Augustus Saint-Gaudens

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Template:Short description Template:Use mdy dates Template:Infobox artist Augustus Saint-Gaudens (Template:IPAc-en; March 1, 1848 – August 3, 1907) was an Irish sculptor of the Beaux-Arts generation who embodied the ideals of the American Renaissance.<ref name="adams">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Saint-Gaudens was born in Dublin to an Irish-French family, and raised in New York City. He traveled to Europe for further training and artistic study. After he returned to New York City, he achieved major critical success for his monuments commemorating heroes of the American Civil War, many of which still stand. Saint-Gaudens created works such as the Robert Gould Shaw Memorial on Boston Common, Abraham Lincoln: The Man, and grand equestrian monuments to Civil War generals: General John Logan Memorial in Chicago's Grant Park<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> and William Tecumseh Sherman at the corner of New York's Central Park. In addition, he created the popular historicist representation of The Puritan.

Saint-Gaudens also created Classical works such as the Diana, and employed his design skills in numismatics. He designed the $20 Saint Gaudens Double Eagle gold coin (1905–1907) for the US Mint, considered one of the most beautiful American coins ever issued,<ref>US Mint: The American Eagles Program.</ref> and the $10 "Indian Head" gold eagle; both of these were minted from 1907 until 1933. In his later years he founded the "Cornish Colony", an artist's colony in New Hampshire that included notable painters, sculptors, writers, and architects. His brother Louis Saint-Gaudens, with whom he occasionally collaborated, was also a well-known sculptor.

Early life and career

Saint-Gaudens was born in Dublin, Ireland, to an Irish mother and French father, Bernard Paul Ernest Saint-Gaudens, a shoemaker by trade from a village in the French Pyrenees, Aspet, 15 kilometers from Saint-Gaudens. His parents emigrated to America when he was six months of age, and he was reared in New York City.

File:'Portrait of a Boy', oil on canvas painting by John Singer Sargent, 1890.jpg
Portrait of Augustus's wife Augusta and their son, Homer Saint-Gaudens, by John Singer Sargent, 1890

In 1861, he became an apprentice to a cameo-cutter, Louis Avet, and took evening art classes at the Cooper Union in New York City.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Two years later, he was hired as an apprentice of Jules Le Brethon, another cameo cutter, and enrolled at the National Academy of Design.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref> His apprenticeship was completed by the age of 19 and he traveled to Paris in 1867, where he studied in the atelier of François Jouffroy at the École des Beaux-Arts.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

In 1870, he left Paris for Rome to study art and architecture, and worked on his first commissions. There he met a deaf American art student, Augusta Fisher Homer. They married on June 1, 1877.<ref>Supple, Carrie F. and Walton, Cynthia, pubs. The Nichols Family Papers 1860–1960. 2007, Manuscript Collection No. 1.</ref> The couple had one child, a son named Homer Saint-Gaudens.

In 1874, Edwards Pierrepont, a prominent New York reformer, hired Saint-Gaudens to create a marble bust of himself.<ref name=Smithsonian>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web

}}</ref> Pierrepont, a phrenologist, proved to be a demanding client, insisting that Saint-Gaudens make his head larger.<ref name=Smithsonian/> Saint-Gaudens said that Pierrepont's bust "seemed to be affected with some dreadful swelling disease" and he later told a friend that he would "give anything to get hold of that bust and smash it to atoms".<ref name=Smithsonian/>

File:Diana by Augustus Saint-Gaudens 01.jpg
Diana (1892–93). Bronze, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City

In 1876, he won a commission for a bronze David Farragut Memorial. He rented a studio at 49 rue Notre Dame des Champs.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Stanford White designed the pedestal. It was unveiled on May 25, 1881, in Madison Square Park.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> He collaborated with Stanford White again in 1892–1894 when he created Diana as a weather vane for the second Madison Square Garden building in New York City; a second version used is now in the collection of the Philadelphia Museum of Art,<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> with several reduced versions in museums including the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. The statue stood on a 300-foot-high tower, making Diana the highest point in the city. It was also the first statue in that part of Manhattan to be lit at night by electricity. The statue and its tower was a landmark until 1925 when the building was demolished.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

In New York, he was a member of the Tile Club, a group of prominent artists and writers, including Winslow Homer (his wife's fourth cousin), William Merritt Chase and Arthur Quartley.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> He was also a member of The Lambs, Salmagundi Club and the National Arts Club in New York City.

Civil War commemorative commissions

File:Lincoln Lincoln Park.jpg
Abraham Lincoln: The Man in Lincoln Park, Chicago (1887)

In 1876, Saint-Gaudens received his first major commission: a monument to Civil War Admiral David Farragut, in New York's Madison Square; his friend Stanford White designed an architectural setting for it, and when it was unveiled in 1881, its naturalism, its lack of bombast and its siting combined to make it a tremendous success, and Saint-Gaudens' reputation was established.

The commissions followed fast, including the colossal Abraham Lincoln: The Man in Lincoln Park, Chicago in a setting by architect White, 1884–1887, considered the finest portrait statue in the United States (a replica was placed at Lincoln's tomb in Springfield, Illinois, and another stands in Parliament Square, London). The statue was highly influential for American artists and received widespread praise by critics.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>

A long series of memorials, funerary monuments and busts, including the Adams Memorial, the Peter Cooper Monument at Cooper Square, and the John A. Logan Monument. Arguably the greatest of these monuments is the bronze bas-relief that forms the Robert Gould Shaw Memorial on Boston Common, 1884–1897, which Saint-Gaudens labored on for 14 years; even after the public version had been unveiled, he continued with further versions. Two grand equestrian monuments to Civil War generals are outstanding: to General John A. Logan, atop a tumulus in Chicago, 1894–1897, and to William Tecumseh Sherman on Grand Army Plaza at the corner of Central Park in New York (with the African-American model Hettie Anderson posing as an allegorical Victory), 1892–1903, the first use of Robert Treat Paine's pointing device for the accurate mechanical enlargement of sculpture models. The depictions of the African-American soldiers on the Shaw memorial is noted as a rare example of true-to-life, non-derogatory, depictions of African physical characteristics in 19th-century American art.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>

File:Robert Gould Shaw Memorial (36053).jpg
The Robert Gould Shaw Memorial, Boston Common (1884–1897)

For the Lincoln Centennial of 1909, Saint-Gaudens produced another statue of the president. A seated figure, Abraham Lincoln: The Head of State, is in Chicago's Grant Park. Saint-Gaudens completed the design work and had begun casting the statue at the time of his death—his workshop completed it. The statue's head was used as the model for the commemorative postage stamp issued on the 100th anniversary of Lincoln's birth.<ref>US 1909.com Saint-Gaudens Template:Webarchive</ref>

Other works

File:Memorial to Charles Parnell.jpg
Parnell Memorial, Dublin

Saint-Gaudens also created the statue for the monument of Charles Stewart Parnell, which was installed at the north end of Dublin's O'Connell Street, backing on to Parnell Square in 1911.

In 1887, when Robert Louis Stevenson made his second trip to the United States, Saint-Gaudens had the opportunity to make the preliminary sketches for a five-year project of a medallion depicting Stevenson, in very poor health at the time, propped in bed writing. With minor modifications, this medallion was reproduced for the Stevenson memorial in St. Giles' Cathedral, Edinburgh. Stevenson's cousin and biographer, Graham Balfour, deemed the work "the most satisfactory of all the portraits of Stevenson". Balfour also noted that Saint-Gaudens greatly admired Stevenson and had once said he would "gladly go a thousand miles for the sake of a sitting" with him.[2]

Saint-Gaudens was also commissioned by a variety of groups to create medals including varied commemorative themes like The Women"s Auxiliary of the Massachusetts Civil Service Reform Association Presentation Medal and the World's Columbian Exposition Medal. Such pieces stand testament to both his broad appeal and the respect that was given to him by his contemporaries.

A statue of philanthropist Robert Randall stands in the gardens of Sailors' Snug Harbor in New York. A statue of copper king Marcus Daly, first dedicated in 1907, is now placed at the entrance of the Montana Technological University (formerly the Montana School of Mines) on the west end of Park Street in Butte, Montana. A statue of former United States Congressman and New York Governor Roswell Pettibone Flower was dedicated in 1902 in Watertown, New York.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

Teacher and advisor

File:Kenyon Cox - Portrait of Augustus Saint-Gaudens.jpg
Saint-Gaudens working in his studio, by Kenyon Cox

Saint-Gaudens' prominence brought him students, and he was an able and sensitive teacher. He tutored young artists privately, taught at the Art Students League of New York, and took on a large number of assistants. He was an artistic advisor to the World's Columbian Exposition of 1893, an avid supporter of the American Academy in Rome, and part of the McMillan Commission, which brought into being L'Enfant's long-ignored master plan for the nation's capital.

Through his career Augustus Saint-Gaudens made a specialty of intimate private portrait panels in sensitive, very low relief, which owed something to the Florentine Renaissance. It was felt he heavily influenced another Irish American sculptor, Jerome Connor.<ref>Jerome Connor Sculptor – Annascaul Village, Annascaul Accommodation, Tom Crean, Jerome Conor, Irish Horse Fair and more! Template:Webarchive. Annascaul.net (May 20, 2011). Retrieved on 2013-08-21.</ref>

Over the course of his long career Saint-Gaudens employed, and by doing so, trained, some of the next generation's finest sculptors. These included James Earle Fraser, Frances Grimes, Henry Hering, Charles Keck, Mary Lawrence, Frederick MacMonnies, Philip Martiny, Helen Mears, Robert Paine, Alexander Phimister Proctor, Louis Saint-Gaudens, Elsie Ward and Adolph Alexander Weinman.<ref>List primarily gleaned from Wilkinson, Burke, Uncommon Clay: The Life and Works of Augustus Saint Gaudens, photographs by David Finn, Harcourt Brace Jovanovitch, Publishers, San Diego, 1983.</ref>

Coinage

File:NNC-US-1907-G$20-Saint Gaudens (Roman, ultra high relief, wire edge).jpg
The 1907 Roman numeral ultra high relief double eagle, Saint-Gaudens' design

Saint-Gaudens referred to his early relief portraits as "medallions" and took a great interest in the art of the coin: his $20 gold piece, the double eagle coin he designed for the US Mint, 1905–1907, though it was adapted for minting, is still considered one of the most beautiful American coins ever issued.

Chosen by Theodore Roosevelt to redesign the coinage of the nation at the beginning of the 20th century, Saint-Gaudens produced an ultra high-relief $20 gold piece that was adapted into a flattened-down version by the United States Mint. The ultra high-relief coin took up to 11 strikes to bring up the details, and only 20 or so of these coins were minted in 1907. The Ultra High Reliefs did not stack properly and were deemed unfit for commerce. They are highly sought-after today; one sold in a 2005 auction for $2,990,000.<ref>Yeoman, p. 272.</ref> The coin was then adapted into the High relief version, which, although requiring eight fewer strikes than the Ultra High Relief coins, was still deemed impractical for commerce. 12,317 of these were minted, and are currently among the most in-demand U.S. coins. The coin was finally modified to a normal-relief version, which was minted from 1907 to 1933.<ref name="NMAH">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> This design (an "ultra-high relief" $20) was successfully minted in 24 karat gold; 115,178 coins were produced. This coin was issued by the U.S. Mint in 2009.<ref>2009 Ultra High Relief Double Eagle Template:Webarchive.

The Saint-Gaudens obverse design was reused in the American Eagle gold bullion coins that were instituted in 1986. 2009 Ultra High Relief Double Eagle. Retrieved on August 21, 2013.</ref>

Later life and the Cornish Colony

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File:Adams Memorial by Augustus Saint-Gaudens.jpg
Adams Memorial, Rock Creek Cemetery, Washington, D.C. (1891)

Diagnosed with cancer in 1900, Saint-Gaudens decided to live at his Federal house with barn-studio set in the handsome gardens he had made, where he and his family had been spending summers since 1885, in Cornish, New Hampshire – though not in retirement. Despite waning energy, he continued to work, producing a steady stream of reliefs and public sculpture. In 1901, he was appointed a member of the Senate Park, or McMillan, Commission for the redesign of Washington, D.C.'s Mall and its larger park system, along with architects Daniel Burnham and Charles Follen McKim, and landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted Jr.; in 1902, the Commission published their report, popularly known as the McMillan Plan.<ref>Civic Art: A Centennial History of the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts, ed. Thomas E. Luebke. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Commission of Fine Arts, 2013.</ref> In 1904, he was one of the first seven chosen for membership in the American Academy of Arts and Letters. That same year the large studio burned, with the irreplaceable loss of the sculptor's correspondence, his sketchbooks, and many works in progress.

The Cornish Art Colony Saint-Gaudens and his brother Louis attracted made for a dynamic social and creative environment. The most famous included painters Maxfield Parrish and Kenyon Cox, architect and garden designer Charles A. Platt, and sculptor Paul Manship. Included were painters Thomas Dewing, George de Forest Brush, dramatist Percy MacKaye, the American novelist Winston Churchill, and the sculptor Louis St. Gaudens, Augustus's brother. After his death in 1907, it slowly dissipated. His house and gardens are now preserved as the Saint-Gaudens National Historic Site.

Saint-Gaudens was elected a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1896. In 1901, the French government made him an Officier de la Légion d'honneur.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> In 1920, Saint-Gaudens was posthumously elected to the Hall of Fame for Great Americans.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Saint-Gaudens and his wife figure prominently in the 2011 book The Greater Journey: Americans in Paris by historian David McCullough. In interviews upon the book's release, McCullough said the letters of Augusta Saint-Gaudens to her friends and family in the United States were among the richest primary sources he discovered in years of research into the lives of the American community in Paris in the late 19th century.

Legacy and honors

During World War II the Liberty ship Template:SS was built in Panama City, Florida, and named in his honor.<ref>Template:Cite book </ref>

File:Augustus Saint-Gaudens 1940 Issue-3c.jpg
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In 1940, the U.S. Post Office issued a series of 35 postage stamps, 'The Famous American Series', honoring America's famous artists, poets, educators, authors, scientists, composers and inventors. The renowned sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens was among those chosen for the 'Artists' category of this series and appears on this stamp, which was first issued in New York City on September 16, 1940.<ref>Smithsonian National Postal Museum http://www.arago.si.edu/index.asp?con=1&cmd=1&tid=2028645 Template:Webarchive</ref>

New York City's PS40 is named after Saint-Gaudens.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Exhibitions

From January 16, 2007 through April 15, 2007, the Flagler Museum, Palm Beach, Florida, exhibited Augustus Saint-Gaudens: American Sculptor of the Gilded Age.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>  It was organized by the Trust for Museum Exhibitions, Washington, D.C. in collaboration with the Saint-Gaudens National Historic Site, Cornish, New Hampshire and displayed over 60 works. An earlier version of the show was shown at the North Carolina Museum of Art, February 23–May 11, 2003.

From June 30–November 15, 2009, the Metropolitan Museum of Art exhibited Augustus Saint-Gaudens in The Metropolitan Museum of Art which displayed the full range of his work including cameos, bas-reliefs and public monuments.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

From September 15, 2013 - January 20, 2014, the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., exhibited Tell It with Pride: The 54th Massachusetts Regiment and Augustus Saint-Gaudens' Shaw Memorial.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>  The memorial commemorates the July 18, 1863, storming of Fort Wagner, near Charleston, South Carolina by Colonel Robert Gould Shaw and the 54th Massachusetts Regiment, one of the first African American military units raised in the North. The exhibit was also shown at the Massachusetts Historical Society, February 21–May 23, 2014.  The exhibit was accompanied by a brochure written by Lindsay Harris and a catalog by Sarah Greenough et al.

In 2023 the American Federation of Arts, Chesterwood, and the Saint-Gaudens Memorial in partnership with the Saint-Gaudens National Historical Park co-organized Monuments and Myths: The America of Sculptors Augustus Saint-Gaudens and Daniel Chester French,<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> an exhibit that examined their intersecting careers.  The exhibit appeared at Jule Collins Smith Museum of Fine Art, Auburn University, Auburn, Alabama, May 30–August 7, 2023; Frist Art Museum, Nashville, Tennessee March 1–May 27, 2024, Michener Art Museum, Doylestown, Pennsylvania June 29, 2024–January 5, 2025 and Brunnier Art Museum, University Museums, Iowa State University, February 8–May 18, 2025.  The exhibition catalog was written by Andrew Eschelbacher.  Template:ISBN

Collections

Among the public collections holding works by Augustus Saint-Gaudens are:

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Selected works

Title Image Year Location Material Notes
Admiral David Glasgow Farragut File:Farragut Mad Sq jeh.JPG 1881 Madison Square Park NYC Bronze and granite exedra designed by Stanford White
The Puritan File:The Puritan by St. Gaudens.jpg 1887 Merrick Park, near Quadrangle Springfield, Massachusetts Bronze and granite
Standing Lincoln File:Lincoln Lincoln Park.jpg 1887 Lincoln Park in Chicago, Illinois Bronze and granite architectural setting by Stanford White
additional castings located in Parliament Square, London, Mexico City, and at the Saint-Gaudens National Historical Park
Adams Memorial File:Adams-memorial-SaintGaudens.jpg 1891 Rock Creek Cemetery, Washington, D.C. Bronze and granite architectural setting by Stanford White
General John Logan Memorial File:General John Logan Grant Park Chicago2.JPG 1897 Grant Park in Chicago, Illinois Bronze and granite architectural setting by Stanford White,
horse modeled by Alexander Phimister Proctor
Robert Gould Shaw Memorial File:St GaudensShaw Mem.jpg 1897 Boston Common, Boston, Massachusetts Bronze and granite architectural elements designed by Charles Follen McKim
William Tecumseh Sherman File:Sherman gilded jeh.JPG 1903 Grand Army Plaza, Manhattan Bronze and granite granite pedestal designed by Charles Follen McKim
Henry W. Maxwell Memorial File:HenryMaxwellMemorialTablet.jpg 1903 Grand Army Plaza, Brooklyn Bronze and granite Assisted by Albert Jaegers
Christopher Lyman Magee Memorial File:Christopher Lyman Magee memorial - IMG 0783.jpg 1908 Schenley Park, Pittsburgh Bronze and granite Architectural setting by Stanford White and Henry Bacon

Assisted by Henry Hering

Seated Lincoln File:Sitting Lincoln.JPG 1908,
unveiled in 1926 		Grant Park in Chicago, Illinois Bronze and granite architectural setting by Stanford White, Laurence Grant White and Graham, Anderson, Probst and White

See also

References

Notes

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Bibliography

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