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Daniel Chester French

 
Britannica Concise Encyclopedia: Daniel Chester French
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(born April 20, 1850, Exeter, N.H., U.S. — died Oct. 7, 1931, Stockbridge, Mass.) U.S. sculptor. He produced his first important commission for the town of Concord, Mass. — the famous statue The Minute Man (1874). He was the leading turn-of-the-century American sculptor, with studios in Boston, Concord, Washington, D.C., and New York City. His best-known work, the seated marble figure of Abraham Lincoln in the Lincoln Memorial, Washington, D.C., was dedicated in 1922. His other notable public monuments include the equestrian statues of Ulysses S. Grant in Philadelphia (1898) and George Washington in Paris (1900) and sculptures representing Europe, Asia, Africa, and America, in front of the New York City customhouse (1907).

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Art Encyclopedia: Daniel Chester French
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(b Exeter, NH, 20 April 1850; d Stockbridge, MA, 7 Oct 1931). American sculptor. Essentially self-taught, he studied briefly in the 1870s with John Quincy Adams Ward, William Rimmer, William Morris Hunt and Thomas Ball. In 1873 he was awarded the substantial commission for the life-size Minute Man (bronze, 1874) erected in Minute Man National Historical Park, Concord, MA, to commemorate the Battle of Concord. In what became one of his best-known pieces, he adapted the Classical Apollo Belvedere (Rome, Vatican, Mus. Pio-Clementino) for his New England farmer to create a sturdy image that forcefully characterizes the determined patriotism of the men who defended their land. After two years in Italy (1874-6), French worked in Washington, DC, and Boston, MA, executing architectural sculpture and a number of portraits, including a distinguished marble bust of Ralph Waldo Emerson (1879; Cambridge, MA, Harvard U.).

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Biography: Daniel Chester French
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Daniel Chester French (1850-1931) was one of America's leading sculptors of the late 19th century and maintained his popularity and fame well into the 20th century.

Daniel Chester French was born in Exeter, N.H. He grew up in Concord, Mass., and came under the influence of the intellectual circle of Ralph Waldo Emerson and Louisa May Alcott. French chose to become a sculptor early in life and had the benefit of study with the painter William Morris Hunt and the sculptors William Rimmer and John Q.A. Ward - a particularly fortuitous group of instructors because of the variety of their esthetic approaches and their sympathetic professionalism.

With Emerson's assistance in 1874 French received the commission for the statue Minute Man for Concord. This immediately brought him fame. Though based upon the classical Apollo Belvedere, the sculpture was totally in keeping with the then-advanced style of historical bronze monuments. In 1876 French went to Italy and studied with Thomas Ball, whose work combined the neoclassic heritage and the new naturalism.

Some of French's first works on his return to the United States were not unlike the plaster groups of John Rogers. However, French gained fame principally through the large public monuments he created for the custom houses in St. Louis and Philadelphia, the Boston Post Office, and, above all, the gigantic statue, The Republic, that dominated the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893.

French evolved a type of allegorical figure which became his trademark, although it was emulated by other sculptors. This was the statuesque, somewhat sexless female in long flowing gown, as in the Alma Mater at Columbia University or the Spirit of Life at the Spencer Trask Memorial at Saratoga Springs, N.Y. The heavy, voluminous drapery often flowed over the heads of these figures as well, as can be seen in his most eloquent and personal work, Angel of Death and the Young Sculptor, a memorial to his friend and fellow sculptor Martin Milmore, who died young. The figure of Death confronts an idealized sculptor, who is at work on a relief of a sphinx.

French's best-known works are his two statues of Abraham Lincoln. The first, a standing Lincoln in Lincoln, Nebr., is similar to one by Augustus Saint-Gaudens in Chicago. The second, completed in 1922, and French's most famous sculpture, is the seated Lincoln in the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., done as one of several collaborative works with architect Henry Bacon.

Further Reading

A primary source on French is Mary French, Memories of a Sculptor's Wife (1928). Two biographies are Adeline Pond Adams, Daniel Chester French: Sculptor (1932), and Margaret Cresson, Journey into Fame: The Life of Daniel Chester French (1947).

 
Columbia Encyclopedia: Daniel Chester French
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French, Daniel Chester, 1850-1931, American sculptor, b. Exeter, N.H., studied in Florence and in Boston with William Rimmer. After executing his first large work, The Minute Man (1875), he received many important commissions, including his most famous achievement, the heroic Lincoln in the Lincoln Memorial, Washington, D.C. His style varies from a detailed realistic rendering, especially in portraiture, to a grand ideal in his allegorical works. Some of the best of his statues and memorials are John Harvard and the bust of Ralph Waldo Emerson (Harvard); Death and the Young Sculptor, Milmore Memorial (Boston); Mourning Victory, Melvin Memorial (Concord, Mass.); Lewis Cass (Capitol, Washington, D.C.); and Alma Mater (Columbia Univ.). In collaboration with Edward C. Potter he executed equestrian statues of General Grant (Philadelphia), General Washington (Paris), and General Joseph Hooker (Boston).

Bibliography

See biography by his daughter, M. F. Cresson (1947).

Wikipedia: Daniel Chester French
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Daniel Chester French
Signature, Daniel C. French
Daniel Chester French on a U.S. Postal Service stamp
Chesterwood in Stockbridge, Massachusetts

Daniel Chester French (April 20, 1850 – October 7, 1931) was an American sculptor. His best-known work is the sculpture of a seated Abraham Lincoln (1920) at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C.

Contents

Biography

French was born in Exeter, New Hampshire, to Henry Flagg French, a lawyer, Assistant US Treasury Secretary and author of a book that described the French drain.[1] Daniel Chester French was a neighbor and friend of Ralph Waldo Emerson, and the Alcott family. His decision to pursue sculpting was influenced by Louisa May Alcott's sister May Alcott.

After a year at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, French worked on his father's farm. While visiting relatives in Brooklyn, New York City, he spent a month in the studio of John Quincy Adams Ward, then began to work on commissions, and at the age of twenty-three received from the town of Concord, Massachusetts, an order for his well-known statue The Minute Man, which was unveiled April 19, 1875 on the centenary of the Battle of Lexington and Concord.

Previously French had gone to Florence, Italy, where he spent a year working with sculptor Thomas Ball.

In 1917, he designed the Pulitzer Prize gold medal presented to laureates.[2]

In collaboration with Edward Clark Potter he modelled the George Washington statue, presented to France by the Daughters of the American Revolution; the General Grant in Fairmount Park, Philadelphia, and the General Joseph Hooker statue in Boston.

In 1893, French was a founding member of the National Sculpture Society, and he became a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. French also became a member of the National Academy of Design (1901), the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Architectural League, and the Accademia di San Luca, of Rome. French was one of many sculptors who frequently employed Audrey Munson as a model. Together with Walter Leighton Clark and others, he was also one of the founders of the Berkshire Playhouse[3], which later became the Berkshire Theatre Festival.

In 1940, French was selected as one of five artists to be honored in the 35-stamp "Famous Americans" series.[4]

French was buried in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, Concord, Massachusetts after his death in Stockbridge, Massachusetts in 1931 at age 81.

Chesterwood, French's summer home, studio, (designed by his architect friend and frequent collaborator Henry Bacon) and garden is now a museum.

Work

Notable public monuments

Minute Man, Concord, Massachusetts.

John Boyle O'Reilly Memorial, Boston, Massachusetts.

Alma Mater on the campus of Columbia University in New York, NY.

Dupont Memorial Fountain at Dupont Circle, Washington, D.C.

Republic, 1918 reduced version, Chicago.

August Meyer Memorial, on The Paseo in Kansas City, Missouri.

Architectural sculpture

Abraham Lincoln (1920) in the Lincoln Memorial, Washington, D.C.

Cemetery monuments

Marshall Field Memorial, Chicago.

Russell A. Alger Fountain in Detroit, Michigan.

Selected museum pieces

Miscellaneous pieces

  • The Chicago Incendiary,

References

  1. ^ Flagg, Henry F. Farm drainage : the principles, processes, and effects of draining land with stones, wood, plows, and open ditches, and especially with tiles. New York : Orange Judd & Company, 1859.
  2. ^ Homren, Wayne (11 April 2004). "Pulitzer Secrets Revealed". The E-Sylum 7 (15, art. 5). http://www.coinbooks.org/esylum_v07n15a05.html. Retrieved 2007-07-01. 
  3. ^ http://www.berkshireweb.com/culture/index.html
  4. ^ http://www.1847usa.com/identify/YearSets/FamousAmericans.htm
  5. ^ Chicago Landmarks | Statue of The Republic at www.ci.chi.il.us
  6. ^ Ramsey Al-Rikabi (2007-06-12). "Seward's bust gets busted". Times Herald-Record. http://www.recordonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070612/NEWS/706120313/-1/COMM0203. Retrieved 2007-06-30. 

Further reading

  • Buck, Diane M. and Virginia A. Palmer, Outdoor Sculpture in Milwaukee: A Cultural and Historical Guidebook, The State Historical Society of Wisconsin, Madison, 1995
  • Caffin, Charles H., American Masters of Sculpture, Doubleday, Page & Company, New York 1913
  • Caffin, in International Studio, volumes xx (1903), lx (1910), and lxvi (1912)
  • Carlock, Marty, A Guide to Public Art in Greater Boston from Newburyport to Plymouth, The Harvard Common Press, Boston Massachusetts, 1988
  • Chesterwood Archives, Geographical List of Works: DRAFT, unpublished manuscript, April 14, 1993
  • Coughlan, in Magazine of Art (1901)
  • Craven, Wayne, Sculpture in America, Thomas Y. Crowell Co, NY, NY 1968
  • Cresson, Margaret French, Journey in Fame: The Life of Daniel Chaster French, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, 1947
  • Hucke, Matt and Ursela Bielski, Graveyards of Chicago: the People, History, Art and Lore of Cook County Cemeteries, Lake Claremont Press, Chicago, 1999
  • Kvaran, Einar Einarsson, Architectural Sculpture in America
  • Lanctot, Barbara, A Walk Through Graceland Cemetery, Chicago Architectural Foundation, Chicago, Illinois, 1988
  • Richman, Michael, Daniel Chester French: An American Sculptor, The Preservation Press, Washington D.C., 1976
  • Taft, Lorado, The History of American Sculpture, MacMillan Co., New York, NY 1925
  • Wilson, Susan, Garden of Memorias: A Guide to Historic Forest Hills, Forest Hills Educational Trust

External links

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