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Augustus Saint-Gaudens
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(b Dublin, 1 March 1848; d Cornish, NH, 3 Aug 1907). American sculptor and painter. His father was a French shoemaker who lived in Dublin for seven years and married an Irish woman. When Augustus was six months old, the family moved to the USA, living briefly in Boston before settling in New York. In 1861 he was apprenticed to the cameo-cutter Louis Avet, who was a good teacher but a harsh employer. After a dispute, Saint-Gaudens left him in 1864 to work for the shell cameo-cutter Jules LeBrethon, producing such works as the Head of Hercules (c. 1867; Cornish, NH, Saint-Gaudens N. Hist. Site). During these apprenticeships he attended drawing classes at night school, first at the Cooper Union in New York and then at the National Academy of Design, where he studied under Daniel Huntington and Emanuel Gottlieb Leutze. In 1867 he left LeBrethon's employ to travel to Europe, but before departing he modelled a bust of his father, Bernard Saint-Gaudens (1867; Cornish, NH, Saint-Gaudens N. Hist. Site). In Paris he again obtained a job as cameo-cutter and studied at the Petite Ecole until he gained admission to the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in 1868, when he enrolled in the studio of Fran?ois Jouffroy. At the Exposition Universelle of 1868, he, like other artists, was greatly impressed and influenced by the gilded bronze Florentine Singer (1865; version, Paris, Louvre) by Paul Dubois (i).
See the Abbreviations for further details.
| Biography: Augustus Saint-Gaudens |
Augustus Saint-Gaudens (1848-1907), the leading American sculptor of the late 19th century, is best known for his bronze historical memorials.
Augustus Saint-Gaudens was born in Dublin, Ireland, on March 1, 1848, and taken to America as an infant. He grew up in New York City. At the age of 13 he was apprenticed to a cameo cutter, and he later attended classes at Cooper Union and the National Academy of Design. In 1867 he went to Paris, where he studied at the École des Beaux-Arts, and in 1870 he left for Rome. His marble Hiawatha and Silence, carved in Rome, were his only significant works in the still prevalent neoclassic style.
Shortly after Saint-Gaudens returned to the United States in 1875, he received the commission for the Adm. Farragut monument in Madison Square, New York City. This work, which was completed in 1881, is imbued with the spirit of the early Renaissance, and it established his reputation. It was the first of a number of memorials relating to the Civil War. In the Farragut monument he combines the idealistic sense of the heroic with vivid portraiture. The base is adorned with extremely delicate low-relief sculptures, a form which Saint-Gaudens revived from the Renaissance. He had already achieved success in low-relief portraits.
Saint-Gaudens next executed a sculpture of Abraham Lincoln standing in front of a Renaissance chair (1887) for Lincoln Park, Chicago. As in the Farragut, he was associated with the architect Sanford White in constructing the base. Saint-Gaudens's Puritan (1887), a memorial to Deacon Samuel Chapin in Springfield, Mass., is an eloquent embodiment of early New England Puritanism. His next major Civil War monument was the complex memorial to Robert Gould Shaw (1884-1897), who had led the first regiment of Negro troops from Massachusetts and died during the conflict in 1863. This monument, opposite the State House in Boston, has a high-relief equestrian statue and other figures in varying depths of relief.
Probably Saint-Gaudens's best-known work is his memorial to Gen. Sherman (1892-1903) in Central Park, New York City, a work which blends realism and idealism. The figure of Victory is based on the ancient Victory of Samothrace, and the great equestrian statue is related to Donatello's 15th-century Gattamelata. Diana (1892; now in the Philadelphia Museum of Art) is Saint-Gaudens's one ideal nude. Perhaps his most moving and affecting sculpture is the figure sometimes entitled Grief (1891-1893), the monument to Mrs. Henry Adams in Rock Creek Cemetery, Washington, D.C. The inscrutable, enigmatic form is a touching embodiment of personal grief and tragedy, the greatest of all the allegories of death of the period.
Saint-Gaudens was eminently successful in his own time. He was the leader in the artistic community which grew up around his estate at Cornish, N. H. He died there on Aug. 3, 1907, and his house and studio have been preserved as the Saint-Gaudens Memorial.
Further Reading
A definitive study of Saint-Gaudens by John Dryfhout was in preparation as of 1972. Useful works are Royal Cortissoz, Augustus Saint-Gaudens (1907), and The Reminiscences of Augustus Saint-Gaudens, edited by Homer Saint-Gaudens (2 vols., 1913).
Additional Sources
Wilkinson, Burke, The life and works of Augustus Saint Gaudens, New York: Dover; Gerrards Cross, England: C. Smythe, 1992.
| Columbia Encyclopedia: Augustus Saint-Gaudens |
Saint-Gaudens, Augustus (sānt-gôd'ənz), 1848-1907, American sculptor, b. Dublin, Ireland. An apprentice in cameo cutting, he gained mastery over sculpture in low relief. He had an unusual genius for plastic expression and an unfailing enthusiasm and industry. He was trained at the École des Beaux-Arts, Paris, and gained knowledge of the Italian Renaissance from his stay (1870-73) in Italy. Saint-Gaudens became the foremost sculptor in the United States and a strong influence in the development of American sculpture. In 1881 his statue of Admiral Farragut for Madison Square, New York City, set a new standard for public monuments. Stanford White collaborated on the pedestal for this figure and several others. In 1887 the figure of Lincoln in Lincoln Park, Chicago, was completed. Other works that followed are Deacon Samuel Chapin (The Puritan), Springfield, Mass.; the Shaw Memorial, Boston Common; General Logan, Chicago; General Sherman, entrance to Central Park, New York City; and the seated Lincoln for the Chicago lake front. Of the portrait tablets and plaques, most notable are Dr. McCosh, Princeton, N.J.; Robert Louis Stevenson for St. Giles, Edinburgh, Scotland; and charming low reliefs of children. Among ideal figures is the Adams Memorial, Rock Creek Cemetery, Washington, D.C., one of his most splendid works.
Bibliography
See his portrait reliefs (1969); biography by L. H. Tharp (1969). His brother, Louis, 1854-1913, was also a sculptor of talent.
| Wikipedia: Augustus Saint-Gaudens |
| Augustus Saint-Gaudens | |
 Augustus Saint Gaudens, 1905 |
|
| Born | March 1, 1848 Dublin, Ireland |
| Died | August 3, 1907 (aged 59) |
| Nationality | American |
| Field | Sculpture |
| Training | Cooper Union, National Academy of Design, Ecole des Beaux-Arts. |
| Influenced by | Francois Jouffroy |
Augustus Saint-Gaudens (March 1, 1848, Dublin, Ireland – August 3, 1907, Cornish, New Hampshire), was the Irish-born American sculptor of the Beaux-Arts generation who most embodied the ideals of the "American Renaissance". Raised in New York City, he traveled to Europe for further training and artistic study, and then returned to major critical success in the design of monuments commemorating heroes of the American Civil War, many of which still stand. In addition to his famous works such as the Robert Gould Shaw Memorial on Boston Common and the outstanding grand equestrian monuments to Civil War generals John A. Logan, atop a tumulus in Chicago, 1894–97, and William Tecumseh Sherman, at the corner of New York's Central Park, 1892–1903, Saint-Gaudens also maintained an interest in numismatics and designed the twenty-dollar "double eagle" gold piece, for the US Mint in 1905–1907, still considered the most beautiful American coin ever issued[1] as well as the $10 "Indian Head" gold eagle, both of which were minted from 1907 until 1933. In his later years he founded the "Cornish Colony," an artistic colony that included notable painters, sculptors, writers, and architects. His brother, Louis St. Gaudens was also a well known sculptor with whom he occasionally collaborated.
Contents |
Early life and career
Born in Dublin to a French father and an Irish mother, Saint-Gaudens was raised in New York, after his parents immigrated to America when he was six months of age. He was apprenticed to a cameo-cutter but also took art classes at the Cooper Union and the National Academy of Design. At 19, his apprenticeship completed, he traveled to Paris where he studied in the atelier of François Jouffroy at the École des Beaux-Arts. In 1870, he left Paris for Rome, to study art and architecture, and worked on his first commissions. There he met an American art student, Augusta Fisher Homer,[2] whose sister is Elizabeth Fisher [Homer] Nichols, whom he married in 1877. In New York he was a member of the Tilers, a group of prominent artists and writers, including Winslow Homer (his wife's fourth cousin), William Merritt Chase and Arthur Quartley.
Civil War commemorative commissions
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: the colossal Standing Lincoln in Lincoln Park, Chicago in a setting by architect White, 1884–1887, considered the finest portrait statue in the United States (A copy was placed at Lincoln's tomb in Springfield, Illinois.); a long series of funerary monuments and busts: the Adams Memorial, the Peter Cooper Monument, and the John A. Logan Monument, the greatest of which is the bronze bas-relief that forms the Robert Gould Shaw Memorial on Boston Common, 1884–1897, Saint-Gaudens labored on it for fourteen years, and 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 General William Tecumseh Sherman at the corner of Central Park in New York, 1892–1903, the first use of Robert Treat Paine’s pointing device for the accurate mechanical enlargement of sculpture models.
For the Lincoln Centennial in 1909 Saint-Gaudens produce another statue of the president. A seated figure, it is in Chicago's Grant Park. The head was used for the commemorative postage stamp issued on the 100th anniversary of Lincoln's birth. [3]
Other works
Saint-Gaudens also created the Charles Stewart Parnell monument on Dublin's O'Connell Street. 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 his the broad appeal and respect that was given to him by his contemporaries. Today, his medals have lost none of their allure and have been sold at auction for varying sums.[4] A statue of philanthropist Robert Randall stands in the gardens of Sailors' Snug Harbor in New York. A statue of Copper King, Marcus Daly, is at the entrance of The Montana School of Mines on the west end of Park St. in Butte Montana.
Teacher and advisor
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.
Coinage
Saint-Gaudens referred to his early relief portraits as "medallions" and took a great interest in the art of the coin: his twenty-dollar gold piece, the double eagle coin he designed for the US Mint, 1905–1907, though it was adapted for minting, is still considered the most beautiful American coin ever issued.
Chosen by Theodore Roosevelt to redesign the coinage of the nation at the beginning of the 20th century, Saint-Gaudens produced a beautiful high-relief $20 gold piece that was adapted into a flattened-down version by the United States Mint. The high-relief coin took up to eleven strikes to bring up the details, and only 12,367 of these coins were minted in 1907.[5]
Two major versions of his coins are known as the "Saint Gaudens High Relief Roman Numerals 1907" and the "Saint Gaudens Arabic Numerals 1907–1933". Other extremely rare types of Saint-Gaudens double eagles, minted in 1907, are prized by collectors and valued from $10,000 to millions of dollars.
The Saint-Gaudens obverse design was reused in the American Eagle gold bullion coins that were instituted in 1986. An "ultra-high relief" $20 (24 karat) gold coin was issued by the U.S. Mint in 2009. [6]
Later life and the Cornish Colony
Main article: Cornish Art Colony
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 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 sketch books, and many works in progress.
At Cornish, New Hampshire, Saint-Gaudens and his brother Louis attracted a summer colony of artists. The colony of artists made for a dynamic social and creative environment. The most famous included painters Maxfield Parrish and Kenyon Cox, architect and garden designer Charles 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' brother. After his death in 1907 it slowly dissipated. His house and gardens are now preserved as Saint-Gaudens National Historic Site.
Saint-Gaudens was elected a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1896.[7] In 1940, his image appeared on a U.S. postage stamp in the "Famous Americans" series.
Legacy
Among the public collections holding works by Augustus Saint-Gaudens are:
Gallery
 Hiawatha, Marble (1872), Metropolitan Museum of Art. |
.JPG) Bas relief of Oliver Ames, Jr., Ames Free Library, North Easton, Massachusetts (1883). |
 The Puritan, Bronze (1883-1886), Metropolitan Museum of Art. |
 Detail of Shaw Memorial plaster model (1884-87), National Gallery of Art. |
 Mrs. Schuyler Van Rensselaer (Mariana Griswold), Bronze (1888), Metropolitan Museum of Art. |
 Detail of Adams Memorial, Rock Creek Cemetery, Washington, DC (1891). |
 Sherman Memorial, Central Park, New York, NY (1892-1903). |
 Amor Caritas, Bronze (1898), Cleveland Museum of Art |
 Plaque of Robert Charles Billings, Boston Public Library, Boston, Massachusetts (1899) |
 Statue of Bishop Phillips Brooks, Trinity Church, Boston, Massachusetts (1907-10, completed by Frances Grimes, Elsie Ward and Henry Hering) |
 Summer home and studio in New Hampshire |
See also
References
Bibliography
- Armstrong, Craven, et al., 200 Years of American Sculpture, Whitney Museum of Art, NYC, 1976
- Balfour, Graham, The Life of Robert Louis Stevenson, 12th ed. Metheun, London, 1913.
- Caffin, Charles H. (February 1904). "The Work of the Sculptor August Saint-Gaudens". The World's Work: A History of Our Time VII: 4403-4419.
- Clemen, Paul, in Die Kunst, Munich, 1910
- Cortissoz, Royal, Augustus Saint-Gaudens, New York, 1907
- Craven, Wayne, Sculpture in America, Thomas Y. Crowell Co, NY, NY 1968
- Dryfhout, John H., Augustus Saint-Gaudens: The Portrait Reliefs, The National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, Grossman Publishers, NY 1969
- Dryfhout, John H., The 1907 United States Gold Coinage, Eastern National Park & Monument Association 1996
- Dryfhout, John H., The Works of Augustus Saint-Gaudens, University Press of New England, Hanover 1982
- Greenthal, Kathryn, Augustus Saint-Gaudens: Master Sculptor, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York 1985
- Kvaran, Einar Einarsson, St. Gaudens’ America, unpublished Manuscript
- podas Larson, Christine, St. Gaudens' New York Eagle: Rescue And Restoration Of St. Paul's First Outdoor Sculpture, Ramsey County History Quarterly V37 #3, Ramsey County Historical Society,St Paul, MN, 2002.
- Reynalds, Donald Martin, Masters of American Sculpture: The Figurative Tradition From the American Renaissance to the Millennium, Abbeville Press, NY 1993
- Saint-Gaudens, Augustus, The Reminiscences of Augustus Saint-Gaudens, Edited and Amplified by Homer Saint-Gaudens, Published By The Century Co. New York, MCMXIII
- Taft, Lorado, The History of American Sculpture, MacMillan Co., New York, NY 1925
- Tripp, David, “Fear and Trembling” & Other Discoveries: New Information on Augustus Saint-Gaudens and America’s Most Beautiful Coin", ANS Magazine 6/1 (Winter 2007).
- Wilkinson, Burke, and David Finn, photographs, Uncommon Clay: The Life and Works of Augustus Saint-Gaudens, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Publishers, San Diego 1985
Notes
- ^ US Mint: The American Eagles Program.
- ^ Supple, Carrie F. and Walton, Cynthia, pubs. The Nichols Family Papers 1860–1960. 2007, Manuscript Collection No. 1.
- ^ US 1909.com Saint-Gaudens
- ^ "Augustus Saint-Gaudens". Fine Art May 2007,2009. Rago Arts and Auction Center. http://www.ragoarts.com/results/?p=search&q=saint-gaudens.
- ^ "United States, $20, 1907". National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution. http://americanhistory.si.edu/collections/object.cfm?key=35&objkey=717. Retrieved 2008-06-16.
- ^ United States Mint to Provide a Golden Moment at World's Fair of Money in Baltimore
- ^ AAAS Membership
External links
 |
Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Augustus Saint-Gaudens |
- Saint-Gaudens National Historic Site, New Hampshire
- Saint-Gaudens National Historic Site: Home of a Gilded Age Icon, a National Park Service Teaching with Historic Places (TwHP) lesson plan
- Major public works, illustrated
- Saint-Gaudens twenty dollar gold coins
- Saint-Gaudens Exhibit, American Numismatic Society
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Mentioned in
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December 7, 2005
What garlic is to salad, insanity is to art.
- Augustus Saint-Gaudens
