Mahonri M. Young (1877-1957),
Right to the Jaw, 1926, bronze, 14 x 19 5/16 x 9 ½ inches. Brigham Young University Museum of Art, purchase/gift of the Mahonri M. Young Estate, 1959.
Mahonri Mackintosh Young was born August 9, 1877, in Salt Lake City, Utah. Though Young excelled in various artistic media, he specifically aspired to be a sculptor from his youth. At the height of his career, Mahonri was celebrated as one of the greatest American sculptors of his era. Young’s masterful figures exude a sense of action, tension, and force—best exemplified in works like Right to the Jaw, which he created in 1926. The celebrated prizefighter Jack Dempsey declared that “Brother Young’s” boxers were the most realistic fight scenes he had ever seen. Young’s boxing sculptures brought him great acclaim, and in 1927 Vanity Fair magazine hailed him as “one of the most distinguished of American sculptors.”