About Us - Sculpture Saint John

History of Sculpture Saint John

The International Sculpture Symposium movement was spearheaded by Dr. Karl Prantl in Austria in 1959. This initiative grew from the need to facilitate communication and exchange between members of the international sculpture community. The first international sculpture symposium took place in an abandoned stone quarry.

Sculptors from around the world joined together to produce permanent pieces of public artwork from local stone, a dynamic which would provide the model for many symposiums to follow. Since then, international sculpture symposiums have been held around the world, including Japan, Australia, Germany, Italy, Abu Dhabi, India, France, Cuba and the United States, to name only a few.

The first North American International Sculpture Symposium was held in Montreal, PQ, in 1964. Subsequent ones were held in Canada in Saskatchewan, British Columbia and Ontario.

Spearheaded by US sculptor Jesse Salisbury, Maine’s Schoodic International Sculpture Symposium held its first event at the Acadia National Park on the Schoodic Peninsula in 2007. At the conclusion of this event, seven sculptures were placed in coastal towns throughout Maine beginning a sculpture trail system. There are now thirty-four sculptures along the Maine coast.

In 2012, the New Brunswick International Sculpture Symposium held the first symposium in Atlantic Canada under the name Sculpture Saint John. The event was modeled after the Schoodic symposium. Sculpture Saint John hosted five successful symposiums in 2012, 2014, 2016, 2018 and 2022 resulting in a Canadian sculpture trail of 38 large scale sculptures. Together the two trails through Maine and New Brunswick communities make up a unique international contemporary art exhibition of 72 large-scale granite works by world-renowned sculptors.

The goals of the New Brunswick International Sculpture Symposium were to

Connect communities in southern New Brunswick through affordable public art
Educate the public about the process and creation of stone sculpture
Inspire young children to explore the art of sculpting
Create an International Sculpture Trail linking Maine and New Brunswick

Where Did The Stone Come from?

Stanstead Quarry

STANSTEAD GREY® granite is quarried in Stanstead, Quebec. This is a light to medium grey granite, with a medium and coarse grain. This granite is highly consistent in color.

St. George Quarry

Over 50 quarries were in operation around St. George between 1872 and 1940. The St. George red granites range from light pink to deep red. Most were sold under the name St. George Red and were used for monuments. The stone was transported by barge down the Magaguadavic River where it was processed in a St. George mill powered from the Magaguadavic Falls upstream. This operation employed up to 150 workers. Competition from European sources and a 40 percent U.S. tariff on fabricated stone products (early 1900’s) caused great financial strain on the industry. The depression also took its toll, and operations in St. George ceased in the 1940’s.

A friendly competition existed among granite workers. As Gwen Martin describes in her book For the Love of Stone, “each tried to outdo the other carving their own grandiose tombstone. In their spare time the men created urns, letter presses, door stops, polished granite balls, table tops, hat pin heads and – on one special occasion – curling stones. It became almost a rite of passage for ‘granite men’ to be able to take a solid block of stone and chisel out its interior leaving only thin connecting strips along the perimeter and a loose granite ball rattling within”.

The stone used in Sculpture Saint John originates from the old grout piles of these quarries which were formed over a hundred years ago.

Hampstead Quarry

The Hampstead quarry (Spoon Island North Quarry) first produced dimension granite in 1840. The stone is a fine-grained grey or pink granite, the former marketed under the names Blue Mountain or Spoon Island Blue and the latter being called Gypsy Mountain, Spoon Island Pink or Coral Dawn. Over the years, this granite has been used in the construction of bridges, buildings, jails, and monuments in New Brunswick and elsewhere. Many of these structures are still standing. The stone was also used for the Sir John A. MacDonald monument in Kingston, Ontario.

Examples of Saint John structures containing Spoon Island stone include: the Public Library,(current Saint John Arts Center) St. John the Baptist Church, the Champlain monument, Old Courthouse, Queens Square-Centenary Church.

The quarry was last worked in the mid 1990’s.