The Sprinter

Charles Albert Lopez

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Lopez is best known for his monumental work, and “The Sprinter,” an academic study of a track runner, is the only athletic figure he executed. Lopez’s figure is posed in a starting position, suggesting that the recently developed crouching start for a running race presented sculptors with a novel pose for the male figure. The United States Navy chose a cast of “The Sprinter" to serve as a championship trophy in track and field events for the Atlantic, Pacific, and Asiatic fleets. This statuette was purchased by the Metropolitan Museum in 1907, the year after the sculptor’s death.

The American Wing

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The American Wing's ever-evolving collection comprises some 20,000 works of art by African American, Euro American, Latin American, and Native American men and women. Ranging from the colonial to early-modern periods, the holdings include painting, sculpture, works on paper, and decorative arts—including furniture, textiles, ceramics, glass, silver, metalwork, jewelry, basketry, quill and bead embroidery—as well as historical interiors and architectural fragments.

Metropolitan Museum of Art