Augustus Saint Gaudens - Web Portrait

• Saint-Gaudens National Historic Site Saint-Gaudens National Historic Site in Cornish, New Hampshire consists of the home, gardens, and studios of Augustus Saint-Gaudens (1848-1907), one of America's greatest sculptors.  Please note: the site has been updated and a basic profile on Saint-Gaudens is available in a number of languages - Español, Francais, Italiano, Nederlands, Polski, Português (Portugal), Português (Brazil), Pycckom (Russian), Ukraine, Japanese.
  
  
  • Augustus Saint-Gaudens - Biographical Information
  • Visiting The Site
  • Major Works on permanent public exhibition
  • Concerts, Exhibits, And Special Events
  • Research Projects
  • Cornish Art Colony - Cornish Colony Sculptors
    
    
• The National Park Service is responsible for the Saint-Gaudens National Historic Site. They have a brief Museum Collection Profile which indicates the scope of site is beyond simply sculpture.
  
  
• NGA -- Shaw Memorial Home Page "The exhibition is organized by the National Gallery of Art, Washington. The Shaw Memorial Project is made possible by the generous support of The Circle of the National Gallery of Art. Additional support is provided by Shell Oil Company Foundation. The memorial, along with related studies, will remain on view until January 4, 1998, when the American galleries will close for skylight replacement. The sculpture will return to public view again in the fall of 1998. " Lesson Plans Selected Bibliography Related Websites Related Works
  
  
• "Augustus Saint-Gaudens's magnificent statue of Lincoln, located on the east side of the building, is an enduring symbol of the special relationship of America's sixteenth president to the [Chicago] Historical Society." "Sculpture: The collection includes nearly four hundred sculptures in marble, bronze, plaster, and wood, as well as more unusual media, such as plastic, found objects, and macerated currency. Portrait busts and bronze reliefs or plaques compose the largest segment of the sculpture collection. Other items include artists' models for large-scale bronzes, pedestals, and life and death masks. Images of Abraham Lincoln and Ulysses S. Grant predominate; many more pieces depict Chicagoans"
  
  
• "James Earle Fraser (1876--1953), sculptor and assistant to Augustus Saint-Gaudens. Fraser designed the buffalo nickel and his End of the Trail (1915), an image of an exhausted Indian hunched over his tired horse, is one of the most recognized sculptures of the American West." Peter A. Juley and Son Collection at National Museum of American Art.
  
  
• "DANIEL CHESTER FRENCH (1850-1931) After a decade of adorning customs house and post offices, French traveled to Paris, made the friendship of Saint Gaudens, and executed the arresting statue of GENERAL LEWIS CASS for the Capitol in Washington. "
  
  
• Interesting things that happened March 1:
  
  
• "The Young Octavian was extremely popular, and other American sculptors, such as Horatio Greenough, Harriet Hosmer, and Augustus Saint-Gaudens, made copies of it."
  
  
• "Among those represented in this comprehensive catalogue are such neoclassical sculptors as Horatio Greenough, Hiram Powers, Thomas Crawford, and William Wetmore Story; such post-Civil war artists as Augustus Saint-Gaudens, Olin Levi Warner, and Daniel Chester French; and such early twentieth- century sculptors as Maurice Sterne, Paul Manship, and Gaston Lachaise."
  
  
• "At the western end of the Court of Honor was New York architect Richard Morris Hunt's Administration Building. This structure, like most of the fair's major buildings, was surrounded and adorned by allegorical statuary (under the supervision of Augustus St. Gaudens, sculptor of the statue of Abraham Lincoln at the south end of Lincoln Park), including one representing "Fire Controlled," by Karl Bitter." The Great Chicago Fire and the Web of Memory - Administration Building
  
  
• "Upon his return from abroad, Volk set up a sculpture studio in Chicago, where he first met Lincoln in 1858. They met again in April 1860 when Volk persuaded Lincoln to sit for a life mask--a cast taken by applying plaster directly to the sitter's face. Volk used the cast to create a carved bust of Lincoln and later a full length statue of the president. In 1886 sculptor Augustus Saint Gaudens cast a bronze bust of Lincoln from Volk's life mask and presented it to the Smithsonian Institution. The bronze bust in turn became the model for copies of Volk's original, including the one at the Vermont Historical Society. The mask shows Lincoln at age 51, two months before he was nominated to be a candidate for president. We see him here without his beard." Remembering Abraham Lincoln by Michael Sherman
  
  
• "Medals and badges having more or less Masonic character are numerous and interesting. One of the most important pieces in the collection is the large Washington medal by the famous American sculptor, Saint-Gaudens". Masonic Museums.
  
  
• "A. The Gardner's Melissa Kuronen says the "phantom guests" are usually: operatic soprano Nellie Melba, psychologist William James, social activist Julia Ward Howe, Japanese art critic and educator Okakura Kakuzo, actress Sarah Bernhardt, artists John Singer Sargent, Augustus St. Gaudens and Cecilia Beaux, historian Henry Adams, and writers Sarah Orne Jewett and Henry James." Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum: Archival Globe Articles
  
  
• "Artistic icons of the age--Abbott Thayer's masterful painting "Angel," recently featured on the cover of Time; the poignant bronze "Adams Memorial" by Augustus Saint-Gaudens; stained-glass windows by John La Farge; and a huge etched wood triptych, "Adoration of Joan of Arc" by John Fosdick--are focal points in a suite of new galleries on the second floor of the museum." Smithsonian's National Museum of American Art.
  
  
• "Saint-Gaudens, who had been suddenly thrust into prominence as a leading sculptor of promise with his statue of Admiral David Farragut, led the charge toward Cornish with the help of a lawyer friend, Charles Beaman, who convinced him to exchange his New York City studio for a picturesque barn and a rather down-at-the-heels house which was on the market for a song and a dance. The house Saint-Gaudens eventually chose had earned the name of "Huggins Folly." Talked into it by Beaman for a bargain price of $2,500, Saint-Gaudens also threw in a portrait of Beaman to sweeten the deal. How inauspicious was the start of the Cornish Art Colony! We know now what the magic touch of Saint-Gaudens did for the property once he and his wife settled in."
  
  
• "The state's less populated areas benefited from artists whose homes or studios became Meccas for other artists and intellectuals. Some of the most famous summer artist retreats include the home of sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens in Cornish, poet Celia Thaxter's Appledore Island cottage on the Isles of Shoals, and the Edward and Marian MacDowell farm at Peterborough, well-known today as the MacDowell Colony." New Hampshire, Cherishing The Arts
  
  
• "Augustus has spent the centuries persuing a myriad spectrum of arts under a cluster of aliases. The names Augustus Julliard, Augustine, Augustus Garland Hill, and Augustus Saint-Gaudens should all be familiar to the painters, musicians, philosophers, and sculptors among us."
  
  
• "13. Col. Robert Gould Shaw, Harvard student who died in 1863 along with soldiers of the all-black regiment that he led. Glory. St. Gaudens the sculptor. Relief in front of statehouse on Beacon Hill in Boston, with its back to the Boston Common." Week 5, (1995) Lecture 10
  
  
• "With one of the nation's finest collegiate collections of American painting, the Mead is noted for its important Colonial and Federal portraits by John Singleton Copley, the Peale family, and Gilbert Stuart; landscapes by Thomas Cole, Frederic Edwin Church and Asher B. Durand; and figural subjects by Winslow Homer, Thomas Eakins and William Merritt Chase. Important Impressionist paintings by Robert Henri and Childe Hassam reflect contemporary European art styles. Sculptures range from portraits by Augustus Saint-Gaudens to monumental bronzes by Paul Manship and modernist constructions by Joseph Cornell and Frank Stella."
  
  
• "Author and historian Henry Adams commissioned sculptor Augustus St. Gaudens to execute this statue in 1886. There has always been some debate as to the meaning of the work. Many thought the monument was a memorial to or even a statue of Adams' wife Marion because it was erected shortly after her untimely death by suicide. It became apparent after his own death that Adams had commissioned a sepulchral memorial to mark the plots of both spouses. He frequently signalled that the site was in the nature of a joint crypt referring, as he did in a letter of 1896, to "that charming residence I have constructed for myself at Rock Creek." . While the interpretation of the work has always been a subject of discussion, the least examined question about this compelling work seems to have been the source of its style. Yet the two are inter-related." Smithsonian Preservation Quarterly, Summer/Fall 1995 edition , Field, Cynthia R. "The Adams Memorial."
  
  
• "On West Campus, James B. Duke, son of Washington Duke and creator of The Duke Endowment and founder of Duke University, is memorialized larger than life by Charles Keck. Keck, son of German immigrants, was born in New York City where he studied at the National Academy of Design before continuing his education in Greece, Italy and France. He was assistant to Augustus St. Gaudens from 1893 to 1898. Keck's work is described as being in the classic tradition of Gaudens but one critic noted that Keck often added "his own touch through nervous movement and veristic details." His inclusion of the characteristic cigar and the slight movement evident in the use of a cane in Duke's statue appear to be such signature touches."" Duke University Campus Statuary.
  
  
• "Church of the Ascension [New York]. Der Architekt der Trinity Church, Richard Upjohn, erbaute auch die Church of Ascension. Die Kirche entstand in den Jahren 1840-41 im englisch-neogotischen Stil. Im Innern sollte man sich ansehen: das Wandgemälde "Christi Himmelfahrt" über dem Altar sowie das Altarrelief von Augustus Saint-Gaudens."
  
  
• Brookgreen Gardens is located in Murrells Inlet, SC, just south of Myrtle Beach. Brookgreen was established by Archer Huntington. The property of Broogreen Gardens includes 400 acres of landscape on which over 500 individual sculptures stand. A former indigo and rice plantation, Brookgreen was purchased in 1930 by Archer and Anna Hyatt Huntington as a setting for Mrs. Huntington's sculpture. Now acclaimed as the world's finest collection of American figurative sculpture, Brookgreen Gardens includes a wildlife park with plants and animals in their native forest and swamp settings. Admission. Call 803 - 237 - 4218. "Obvious masterpieces from the collection include ''The Puritan'' by Augustus Saint-Gaudens, ''Joan of Arc'' by Anna Hyatt Huntington, ''The Fisher Boy'' by Hiram Powers and ''Resting Stag'' by Elie Nadelman."
  
  
• "Of the hundreds of Civil War monuments in this country, perhaps the most noble is the Shaw Memorial in Boston, honoring Col. Shaw and his brave 54th Massachusetts soldiers. Crafted by distinguished American sculptor Augustin Saint-Gaudens, the memorial shows Shaw on horseback surrounded by 23 black soldiers." The 54th Massachusetts and the Assault on Fort Wagner by Kim A. O'Connell
  
  
• "The Peabody Art Collection A Treasure for Maryland MSA SC 4680 The Commission on Artistic Property of The Maryland State Archives. MSA SC 4680-1-152-P.I.20.60 TITLE: Augustus Saint Gaudens (1848-1907) ARTIST: Helen Farnsworth Mears 1876-1916 MEDIUM: cast bronze, reduced, gold patina SIZE: 8 3/4 x 7 1/2 "
  
  
• "Across Beacon Street from the new State House is the Robert Gould Shaw Memorial, sculpted by Augustus Saint-Gaudens. Shaw was the 26 year-old son of a Boston family who led the first black regiment to fight in the Civil War. The movie "Glory" recounted the regiment's story."
  
  
• "Though primarily self-taught, he[Paul Moore] cultivated his natural talent with the foundry work and through inspiration from previous master sculptors, including Daniel Chester French who created the Lincoln Memorial and Augustus Saint-Gaudens. whose outstanding relief works influenced Moore's approach to the massive "Chisholm Trail" a 34-foot long relief commissioned by the City of Duncan, Oklahoma."
  
  
• "This trip also includes walking tours of quintessential southeastern Vermont villages, including Weston, Woodstock and Windsor. You stay at four inns and slip into New Hampshire to visit the estate of 19th-century sculptor Augustus Saint Gaudens." Adventure Quest, Historic Villages Walking Tours
  
  
• "High above the building's entrance, with its handsome wrought-iron, semi-circular arch, the famous Saint-Gaudens bronze eagle stands on a ledge with enormous outstretched wings over its nest with two eaglets, and in its talons is a serpent. It is considered one of the most beautiful eagles in the United States and was designed to adorn New York Life buildings in Omaha, St. Paul, and Kansas City." Kansas City Public Library, Baltimore Avenue, North from Eleventh Street, Kansas City Star, March 29, 1969.
  
  
• "One of the most popular gold coins is the U.S. Gold Eagle. It's based on a design by sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens, who also designed the $20 gold coin that was minted from 1907 through 1932. The U.S. Gold Eagle comes in 1-ounce, half-ounce, quarter-ounce and tenth- ounce sizes. The price depends on the current price of gold. As of Thursday, a one-ounce Eagle cost $390 to $405. You can find a dealer in your area by calling 1-800-872-4653." Christine Dugas, Stocks and other stocking stuffers for youngsters, USA TODAY.
  
  
• "Throughout the tomb, bronze statues by Daniel Chester French, Leonard Crunelle, Fred M. Torrey, Augustus Saint-Gaudens, Adolph A Weinman, and Lorado Taft commemorate important periods in Lincoln's career. A biographical sketch of the president and the words of several significant speeches are inscribed on bronze plaques." Lincoln Tomb State Historic Site, State of Illinois.
  
  
• "The Philadelphia mint also produces Bronze Stars and Purple Hearts awarded to military heroes. Now you'll take the down escalator to the mezzanine where you find the David Rittenhouse Room. Exhibited are gold coins including the famed $20 pieces designed by the sculptor Augustus St. Gaudens. Also on display are early tools and hardware used to make coins and a deed to the original Mint."
  
  
• "Sarah Redwood Lee bas relief by Augustus Saint-Gaudens, Saint-Gaudens National Historic Site." TREASURES OF THE NATION America's National Parks, These objects are some of the treasures held in over 330 museums of the National Park Service.
  
  
• "On the side walls, set against marble panels with bronze inscriptions, marble pedestals support bronze busts of the two Olins fro whom the building is named. The busts were sculpted by Henry Hering, pupil of Augustus Saint-Gaudens and friend of architect Henry Bacon." Wesleyan's Memorial Lobby
  
  
• "Saint Gaudens, Augustus Famous American sculptor. Created seated and standing statues of Lincoln placed in Chicago parks. Also famous for statue of General William Tecumseh Sherman." The Lincoln Farm Association
  
  
• "In 1881, 2 young Americans, on a whim, scaled half dome using just a rope and sheer nerve. The cable there today is evidence of their success. This story is from the book "Sculptor in Buckskin" as told by Alexander Phimster Proctor." "Note: In 1891, Alexander Phimster Proctor was commissioned to sculpture life-sized wild animals for the World's Columbian Exhibition in Chicago. Later, Augustus Saint-Gaudens asked him to do the horses for his statues of the Generals Sherman and Logan. After that, Proctor turned out a prodigious amount of work; statuatory for the Paris exposition and the Bronx Zoo, animals for Theodore Roosevelt's White House, the Princeton tigers, and the immortal mustang group at the University of Texas which has been called the greatest equine statue in the world. He was a friend and hunting companion of many notable Americans including Elihu Root, Gifford Pinchot, Teddy Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson."
  
  
• "Claude W. Barlow says: "In 1877 a bronze statue of "The Puritan" by the famous sculptor Saint Gaudens was presented to the city of Springfield and placed beside the public library on State Street. It was dedicated in memory of Deacon Samuel Chapin, although it is, of course, only an idealized portrait..." Source of Information: Claude W. Barlow, a descendant of Catherine CHAPIN and Nathaniel BLISS, and a professional genealogist."
  
  
• "Before you leave the Lincoln Park area, visit the famous Lincoln statue by Augustus Saint-Gaudens which dominates the museum's east lawn. To create this monumental work, Saint-Gaudens used the 1860 life mask by Leonard Volk. The bronze statue was dedicated in 1887 at a ceremony in which Lincoln's 15-year-old grandson participated. Leonard Swett, a lawyer friend of Lincoln's, delivered the address."
  
  
• "The eulogies were written. By 1920, the Palace of Fine Arts, the last remaining building of Chicago's 1893 World's Columbian Exposition, faced an uncertain future. Designed by Charles B. Atwood, the Palace of Fine Arts paid homage to classic Greek architecture and, in sculptor Augustus St. Gaudens' view, was "the finest thing done since the Parthenon." Museum Of Science And Industry
  
  
• Stack's Catalogue of Rare Coins -- U.S. $20.00 Double Eagle, Saint-Gaudens Type, 1907-1933
  
  
• The 1907 St. Gaudens Cent.