's love of the historic port, where he stayed with his brother-in-law, William Dean Howells, while Howells served as American consul to the city. Using his new bride Marietta di Benvenuti as a model, Mead sculpted Venezia as a beautiful woman rising from a sea sponge, crowned with a scallop shell incorporating a gondola. In America, Mead earned many public commissions. In Minnesota, Mead completed a large marble sculpture of Mississippi, Father of Waters for the Minneapolis City Hall in 1903. Larkin Mead was also the older brother of architect William Rutherford Mead, who with Charles McKim and Stanford White, formed the architectural firm that designed the original 1915 building of The Minneapolis Institute of Art.