Herald gargoyles on Alberta Hotel - Calgary, AB, Canada
N 51° 02.732 W 114° 03.914
11U E 705710 N 5658987
The design of the 1913 Calgary Herald and Southam Chambers buildings included many grotesque terra cotta "gargoyles" (actually chimeras). They were salvaged before the buildings were demolished, and some were placed here on the Alberta Hotel.
Waymark Code: WM19ANJ
Location: Alberta, Canada
Date Posted: 01/10/2024
Views: 11
The design of the 1913 Calgary Herald and Southam Chambers buildings included many grotesque terra cotta "gargoyles" (actually chimeras). TThey were salvaged before the buildings were demolished, and some were placed here on the Alberta Hotel. Other groups of gargoyles are on display at the Calgary TELUS Convention Centre (south building, 2nd floor), University of Calgary's Science B building (west entrance), some are at the Glenbow Museum and Fort Calgary, and many more are in private hands.
The gargoyles were created in the U.K. by Royal Doulton's famed artist Mark V. Marshall, and were probably his last pieces. They fall into two main groups: large caricatures of various personalities relating to the Herald, and smaller figures of animals and flowers.
The large caricatures have labels in the form of banners; the banners read:
- "Biss the Devil" (a printer's devil?) is carrying a stack of books or papers with a bottle of ink on top. He is apparently wearing nothing but a bow tie and a smile.
- "The Stenog" (the stenographer) is typing on a manual typewriter. She is wearing only a pair of pince-nez glasses, the typewriter serving to preserve her modesty.
There are also smaller gargoyles of an owl, serpent, and frog.
REFERENCES and FURTHER READING
Calgary Herald. "The case of the missing Calgary Herald gargoyles", 29 Jan 2015. (
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Guilbert, Andrew. "The story of the Calgary Herald gargoyles", 23 Feb 2015. Avenue Magazine Calgary. (
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Homeofthemuses. "The potential imminent demise of a cultural legacy", 30 Dec 2014. (
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Skyrise Cities: Gamble, Adrian. "Architrivia: Calgary's Lost Gargoyles", 13 Sept 2016. (
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Wikipedia: Southam Building. (
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Doulton Artists: Mark V. Marshall. (
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Calgary TELUS Convention Centre: 50 years of building connections
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Calgary Public Library Williams and Harris Shared History Centre. "The Home Of D.E. Black & Co. Limited, Calgary" [photo of gargoyles on Southam Building, 1916] (
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