Taft, Lorado (1860-1936), American sculptor, born in Elmwood, Illinois. He studied art at the École des Beaux-Arts, Paris, and later settled in Chicago, where from 1886 to 1929 he was an instructor at the Art Institute. His works include numerous portraits, the sculpture Solitude of the Soul (1900, Art Institute of Chicago), and many notable fountains, such as the huge marble Columbus Memorial Fountain (1912) in Washington, D.C., the Thatcher Memorial Fountain (1917) in Denver, Colorado, and the Fountain of the Great Lakes (1913) and the massive cast concrete Fountain of Time (1920), both in Chicago. He wrote The History of American Sculpture (1903), the first scholarly study of the subject.