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Albert Jaegers

Sculptor

Centurion, 1914–1925

Born 28 March 1868 in Elberfeld, Germany

Died 22 July 1925 in Suffern, New York

Buried Airmont Lutheran Cemetery, Suffern, New York

Proposed by Cass Gilbert and Herbert Adams

Elected 2 May 1914 at age forty-six

Century Memorial

The sculpture of Albert Jaegers was a notable part of the art exhibits at the Buffalo and St. Louis Expositions; it has its most permanent abiding-place in the statuary figures fronting the New York Custom House. His style was marked by gracefulness and dignity, always with an imaginative touch. Jaegers was unexpectedly confronted with a kind of artistic conception which probably was new to him when Secretary McAdoo, after the entry of the United States into the European war, asked him to alter the symbolical statue of Germany on the Custom house so that it would do for Belgium. The sculptor refused this flattering invitation, possibly feeling that he was not a sufficiently gifted artist thus to rival Mrs. Jarley’s exploit in touching up the Lord Byron wax-work so that it could be exhibited as Mary Queen of Scots when the young ladies’ boarding-school came to see the show.

Alexander Dana Noyes
1926 Century Association Yearbook