Tennessee State Capitol artwork, monuments, and memorials

Presidents

Monuments on the capitol grounds include statues of two of the three Tennesseans who served as President of the United States. 7th president Andrew Jackson is represented by an equestrian statue, sculpted by Clark Mills. Located on the east plaza between the fountains, it was dedicated on May 20, 1880, as part of Nashville's centennial celebration.^[8][9] This was reportedly the first equestrian statue in the United States, and was proclaimed an "engineer's delight" because of its challenging design. The artist's proof, this is one of three identical statues sculpted by Mills; the others are in Lafayette Square in Washington, D.C., and at Jackson Square in New Orleans.^[10] Its temporary wooden base was replaced by a permanent marble pedestal in 1884.^[11] 17th president Andrew Johnson is represented with a statue by Knoxville sculptor Jim Gray, dedicated on October 18, 1995.^[12][13]

The second Tennessee president, 11th president James K. Polk, is buried in a tomb on the northeast grounds with his wife, Sarah Childress Polk.^[9] Their remains were reinterred here on September 19, 1893, from their Polk Place home in Nashville.^[14][15] In March 2017, the Tennessee Senate approved a resolution considered a "first step" toward relocating the Polks' remains to the family home in Columbia. Such a move would require approval by state lawmakers, the courts, and the Tennessee Historical Commission (THC).^[16][17] A year later, a renewed plan to reinter Polk was defeated by Tennessee lawmakers before being taken up again and approved, via the non-signature of Governor Bill Haslam.^[18][19] The Tennessee Capitol Commission heard arguments over the issue in November 2018, during which they reiterated their opposition to the tomb relocation, and a vote was delayed indefinitely.^[20]

• Monuments and memorials to U.S. presidents
• 
  Closeup of the equestrian statue of 7th President Andrew Jackson
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  Jackson state and capitol illuminated at night
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  Tomb of 11th President James K. Polk and First Lady Sarah Childress Polk
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  Inscription on Polks' tomb
• 
  Bust of 17th President Andrew Johnson

Other memorials and monuments

William Strickland, the architect of the capitol who died in 1854 before its completion, is buried in a vault in the north wall of the building near the northeast corner at the ground level.^[21][22] Strickland designed this tomb the year before his death, and the legislature designated it as his burial place at his request five weeks before he died.^[23] The inscription incorrectly states that Strickland died at the age of 64, when he actually lived to be 65.^[10] Samuel Morgan, who served on the commission that oversaw the capitol's construction, is buried in a vault near the southeast corner at the ground level.^[21][22] The Tennessee State Capitol is the only state capitol building in the United States with graves in its structure or on its grounds.^[24]

In 1880, a triangular marker honoring the three Tennessee governors surnamed Brown from Giles County was placed on Capitol Hill. In October 1907, a tree and marker were placed on Capitol Hill by the Watauga Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution honoring early Tennessee settlers.^[25] A statue of Sam Davis called Boy Hero of the Confederacy is on the southwest grounds. It was sculpted by Bucharest-born artist George Julian Zolnay, who was known as the "sculptor of the Confederacy", and was dedicated on April 29, 1909.^[26][27] On July 27, 1927, a triangular time capsule was buried on the grounds by Nashville Council No. 1 of Royal and Select Masons to celebrate the chapter's centennial. It will be opened on July 27, 2027.^[28][29] The United States Geological Survey placed a survey marker on Capitol Hill in 1934.^[7][28] On October 3, 1939, the American Legion Post 5 and American War Mothers placed a marker honoring mothers of American soldiers killed in World War I.^[28][30]

A statue of World War I Medal of Honor recipient Sgt. Alvin C. York, who was from Pall Mall, Tennessee, sculpted by Austrian American sculptor Felix de Weldon, was unveiled on the southeast corner on December 13, 1968.^[31][32][33] On September 10, 1969, the United Daughters of the Confederacy placed a plaque in the east garden to commemorate the 75th anniversary of their founding in Nashville.^[31][34] The Colonial Dames of America placed a tree and marker in 1975, commemorating the 200th anniversary of George Washington's acceptance of command of the Continental Army. A replica of the Liberty Bell was placed in the east gardens to commemorate the United States Bicentennial in 1976.^[31] In April of that year, the Freedom Tree was planted nearby to honor the 1,300 American service members missing in action in the Vietnam War.^[7] A time capsule was buried by Governor Ray Blanton in 1978, but its location is unknown.^[31] The Charles Warterfield Reliquary is a group of broken limestone columns and fragments removed and saved from the capitol during the 1950s restoration, located near the belvedere overlook on the north slope. They were installed in 1995 and designated in memory of Warterfield, an architect who led the capitol's restoration projects, on August 8, 1999, eight months after his death. Additional reliquary fragments are at Bicentennial Capitol Mall State Park.^[35][36]

On January 16, 1984, Governor Lamar Alexander planted a tulip poplar, Tennessee's state tree, in memory of Martin Luther King Jr. in a ceremony attended by other state and local officials.^[37] The Tennessee Holocaust Memorial is located on the southeast corner of the grounds, and was dedicated on May 5, 1986, during the annual Days of Remembrance of the Victims of the Holocaust. It consists of a marble marker with a bronze plaque and six native Tennessee cedars that memorialize the six million Jews murdered in the Holocaust.^[7][38][39] The Seeds of the Past and Present Tree was planted by Tennessee Civil War Trails on top of the northeast hill to commemorate Tennessee's bicentennial in 1996.^[7] On April 21, 1999, a tree was planted near the top of the north lawn by the Tennessee Nursery and Landscape Association in memory of State Senator Tommy Burks, who was assassinated the previous year.^[7] In July 1999, the state legislature's Black Caucus dedicated a memorial to Africans during the Middle Passage at the southwest corner that consists of a black granite block and a scarlet oak representing the "strength and resilience of people of African descent".^[40] A monument to unborn children, including those lost to abortion, was approved by the legislature in 2018. The "Monument to the Unborn" was dedicated on June 24, 2026, the fourth anniversary of the Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization case that ended the nationwide right to abortion.^[41]

State Library room

The State Library room is widely regarded as the most beautifully decorated room in the Tennessee State Capitol. Completed after Strickland's death, the room incorporates Victorian architecture, in contrast to the Greek Revival architecture of the rest of the building. The ceiling is adorned with portraits of various prominent people. These are first state geologist Gerard Troost, historian William H. Prescott, jurist James Kent, geologist James Priestly, University of Tennessee president Charles Coffin, University of Nashville president Philip Lindsley, Confederate naval officer Matthew Fontaine Maury, and poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. They were painted in 1859 by German-born artists Theodore Knoch and John Schleicher, who had worked with Strickland on some of his previous projects.^[10][42][43] The lacey wrought-iron spiral staircase and balconies in the library are extensively decorated, and were intended to be both artistic and practical. This ironwork was fabricated by Wood and Perot of Philadelphia, who also fabricated railings elsewhere in the capitol. The firm hired "a German artist of great ability as well as great reputation in Prussia, who is desirous of exhibiting his skill in this country".^[44] Installed between July and December 1859, this ironwork was the last element in the initial construction of the state capitol building to be completed.^[42][45]

Alternating designs of bronze domestic and wild boar heads are positioned below the handrails on the staircase.^[43] The undersides of the cantilevered balconies are patterned in squares outlined with flowerlike figures. The center of each square has a rosette supported by wrought iron brackets that extend 8 inches (20 cm) into the wall, surrounded by a light cast-iron railing. These were reportedly designed by a French artisan chosen specifically for this work. The second balcony's balustrade contains 22 medallions with gold bronze or black glazed backgrounds depicting important statesmen or literary figures; only five are Tennesseans. The medallion designs were reportedly selected from a catalogue, and the depicted persons were chosen by the building commissioners during the planning and construction of the room. On the northeast side, from left to right, the medallions depict William Shakespeare,^[a] Joseph Addison, Dante Alighieri, U.S. Senator Ephraim H. Foster, Sir Walter Scott, Lord Byron, George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, and Thomas Jefferson. The central balcony depicts Patrick Henry, Andrew Jackson, Daniel Webster, Henry Clay, John Milton, James K. Polk, and Washington Irving. The south railing has William H. Prescott, U.S. attorney general and senator Felix Grundy, Tennessee governor William Carroll, senator Hugh Lawson White, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story, senator John Bell, and John C. Calhoun.^[10][46]

Other interior frescoes and murals

The ceiling in the center of the first floor where the halls cross, sometimes called a rotunda, is frescoed with four paintings by Schleicher and Knoch around 1858.^[10][47] The first one is titled "Westward Expansion", and represents early settlement of Tennessee by pioneers from east of the Appalachian Mountains. This fresco is surmounted by the Ancient Greek Muses of Literature, Sculpture, Music, and Painting. Another fresco depicts a bald eagle, a national symbol of the United States, surrounded by 31 stars that represent the number of U.S. states at the time. Another painting depicts female personifications of liberty and justice. The last fresco is of a design, similar to that found on the state seal, with a plow, bundle of wheat, a cotton plant, and a riverboat that represent the state motto, "Agriculture and Commerce". Above the riverboat are the Roman numerals XVI that signify Tennessee as the 16th state admitted to the Union.^[10][48] The first floor also contains portraits of Strickland and Morgan, the three Tennessee presidents, and several Tennessee governors.^[10][49] Traditionally, portraits of the last four governors are displayed.^[10]

The governor's reception room features 11 realist-style murals depicting major events from early Tennessee history. They were commissioned by the Works Progress Administration, designed by artist George Davidson, and painted by Armenian American artist Jirayr Zorthian in 1938. The first mural depicts early Native American life in Tennessee, followed by a painting of Spanish conquistador Hernando de Soto's expeditions through the state. The next two paintings depict early French and British forts, respectively.^[50] These are historically interpreted to be of the French Fort Prudhomme on the Mississippi River and the British Fort Loudoun on the Little Tennessee River.^[10] The fifth mural depicts settlers of the Watauga Association, the first permanent European settlement in Tennessee. The early Cumberland River settlements, including the founding of Nashville, are portrayed in the next mural. The Battle of the Bluffs at Fort Nashborough is depicted in the seventh painting, and the signing of the Cumberland Compact is represented by the eighth. The ninth mural represents early Tennessee agriculture, with Andrew Jackson and his The Hermitage plantation. The tenth mural depicts a riverboat loading to symbolize early Tennessee commerce, and the final mural portrays Nashville around 1855 with the capitol building under construction. The ninth and tenth murals also represent Tennessee's official state motto "Agriculture and Commerce".^[10][50][51]

An 8-by-6-foot (2.4 by 1.8 m) painting called The Pride of Tennessee by first Tennessee artist-in-residence Michael Sloan hangs in the Supreme Court chamber. It was commissioned by Governor Ned McWherter and the Tennessee Historical Commission as the official painting for the state's bicentennial. It depicts 11 historical figures from Tennessee over a landscape representing the state's three Grand Divisions and the state capitol building. From left to right, the painting portrays Secretary of State Cordell Hull, musician and "Father of the Blues" W. C. Handy, women's suffrage activist Anne Dallas Dudley, James K. Polk, Alvin C. York, Andrew Jackson, Andrew Johnson, journalist and civil rights activist Ida B. Wells, frontiersman Davy Crockett, Revolutionary War soldier and first Tennessee governor John Sevier, and Cherokee neographer and polymath Sequoyah.^[52] McWherter unveiled the painting on June 1, 1990, Tennessee's 194th anniversary of statehood, as part of a ceremony marking the start of the state's bicentennial celebration.^[53][54]

Portraits, busts, and bas-reliefs

The interior of the capitol has several busts of prominent politicians and other influential figures. Most of these are on the second floor, and several are placed in alcoves in the second-floor hallways.^[10][49] In 1932, a bust of George Washington was donated by the National Society of Colonial Dames to commemorate his 200th birth anniversary. A bust of Andrew Jackson sculpted by Belle Kinney Scholz was presented by the Ladies Hermitage Association on January 8, 1933;^[b][55] it was later relocated to the Tennessee Performing Arts Center. Busts of Governors Robert Love Taylor and Alfred A. Taylor, who were brothers, were sculpted by Mary Hooper Donelson and placed in the second-floor hallway in 1935; they were relocated to the basement sometime in the 1980s. In 1939, a statue of World War I Admiral Albert Gleaves was installed. A second bust of Jackson was sculpted by Puryear Mims and placed in the main hallway in 1941.^[49] A bust of Cordell Hull by Bryant Baker was dedicated on February 21, 1945, and installed in the library chamber.^[56][57] On May 30, 1946, portraits of Union rear admiral Samuel P. Carter and World War I rear admiral Charles St. John Butler by Eleanor McAdoo Wiley were dedicated during the state's sesquicentennial celebration. The next day, busts of Union Admiral David Farragut by Scholz, and Matthew Fontaine Maury by Frederick William Sievers were unveiled in the second-floor hallway.^[58][59] These were part of a proposed "Hall of Naval Heroes" that never came to fruition.^[49]

Busts of Polk and Jackson were placed in the main hall in December 1963. They were started by Scholz and completed by Gifford Proctor in 1961 after her death.^[49][60] Griffin Chiles sculpted a bust of Sequoyah for the library room in 1994.^[61] A bust of Sampson W. Keeble, the first Black member of the Tennessee General Assembly, was sculpted by Roy W. Butler and unveiled in the main hall on March 29, 2010.^[62][63] To make way for this, the Maury bust was moved to the Tennessee State Museum.^[49] A bust of Davy Crockett by Antonio Tobias Mendez was dedicated on December 6, 2016.^[64][65] Two bas-reliefs that depict Tennessee's role in the passage of the 19th Amendment and the Reconstruction Amendments adorn the house chamber on opposite sides. The first, by Alan LeQuire, is based on a photograph of women's suffragists in Knoxville, and was dedicated on February 18, 1998.^[66][67] This bas-relief recognizes Tennessee as the deciding state that allowed the 19th Amendment to be certified.^[68] The second depicts African American men voting in Nashville after the passage of the 14th and 15th Amendments, and commemorates Tennessee's role in their ratification, particularly as the first former Confederate state to ratify the 14th Amendment. It was sculpted by Jin Huang Powell and installed in 2000.^[69][70]