GG Park Sculptures - Vet AndersonThis is a featured page

Jesse Sylvester "Vet" Anderson (1875-1966), cartoonist, comic strip artist, illustrator, and sculptor, was born in Bear Lake, Michigan and died in New York City. He got the nickname "Vet" because he was a veteran of the Spanish American War at the age of 23. He was a well-known cartoonist of the early nineteen hundreds. His drawings appeared in such magazines as Puck, Judge and Life. He had given that all up and turned to the new animated cartoons.

The Concrete bas-relief sculptures of the "Horse" and 'Horseshoe Pitcher' were done in 1937 by Jesse Sylvester "Vet" Anderson. He studied sculpture under Paul Landowski (1875-1961) www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Landowski in Paris. Landowski's single best-known work is the 1931 Christ the Redeemer statue in Rio de Janeiro . He was an artist on cartoons and comic strips for the Detroit Free Press and the New York Hearld Tribune, and New York Globe. Vet participated in the 1922 Salon des Artists Francais show in Paris. In the late 1910s, he worked with animators Dick Huemer and Raoul Barre in NYC on the Mutt and Jeff series. In the 20s, he worked with Paul Terry and Max Fleischer in NYC. In 1931 he came to California to work with Walter Lantz on 15 "Oswald the Rabbit" cartoons. In 1933 Vet worked on a 9 minute animated version of "The Wizard of Oz" in Canada, (Not the later famous 1939 version by MGM with Judy Garland). In 1937 he came to San Francisco to work on two bas-relief sculptures for the WPA Horseshoe Courts in San Francisco. Some of his work is in the Cartoon Museum, SF.

Vet is survived by his daughter Loma who remains a Bay Area resident. (2009)
Horseshoe Pitcher Restoration
Thomas Sperow of Greco-Granite inpects the sculpture and salvages pieces for the restoration.
Horseshoe Pitcher Restoration
Note" Vet Anderson" signature and date "1937" in the lower left corner.

hand repair leg fragments 9/09
Hand Repair of leg fragments 9/09
epoxy leg frags 9/09
Epoxy leg fragements 9/09
clamp leg frags 9/09
Clamping leg fragments 9/09
Replacing Leg Fragments 9/09
Replaceing repaired Fragments 9-9-09






From the www.imdb.com website:

  1. The Wizard of Oz (1933) (artist)
  2. A Jungle Jumble (1932) (animator)
  3. A Wet Knight (1932) (animator)
  4. Cat Nipped (1932) (animator)
  5. Winged Horse (1932) (animator)
  6. Let's Eat (1932) (animator)
  7. Making Good (1932) (animator)
  8. Beau and Arrows (1932) (animator)
  9. Wins Out (1932) (animator)
  10. Mechanical Man (1932) (animator)
  11. Grandma's Pet (1932) (animator)
  12. The Clown (1931) (animator)
  13. The Fisherman (1931) (animator)
  14. Hair Mail (1931) (animator)
  15. Wonderland (1931) (animator)
  16. The Hunter (1931) (animator)
There are an unconfirmed additional 9 Walter Lantz cartoon titles that Vet worked. Those titles are forthcoming.
This is a blog thread from:
http://strippersguide.blogspot.com/2006_05_01_archive.html

Here's a cute Sunday strip from 1902. Hardy Hiram ran from 3/2 to 4/13/1902 in the New York Tribune. At first glance you'd think that the cartoonist failed to sign the strip, but if you look at the chicken on the right in the last panel you'll see that its tailfeathers spell out V E T.

Hardy Hiram by Vet Anderson
There was a "Vet" Anderson that kicked around animation for a number of years. He animated for one or more of the small shops that produced the silent Mutt & Jeff cartoons in the teens under Bud Fisher's name. I believe that he also worked at the Fables Studio for Paul Terry during the 1920's. He was at Max Fleischer's New York studio in the early thirties and then moved to Walter Lantz's studio in California. He seems to have been a bit older than most of the kids in that business. If memory serves, he was called Vet because he served in the Spanish-American War.

Some animation histories confuse him with Carl Anderson (of Henry fame) who was an animator for the Bray Studio in 1916 or so.
Hey Frank -
Great thought there! I hadn't thought of Vet Anderson - guess I was stuck on the idea that the letters were initials. Anderson has one known newspaper comic strip credit at the NY World in 1908, so he was interested in doing newspaper work.

Unless someone has reason to believe this isn't Vet Anderson, I'm going with that.

--Allan
That is Vet Anderson's signature. (My wife is one of his grandaughters.) He was a political cartoonist at the New York Herald Tribune and the Detroit Free Press. He also sculpted two bas-reliefs in Golden Gate Park - San Francisco near the Horseshoe Pits - a Horseshoe Pitcher and Horse.
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1955 Photo GGPark Horseshoe Courts
1955
Horse-Yellow
Horse - Red, White & Blue

The Horse_7-11-09 Work day
2009
The Horseshoe Pitcher



Horseshoe Pitcher - pre-2004The Horseshoe Pitcher_7-11-09 Work day
2009






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Latest page update: made by pznkz , Sep 9 2009, 6:09 PM EDT (about this update About This Update pznkz Edited by pznkz

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Keyword tags: Scuptures - Vet Anderson
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Anonymous Horse Resoration 1 Aug 29 2009, 7:34 AM EDT by pznkz
 
Thread started: Aug 27 2009, 10:51 PM EDT  Watch
Kudos to Greco Granite for offering to restore such City Landmark. By the looks of the damage, only an artist as well as artisan can do the job. Thank god for Greco Granite!
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Anonymous restore the horse! 1 Aug 27 2009, 4:01 AM EDT by pznkz
 
Thread started: Aug 26 2009, 1:22 AM EDT  Watch
I'm available for horse restoration---gimme a call!
Greco Granite , see http://grecogranite.com/pages_new/contact.html
415-336-2836!
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