Willard Dryden Paddock

Willard Paddock was a sculptor. He was born in Brooklyn and went to Pratt Institute, where he took courses in art. Later he studied in Paris and in Rome. After the First World War he received a great many commissions to create memorials; and he had exhibitions in galleries all over the country, including the Corcoran Gallery in Washington, the Carnegie Institute in Pittsburgh, and the National Academy of Design in New York. Among others, he sculptured the memorial fountains at Amherst College and at the General Hospital of Saginaw, Michigan.

Paddock studied anatomy along with art, and was convinced that a knowledge of it was essential for a sculptor. At Pratt Institute, beginning in 1927, he was a member of the faculty, and taught both these subjects.

He used to come to the Century on Saturday for lunch and forgather with Baird, Chambers [referring to Ralph H. Chambers, Robert W. Chambers, or Walter B. Chambers], Dodd [referring to Edward H. Dodd, Edward H. Dodd Jr., Frank C. Dodd, or Lee Wilson Dodd], and Taber Sears; and they all had a pleasant time together for many years. He was a gentle soul, and rather shy. He lived in a small, old-fashioned house in Kent, Connecticut, up a side road, hidden in the woods. Here, after the death of his wife, he did all his own work until driven out by the winter cold, when he would go to live with his sister in Brooklyn.

He died at eighty-three. The days of our age are three score years and ten; and though men be so strong that they come to four score years, yet is their strength then but labor and sorrow; so soon passeth it away, and we are gone.

George W. Martin
1957 Century Association Yearbook