C. Warner Williams - Culver’s Renaissance Man

Culver’s Renaissance Man
By Rachel Meade
Culver Citzen
Antiquarian and Historical Society quarterly
Winter, 2013

Ask any long-time Culver citizen about Warner Williams, and you’ll probably hear a description of an eccentric man riding around town on his bicycle, his long beard flying behind him.



Others may recall the geodesic dome he constructed n his back yard, out of from which he churned out countless plaster animal sculptures following his 1968 retirement from the Culver Military Academy.



According to Warner’s son David, the dome was his habitat, from which he typically emerged only for meals. The dome still stands in town, as do his animal sculptures, bas-reliefs, and bronze medallions, which can be found in area homes, at the Culver Public Library, and throughout the Culver Academies campus

During his 28 years as artist-in-resident at the Culver Academies, Warner created countless works of art for the school; from the bust of long-time headwaiter Charlie Dickerson in the Dining Hall, to the processional cross at the campus chapel, to the Woodcraft 50th Anniversary plaque that hangs at the camp’s entrance. His commissioned bas-reliefs and sculptures can also be found in universities and museums across Indiana, Illinois, and beyond. The sculpted head of Voss native and Notre Dame football coach Knute Rockne resides in Voss, Sweden.

Some of his more famous commissions include bas-relief of John F. Kennedy, Leopold Stokowski, Thomas Edison, George Ade, Mark Twain, John T. MeCutcheon, Pope Paul XXIII, John Wayne, and Stan Musial, among many others.

Warner was born in Kentucky, where he attended Berea College (in 1960, he would b appointed an aide de camp on the staff of the state’s Governor with the rank and grade of Colonel, for “success in your chosen field and…cultural-historical contributions to your home state.”).

He later spent several years studying at Chicago’s Art Institute under an honors scholarship. By 1930, Williams was known as “the Hoosie sculptor” for his work in the state, which included designing the best-selling medallions for the Indiana Sesquicentennial Medallion and the fiftieth running of the Indianapolis 500. In Illinois, he was commissioned to create murals and sculptures for the Chicago World’s Fair in 1933. He won the City of Chicago prize in 1931 and the Daughters of Indiana prize in 1939.

Despite the accolades, Warner Williams is remembered as a quiet, humble person who worked long hours through the end of his life, chiefly because he enjoyed it. In a 1968 interview Warner said, “I'm not interested in production. I rarely reuse my work. Most of it is personal. I give a lot of things away.”

Former CMA art teacher Anne Duff recalled how he kept a little basket of animal sculptures in the dome to hand out to his visitors. Regarding his style, Duff calls it “illustrative.”

In a 1930 interview with the Culver Citizen, Warner said, "If the design is an interpretation of fundamental laws, it is timeless. It has perpetual value.”

In addition to creating personal and commissioned pieces, Warner also spent a great deal of time educating the public about the process of artistic creation.

According to his son Earle, prior to coming to Culver, he spent years traveling throughout the Midwest giving lectures. With his oldest son Carroll running the projector, he would select someone from the audience and create a model of them in 20 minutes, which he would later fine-tune in his studio. Culver resident Marcia Adams recalled serving as a model for one of these public lectures. Warner sculpted her face and then aged it 40 years, demonstrating how the features of the face would change as the years passed.

Recalled how he once wrote to Life Magazine to complain that I and the F in the title were too close together. He later credited himself for the improved spacing.

Many recall the metal WW that adorned the front of his car. His son Earle explained that Warner always pried the metal dealership symbols of his cars.

“He despised advertising,” said Earle. “One time when I came home from college, I noticed all the soup cans had the labels taken off.”

Earle’s mother Jean explained that Warner had removed the labels in a fit of anti-commercialism.

Earle eventually inherited the VW plaque, which he adhered to his own car. Warner wrote hundreds of limericks, on scraps of paper, which his daughter-in-law has since compiled into a hefty booklet. They were typically political in nature, but according to David, “they often strayed into commenting on my girlfriends.”

A Thirst for Knowledge

Warner’s family and friends describe him as a Renaissance man whose curiosity for the world and breadth of creative interests was seemingly endless.

In addition to his prolific artistic career, Warner wrote hundreds of satirical limericks, played piano and accordion, analyzed people’s characters by their handwriting, and read constantly. He built telescopes, the dome, and a wide-format camera used to photograph his art.

“If he couldn’t buy it, he’d build it,” said former Academy historian and Warner’s colleague Bob Hartman.

He built several telescopes, one of which resided on the roof of the Music and Arts building at the Academy.

“Every Saturday night when it was clear, cadets and families would come up and view planets and stars,” said Warner’s son David, noting that Scientific American Magazine featured Warner in a 1951 article about how to make your own telescope. One of his telescopes is still used at the observatory at the Woodcraft Camp.

According to David, “[Warner] was an artist by trade but he was really a scientist.

He spent a great deal of time studying the natural world and his animal sculptures attest to that interest.

“He was forever looking at pond water and sketching things— pictures of amoeba and anything he could spy in the microscope,” said his son Earle.

In the pre-Internet age, Warner relied upon print sources to feed his insatiable thirst for knowledge.

“He just absorbed literature. He had a full Encyclopedia Britannica at home and he would read it at night cover to cover,” said David.

Warner spent a great deal of time at the Culver Public Library and developed close friendships with several librarians. As a testament to that relationship, he donated a sizeable collection of animal sculptures to the library in the 1970’s.

Warner was also an avid writer of letters. He corresponded with first lady Pat Nixon commiserating with her over Watergate. He also wrote to close friend and famous Swedish sculptor Carl Milles, who designed a number of sculptures in New York City’s Rockefeller Plaza. David and his mother Jean once visited Milles’ home and studio in Stockholm, and found a stockpile of letters from Warner to Carl— “really intense letters about the nature of the universe.”

Eccentricities

By all accounts, Warner Williams was a true eccentric. Locals typically recall his appearance first, describing him as a Gandalf-like figure.

“He would wear this paper bag as a hat to keep his head warm. He would even wear it to dinner. He didn’t care what people thought,” said his son David. “He was this little gnome with a massive beard,” said David.

“He was small of stature, but feisty, a rather ornery person,” said Anne Duff.

The Williams Family

David, Earle, and Sylvia all grew up in Culver, attending Culver Military Academy. Warner’s son David said that when his family first moved into town, they were looked at with suspicion by neighbors, who wondered about these eccentric Academy people with the dome in their backyard.

Warner’s second wife Obituary of Jean was an artist as well, a calligraphist who hand lettered CMA diplomas through the early 1980’s. A nature-lover like her husband, she often painted Lake Maxinkuckee and its surrounding. Toward the end of her life, she was busy creating elaborate paper cutouts. Unlike her husband, who preferred to keep to himself, Jean was heavily involved in town politics. She was a charter member of Culver’s Zoning commission, president of Culver town board, and served on Culver’s Economic Development Committee. She was also a founding member of the Marshall County Community Foundation and designed their logo. After Warner’s death in 1982, Jean remarried and moved to South Bend, where she died in 2006.

According to David, Warner’s love of science and art strongly influenced all the Williams children. David Williams is the Director of The Center for Visual Science at the University of Rochester.

“I built my reputation making these little pictures of the eye. My father had this strong interest in vision because he was an artist,” he said.

Earle Williams is an atmospheric physicist at MIT and is nationally known for his research on lightening. Warner’s deceased son Carroll Warner Williams was the co-founder and director of the Anthropology Film Center in New Mexico, which taught film techniques to Native Americans.

According to Carroll’s 2005 obituary, “Carroll's extraordinary ability to repair, customize, and invent just about any kind of device necessary to a filmmaker became local legend.”

Sylvia Williams inherited her father’s artistic talent—she collaborated with Warner on the animal sculpture series. Sylvia is a licensed caricature artist in New Orleans.

Artist-in-Residence

David recalled his father’s outspoken counter-cultural views, and the heightened political climate of the 1960’s: “He thought the [Vietnam] war was just a great waste of men.”

Both Warner’s sons noted that he was an inspiration for many Culver Academy cadets. “My father’s art studio was a safe haven with a lot of students at the Academy,” said David.

One such student was renowned actor Hal Holbrook, who once told Earle of Warner Williams’ positive role in his Culver Military Academy experience.

Summer resident Julie Hollowell recalled his inspiring teaching style from an art class she took from him one summer: “Warner seemed to believe that everyone was an artist, if one could simply slow down, focus, and tap into an inner sense of seeing.”

In 2012, the White-Devries Rowing Center was erected and adorned with two limestone eagle plaques. The architect was Warner’s former student John Chipman, who commissioned and paid for the plaques in Warner’s honor. They are based on the original bronze medallions Warner made for members of the crew team in 1968. Chipman, a 68’ graduate who owns his own architecture company, credits Warner Williams’ guidance for his success. Warner created a specialized architecture course for Chipman at the Academy.

“He took me aside and said, ‘I really want to design this special curriculum for you.’ I ended up spending a lot of time in his studio working on my projects. He was a mentor to me,” said Chipman, recalling how Warner ordered him a subscription to Architecture Magazine, and counseled him on his college applications. “There [was] really no real recognition of Warner and what he’s done for the Academy. He was a great man who’s under appreciated.”

The original medallion is on display in the alumni room of the Rowing Center.



From his Geodesic Dome Studio





to the custom-made hood ornament that emblazoned his work van, Williams was and remains an inspirational character.