Frank Chalfant Gaylord II

Frank Gaylord was a World War II veteran who took up sculpture and stone carving as his profession. He was commissioned to make the statue of Governor Ella Grasso for a niche on the Connecticut State Capitol building in 1981. He was also the artist of the 1990 Korea War Veterans Memorial in Washington D.C. which consists of a field of 19 bronze figures advancing as a platoon spread out over a sizable site. Some of the faces are based on sketches of his fellow soldiers made during World War II.

Frank Gaylord was born March 9, 1925 in Clarksburg, West Virginia. He was the son of Richard and Thelma Gaylord. After he graduated from Washington Irving High School in Clarksburg, Virginia, Gaylord was drafted into the United States Army at the age of 18. He sketched many of his fellow soldiers when in the military during World War II. After the war, he attended Carnegie Institute of Technology in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and then transferred to the Tyler School of Arts at Temple University where he received his Bachelor of Fine Arts in 1950.

In 1951, Gaylord and his wife, Mary (Cornwell) Gaylord, moved to Barre, Vermont where he shadowed a sculptor, Bruno Sarzanini. Gaylord partnered with his son-in-law, John Triano, running a sculpting business specializing in carving tombstones.