Glenna Goodacre

The Potter of Zia Bronze Sculpture Statue Young Native Pueblo Woman New Mexico

circa 1985

Glenna Maxey Goodacre (1939 – 2020) was an American sculptor, best known for having designed the obverse of the Sacagawea dollar that entered circulation in the US in 2000, and the Vietnam Women's Memorial in Washington, D.C. She is considered by many to be "America's Sculptor" She graduated from Monterey High School in Lubbock completed studies at Colorado College The Art Students League in New York City. She moved to Santa Fe, New Mexico, in 1983. Goodacre's art appears in many public, private, municipal and museum collections throughout the U.S. Her bronze sculptures feature lively expression and texture. Her most famous work is the Vietnam Women's Memorial, Washington, D.C., in 1993 there is a smaller replica at Vietnam Veterans Memorial State Park in Angel Fire, NM. Goodacre was selected in 1997 as sculptor for the monumental Irish Memorial in Philadelphia. Completed and installed at Penn's Landing in 2003, the massive bronze is her most ambitious public sculpture, with 35 life-size figures. After a nationwide competition for a Sacagawea dollar coin design in 1999, Goodacre's rendering for the face was unveiled at the White House by then First Lady Hillary Clinton. In 2004, her bronze portrait of West Point Coach Colonel Earl "Red" Blaik was dedicated at the National College Football Hall Of Fame. In 2004, she designed the Children's Medal of Honor for 1st Lady Laura Bush in Dallas. An academician of the National Academy of Design fellow of the National Sculpture Society, Goodacre won many awards at their exhibitions in New York. She received honorary doctorates from Colorado College, her alma mater, and Texas Tech University, in her home town of Lubbock. In 2002, Goodacre's work won the James Earl Fraser Sculpture Award at the Prix De West Exhibition. In 2003, she received the Texas Medal Of Arts and inducted into the National Cowgirl Museum and Hall of Fame in the Fort Worth historic district. Goodacre was inducted in 1997 into the West Texas Walk of Fame in Lubbock. In 1997, eleven years later, Goodacre was named the 2008 "Notable New Mexican". This honor, bestowed by the Albuquerque Art and History Museum's Foundation, celebrates extraordinary, living New Mexicans who contribute significantly to the public good. A portrait of Goodacre by the artist Daniel Greene is in the permanent collection of the Albuquerque Museum in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Goodacre is honored by the naming of a downtown Lubbock street which extends from the Jones AT&T Stadium at University Avenue to the east. In 2005, the former 8th Street from University Avenue east in Lubbock was named Glenna Goodacre Boulevard, and in Santa Fe at the State Capitol, then Governor Bill Richardson presented Goodacre with the New Mexico Governor's Award For Excellence in the Arts. In 2006, Richardson appointed Goodacre to the State Quarter Design Committee to develop a U.S. quarter coin representing New Mexico. She was the mother of Tim Goodacre and 1980s model Jill Goodacre, who is married to the singer and actor Harry Connick Jr.