BoxRec

I was just reading thru parts of the excellent book LANKY BOB by K.R Robinson
and came across something that I'm sure will interest you all.
on page 386 the author mentions that the famous sculptor Gutzon Borgium
( best known for carving the faces of Mount Rushmore in solid granite in the Black Hills of South Dakota.)
was visited in his studios in 1906 by Bob Fitzsimmons (Time magazine even reported the two laced up gloves and sparred)
Gutzon Borgium proposed to make a statue of Bob Fitzsimmons.
Here is what the famous sculptor was quoted as saying in 1906. "

" He is one of the best specimens of Manhood in the World and by far the most perfect representative of the fighting man that this age has produced".

The author of the book also goes on to say
"The whereabouts of the Bob Fitzsimmons carving is unknown".

the author of the book does suggest however that it is possible that the carving of Bob Fitzsimmons could be one of the 42 Bronze figures in the famous sculpture by Gutzon Borgium WARS OF AMERICA that is located at Veteran's Park Newark New Jersey.

I just came across another old newspaper article THE NEW YORK SUN from 1906
Where it mentioned that when Bob Fitzsimmons visited Borgiums studio's ( located at no. 166 E. 38TH street)
Borgium proposed to make a 2 ft high statuette of him in marble.
"A Modern Gladiator"
He asked to cast Bob Fitzsimmons in ' a left hand pose" while he was there.
So Fitzsimmons took his shirt off to show him his muscles and Borgium had made a plaster cast of Fitzsimmons
massive back, his left side and left arm
in a fighting pose. (which took 25 minutes to do).
Fitzsimmons was to come back every day for a week
so that Gutzon Borgium could make a plaster cast of the rest of him, but no mention
if Bob Fitzsimmons ever returned to the studios afterwards.

The other place that the author suggests the Fitzsimmons sculpture may be hiidden somewhere is this place.