Scope and Content Note
The papers of Rudulph Evans (1878-1960) span the years 1862-2001, with the bulk of the material dated 1925-1960. The collection is arranged by subject or type of material and documents Evans’s career as a sculptor of heroic statutes and portrait busts of notable Americans and figurative works for the homes and gardens of business leaders. Correspondence with poet Wilbur Underwood covers a long friendship between 1900 and 1935 in which he and Evans discuss literature, the arts, and the creative process.
The history of the Evans family is documented in correspondence with brothers Frank P. Evans and Lester L. Evans. Notes and printed material concern distant relative Thomas Wiltberger Evans, a dental surgeon from Philadelphia who established a practice in Paris, France, and became court dentist during the Second French Empire.
Evans’s statue of Thomas Jefferson for the memorial in Washington, D.C., his best-known work, is documented in correspondence, reports, legal records, photographs, printed material, and scrapbooks. One of the scrapbooks documents the dedication ceremonies in 1943 that went forward with a plaster model due to the wartime scarcity of bronze. Other files document efforts by Evans and others to seek new lighting for the statue, a project that was completed in 2001.