Philip Sears

Boston local Philip Sears was an active tennis player who reached the semifinals at the US National Championships in 1888, and the quarterfinals in 1887. He studied at Harvard and settled in Boston where he became a lawyer and trustee. After World War I, Sears retired from the law and became a noted sculptor, submitting figures to the 1928 and 1932 Olympics. At the age of about 50 he attended the school of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. He became well known for his full body athletic sculptures, always all nudes, and youthful and muscular.

The term Aquaplaning does not actually appear in Sears’ œuvre. According to a picture in the art catalog, it is the sculpture Stepping Stones from 1923, a 34 cm high bronze, actually the reduced version of a 1.25 m garden statue. One of his best known statues was Pumanangwet (The One Who Shoots the Stars in the Algonquin language). The life-size statue was erected in the Fruitlands Museum in Harvard, Massachusetts. Sears actually designed it for this very location in 1929 on behalf of his cousin Clara Endicott Sears, who founded the museum. Smaller versions, about 39 cm high, were later cast.