The Torch Bearer

The Torch Bearer was installed on the University of South Carolina’s campus in 1965 by sculpture artist, Anna Hyatt-Huntington, less than a decade before before her death in 1973. The Gamecock newspaper praised the work saying that it would “bring culture to the campus,” (The Gamecock, 15 October, 1965). The bronze sculpture of nude male figure on horseback had been gifted to the university by Anna Hyatt-Huntington and was chosen to be placed in front of the college of education. This decision is a possible reflection of the image of a torch bearer being linked to the passing of education on from one generation to the next or perhaps from the West to the rest of the world. Instead of at traditional military figure on horseback, this allegorical figure stands to represent how education and rationality can endure and shine a light in even the darkest of times.

The Torch Bearer stands as a beacon to those who would ride out of the darkness of violence and into the enlightened path of education. The rider inTheTorch Bearer is not one of violence, Hyatt-Huntington thought of it as an image of peace in conflicted world (Edwards 66). She made a conscious decision here to place a representative of progress and education instead of a figure with a background of violence.

A replica of Los Portadores de la Antorcha (“The Torch Bearers”) which was given to the people of Spain to symbolize the passing of the torch of Western civilization from age to youth, which was unveiled in May 1955. Other replicas exist throughout the United States.