George D. Widener Memorial Medal, Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts

George D. Widener was from a prominent Philadelphia family of financiers and horse breeders. He died on the Titanic with his youngest son in 1912, and this medal was created in his memory. For generations the Wideners have supported art education at the University of Pennsylvania and at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, where the Widener Memorial Medal is awarded annually to sculptors. On the reverse of Albert Laessle's medal a nude figure kneels beside a sphinx and holds a mallet and chisel, associating the prizewinner's work with thousands of years of sculpture. This particular medal was awarded in 1962 to the sculptor William Zorach, whose sculptures and medals appear in the Luce Foundation Center for American Art at the Smithsonian American Art Museum.