Born in Almonte, Ontario, the third child of Catherine Shiells and William McKenzie. His father came to Canada from Kelso, Scotland, in 1858 and settled in Almonte, where he became a minister of the Free Church of Scotland. He then sent for Catherine Shiells of Edinburgh and they were married. They had three sons and a daughter. When Robert was nine his father died. The church congregation, out of respect for his father, built a house for the young widow and her four children. Aware of this fine act by the congregation, Robert Tait McKenzie developed in himself a strong sense of responsibility. His mother’s deepest hope was for her children to win their university degrees. His eldest sister provided invaluable assistance in the upbringing of the children.
Robert attended Almonte High School, the Ottawa Collegiate Institute and entered McGill University in 1885. There he studied first for his bachelor of arts degree, working at various jobs in the summer months. He graduated with his B.A. in 1889. He then entered McGill’s Medical School and received his M.D. in 1892. During his high school and university years, he was an outstanding athlete. He achieved success in inter-collegiate high jump, in boxing, hurdling, football, swimming, fencing, and at the end of his second year high school, won the all-around gymnastic championship. He was also a member of the McGill football team. He served in the University hospital for a year, then as a ship’s surgeon for a steamship line running between Montreal and Liverpool, England. He was appointed assistant demonstrator, later demonstrator, in anatomy at the University in 1894 and also Medical Director of Physical Training for McGill. The latter appointment was the first of its kind in Canada.
When teaching anatomy, he began to model in clay to illustrate the various points under study and it was around 1900 that he made his first practical sculpture for demonstration purposes. The work was to show the four stages of the athlete’s facial expressions while in action: “Violent Effort”, “Breathlessness”, “Fatigue”, and “Exhaustion”, displaying the progress of fatigue over the nerves and muscles of the face. He had done several works before making the masks, including low reliefs, two plaques of speed skaters, and a medallion portrait, “The Mother”. What little leisure he had, he spent doing water colours or drawings. He frequented studios of sculptor friends and from them received invaluable technical tips. By 1901, articles about McKenzie or about McKenzie’s research in physical education and anatomy were well known in Britain, United States, Canada and elsewhere. He had also built up a practice as a specialist in the physical treatment of deformities. To his list of accomplishments was his appointment as house physician to the Earl of Aberdeen, then Governor General of Canada.
His first important sculpture in the round “The Sprinter” was in progress for three years. Day after day, McKenzie studied the action of McGill’s top track stars and in addition used the averaged measurements of eighty-nine track athletes (collected by Dr. Paul Phillips of Amherst College, Mass.) to make the dimensions of the model. Not only was the work successful as a demonstration piece, but it was recognized as a work of art and shown at the Society of American Artists (1902); Royal Academy, London (1903; Salon Paris (1904) and small copies were reproduced for intercollegiate trophies in Canada and elsewhere. A copy of “The Sprinter” was acquired by The Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, and other private collections.
McKenzie by now had achieved prominence in medicine, physical education and sculpture. With each subsequent piece of sculpture, he applied his expert knowledge of anatomy and natural artistic ability. His second work, “The Athlete”, was the result of him being approached by representatives of the Society of Directors of Physical Education in Colleges to create for them sculptured models of the ideal athlete. They furnished him with measurements of four hundred excellent athletes from Harvard University. His work again, was a complete success. Completed in 1903, “The Athlete” was exhibited at the Paris Salon (1903); Royal Academy (1904); Roman Art Exposition (1911) and copies were acquired for the Museum of Natural History, NYC; Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, England; Art Gallery of Ontario; and many private collections. The Society of Directors of Physical Education in Colleges own the original work of “The Athlete”. By then, McKenzie had also begun to make his medallions and plaques.
In 1904, he was appointed Head of the new Department of Physical Education at the University of Pennsylvania, a position which would allow him greater opportunity to implement his advanced ideas. At McGill there was no budget for his ideas. The McGill executives were completely in favour of his proposed programme, but there was no money available. At the University of Pennsylvania, he became a full professor on the medical faculty. Up to five thousand students a year came under his direct charge, and he was able to persuade the University that all athletes be medically examined before participation in sports. McKenzie discovered among other things that only ten percent of students were naturally keen athletes; the next forty percent willing to engage in games if there was a certain amount of compulsion, or if it was the thing to do; the next forty percent accepted sports as part of the troubles of life, though in many cases they afterwards discovered they liked some games very much; the remaining ten percent were against all games consistently and he discovered some relationship of this percentage to the ten percent who wailed in other subjects. He was concerned with the vast majority of students becoming inactive and merely spectators, who in time would end up in poor physical condition by middle age. He encouraged as many students as possible to participate in active athletics. His attentions were not confined to the university alone. He organized the first Philadelphia chapter of the Boy Scouts in 1908. He had become interested in scouting through his long-time friendship with Sir Robert Baden Powell, who founded the Boy Scout movement in 1907. McKenzie was also very interested in the International Olympic Games.
In his sculpture, he did quarter life size models of “The Boxer” (1905); “The Supple Juggler” (1906), acquired by the Metropolitan Museum of Art, NYC; “The Competitor” (1906), acquired by Metropolitan Museum of Art, NYC; National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa; Springfield College, Mass., and many private collections; “The Relay” (1909); “The Onslaught” (1904-11) football group, acquired by Montreal Museum of Fine Arts and University of Pennsylvania; “Benjamin Franklin” (1911) working model acquired by Newark Museum, New Jersey, and Philadelphia Public Library and private collections. His “The Youthful Franklin” (1910-14) 8 ft. high statue for the University of Pennsylvania Campus was described by Harold D. Eberlein in 1918 as follows, “It is characteristic of McKenzie’s conscientious devotion to anatomical accuracy that his clothed figures are just as carefully studied for physical composition as are the nudes. The Franklin statue was first modeled in the nude and then actually dressed. In Dr. McKenzie’s own words, uttered at a dinner of the class that gave the statue, the figure was ‘first modeled in clay in the nude, in preparation for which a week or so was spent in studying the walking pose by having the model walk up and down and stopping the pace at different stages of the step. After the figure was completely modeled in the nude, it was draped with the costume, which was obtained after much searching and by consulting the standard works on the costumes of the period, as well as by the kind assistance of the late Howard Pyle, who made a number of sketches showing the probably costume of a boy of that time… The shoes were modeled from old and discarded shoes obtained from the…shoemaker, so that the creases would be those actually produced by much wear.’ Despite the archaeological scrupulosity, which some might think would spoil the spontaneity of the composition, the heroic figure of Franklin is full of movement and vigor, and the expression of the face is exceptionally satisfactory.”
In 1915, he went to England where he attempted to join the Canadian army but a delay by the army served to steer him to the Royal Medical Corps, where he received a commission of lieutenant and later major. He was sent to a course in physical education but when the instructors found out that McKenzie had written the text books which they were using, they quickly transferred him to a more useful task of inspecting the training camps and hospitals where he made the following observations: many recruits were in poor physical condition and needed basic exercises to put them in shape; convalescents in hospitals were in need of medical or surgical rehabilitation before they could be released to follow useful lives. Following this inspection duty, Dr. McKenzie was placed on the staff of Sir Alfred Keogh, Director of Medical Services, War Office, where he was given the opportunity to develop his own scheme. Great strides were made in the remedial physical training of veterans by establishing a depot in each home command. Electrical and hydrotherapeutic equipment were recommended for use of expedite recovery. He returned to American and, in 1918, he was appointed inspector of convalescent hospitals in the Canadian Medical Service under the Military Hospitals Commission. He wrote several books, including Reclaiming the Maimed, which was adopted as an official manual by the United States Army and Navy. He continued to design and install corrective apparatus in military hospitals in England, Canada and the United States. He was elected President of the American Academy of Physical Medicine. He made as well a considerable contribution to the disabled veterans of France by establishing physical rehabilitation centres in that country. He spoke French fluently and made frequent visits to France to assist in the programme.
During the war, he gave much time to the reconstruction of maimed faces, working in conjunction with Dr. William Clark, fellow surgeon. After the war, he returned to the production of magnificent sculpture, including the following: “The Fountain of the Laughing Children” (in memory of Rosamond Junken Mallery), erected in the Athletic Playground, Philadelphia, 1919; “Captain Guy Drummond” (1/2 life size), Archives, Ottawa, 1010; “Blighty” (1/4 life size) a Seaforth Highlander, Royal Collection, Balmoral Castle, Scotland, 1919; “Dr. George Whitefield” (8 ft. statue), Dormitory Triangle, University of Pennsylvania, 1919; “The Aviator” (1/2 life size) statue of Lieutenant Norton Downes, St. Paul’s School, Concord, Vermont, 1920; “The Home-coming” (monument to men of Cambridge, England) unveiled by Duke of York, 1922; “Radner Memorial” entitled “Over the top”, a bronze panel (44 x 65” in mezzo relief), St. David’s Penn., 1922; “The Volunteer” (8 ft. statue), Rosamond War Memorial, Almonte, Ontario, 1923; “Lieut-Col. George Harold Baker Memorial” (7 ft.), Lobby of House of Commons, Parliament Buildings, Ottawa, 1923; “The Victor” (8 ft.) memorial, Campus of the University of Pennsylvania, 1926; “The Call”, Scottish-American Memorial (8 ft.) and “Recruiting Party” (25 ft.) frieze, Princess Street Gardens, Edinburgh, Scotland, 1927; “The Modern Discus Tower” (1/2 life size) 1927; Christine Wetherill Stevenson Memorial (portrait plaque with two supporting figures in lunette, 8 x 3 ft.) cast in coloured cement, Art Alliance, Philadelphia, 1928; “Dean Andrew Fleming West Memorial” (8 ft.) quadrangle of Graduate School, Princeton University, 1928; “General Sir James Wolfe”, statue, Greenwich Park, London, England, 1930, and several other works. He did scores of relief plaques including portraits, medallions and also medals.
A book entitled Tait McKenzie’s Medical Portraits by Henry W. Cattell, A.M., M.D., was originally published as a feature article for International Clinics, Vol. II, Series 35. A more detailed and magnificently produced publication by Christopher Hussey was released in 1929 entitled Tait McKenzie: A Sculptor of Youth. In 1930, McKenzie brought the Mill of Kintail at Almonte, originally built in 1830 by John Baird, a pioneer from Glasgow. He restored the mill and spent his summers there using the building as home and studio. In his youth, he had spent many hours in and around the mill and it had for him a special place in his memories. In 1937, McKenzie was commissioned by Prime Minister Mackenzie King to execute a statue of Sir Arthur Doughty, Dominion Archivist from 1904 to 1935. He had completed a preliminary model of the work when he died at his home in Philadelphia at the age of seventy.
Emanuel Hahn completed the statue and it was finally places on its pedestal in December, 1940. McKenzie’s passing was noted by scores of newspapers and magazines, including the Saturday Night as follows, “Though he occasionally rose to a high level of inspiration, notably in the Scottish-American war memorial in Edinburgh and in ‘The Joy of Effort’ medallion in Stockholm, the bulk of his work gives the feeling of being inspired more by scientific interest than by aesthetic passion. It is possible that he will be known to posterity less as a sculptor than as a personification of the twentieth century movement towards the physical betterment of the human race. He was one of the world’s greatest authorities on physical education, and devoted to that cause all of the time and energy that were left from his sculpture – if indeed he did not regard the sculpture itself as one means to the same end. A man of the highest social charm, he was thoroughly international in outlook, and the Olympic Games were among his chief interests.” During the Centennial of Canada (1967), an exhibition of his work was held at the Ottawa City Hall in July. The Mill of Kintail is now owned by Major and Mrs. J.F. Leys, who open its doors frequently to the public. McKenzie is represented in most of the important collections of North America and the institutions already mentioned above. By many authorities, he was regarded in his time as one of the world’s greatest sculptors and a modern counterpart of the great sculptors of ancient Greece.
Source: "A Dictionary of Canadian Artists, Volume 4: Little - Myles", compiled by Colin S. MacDonald, Canadian Paperbacks Publishing Ltd, Ottawa, 1978
