(John) Gutzon de la Mothe Borglum (March 25, 1867 –
March 6, 1941) was an American artist and sculptor famous
for creating the monumental presidents' heads at Mount Rushmore, South Dakota, as well as dozens of other impressive
public works of art.
Background
Gutzon Borglum was born in St. Charles, Idaho. There is a monument in his honor
near the center of town in front of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.. At the age of seven, he moved to
Nebraska, and later he graduated from Creighton
Preparatory School. He was trained in Paris at the Académie Julian, where he came to know Auguste Rodin and was
influenced by Rodin's dynamic impressionistic light-catching surfaces. Back in the U.S. in New
York City he sculpted about a hundred saints and apostles for the new Cathedral of Saint John the Divine in 1901, got a sculpture accepted by the
Metropolitan Museum of Art— the first sculpture by a living American the
museum had ever purchased—and made his presence further felt with some well-placed portraits, he also won the Logan Medal of the arts.
Gradually his reputation passed that of his younger brother, Solon Borglum, already an
established sculptor.
Mount Rushmore, Black Hills, South Dakota
A fascination with gigantic scale and themes of heroic nationalism suited his extroverted personality. His head of
Abraham Lincoln, carved from a six-ton block of marble, was exhibited in
Theodore Roosevelt's White House and can be
found in the Capitol Rotunda in Washington,
D.C. A bully patriot, believing that the "monuments we have built are not our own," he looked to create art that was
"American, drawn from American sources, memorializing American achievement" according to a 1908 interview article. His equation
of being "American" with being born of American parents—"flesh of our flesh"—was characteristic of nativist beliefs in the early 20th century. Borglum was highly suited to the competitive environment
surrounding the contracts for public buildings and monuments, and his public sculpture is sited all around the United States.
General Philip Sheridan, Chicago, Illinois
In 1908 Borglum won a competition for a statue of the Civil War General Philip
Sheridan to be placed in Sheridan Circle in Washington D.C. A second version was
erected in Chicago in 1923 (illustration, left) Winning this competition was a personal triumph for him because he won out
over sculptor J.Q.A.Ward, a much older and more established artist, and one whom
Borglum had clashed with earlier in regard to the National Sculpture Society.
At the unveiling of the Sheridan one critic, President Theodore Roosevelt (whom Borglum was later to put on Mount Rushmore)
declared that it was "first rate," and another critic was to state that, "as a sculptor Gutzon Borglum was no longer a rumor, he
was a fact." (Smith:see References)
Borglum was active in the committee that organized the New York Armory Show of 1913, the
birthplace of modernism in American art. But by the time the show was ready to open, Borglum
resigned from the committee, feeling that the emphasis on avant-garde works had co-opted the original premise of the show and
made traditional artists like himself look provincial. He lived in Stamford,
Connecticut for 10 years – from 1910 to 1920.
Stone Mountain
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Such public stances made Borglum seem an ideologically sympathetic choice to carve a memorial to heroes of the
Confederacy, planned for Stone Mountain, Georgia. In 1915, he was approached by the United Daughters of the Confederacy with a project for sculpting a 20 foot high bust
of General Robert E. Lee on the mountain's rockface, the largest naked granite outcropping
in the world. Borglum accepted, but told the committee, "Ladies, a twenty foot head of Lee on that mountainside would look
like a postage stamp on a barn door." [1]
Borglum's ideas eventually evolved into a high-relief frieze of Lee, Jefferson Davis,
and 'Stonewall' Jackson riding around the mountain, followed by a legion of artillery
troops.
After a delay caused by World War I, Borglum and the newly-chartered Stone Mountain
Confederate Monumental Association set to work on this unexampled monument, the size of which had never been attempted before.
Many difficulties slowed progress, some because of the sheer scale involved. After finishing the detailed model of the carving,
Borglum was unable to trace his ideas onto the massive area on which he was working, until he developed a gigantic magic lantern
to project the image onto the side of the mountain.
Lincoln, Newark, New Jersey, 1911
Carving officially began on June 23, 1923, with Borglum making
the first cut. At Stone Mountain he developed sympathetic connections with the reorganized Ku Klux
Klan, who were major financial backers for the monument. Lee's head was unveiled on Lee's birthday January 19, 1924, to a large crowd, but soon thereafter Borglum was
increasingly at odds with the officials of the Association. His domineering, perfectionist, irascible, authoritarian manner
brought tensions to such a point that in March 1925 Borglum smashed his clay and plaster models and exited Georgia permanently.
His tenure with the association was over. None of his work remains, as it was all cleared from the mountain's face for the work
of Augustus Lukeman, Borglum's replacement, but in his abortive attempt, Borglum had
developed necessary techniques for sculpting on a gigantic scale that made Mount Rushmore possible.
Mount Rushmore
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His Mount Rushmore project was the brainchild of South Dakota state historian Doane
Robinson. His first attempt with one of the faces was blown up after two years. Dynamite was also used to remove large
areas of rock from under Washington's brow. The initial pair of presidents, George
Washington and Abraham Lincoln were soon joined by Thomas Jefferson, for this monument sited in the sacred Native American heartland of the
Louisiana Purchase, and to make the theme of Manifest Destiny perfectly clear, Theodore Roosevelt.
Borglum alternated exhausting on-site supervising with world tours, raising money, polishing his personal legend, sculpting a
Thomas Paine memorial for Paris and a Woodrow
Wilson one for Poland. In his absence, work at Mount Rushmore was overseen by his son Lincoln. When he died in Chicago, following complications after surgery, his son finished another season
at Rushmore, but left the monument largely in the state of completion it had reached under his father's direction.
Other Works
In 1908, Borglum completed the statue of John William Mackay (1831-1902), a Comstock
Lode silver baron. The statue is located at the University of Nevada,
Reno.
In some time one of Borglum's more unusual pieces is the "Aviator" a memorial for James R. McConnell who was killed in World
War I while flying for the Lafayette Escadrille. It is located on the grounds of
the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, Virginia.
Another impressive Borglum design is the North Carolina state monument on
Seminary Ridge at the Gettysburg
Battlefield in south-central Pennsylvania. The cast bronze sculpture depicts a
wounded Confederate officer encouraging his men to push forward during
Pickett's Charge. With dramatic flair, Borglum had made arrangements for an airplane to
fly over the monument during the dedication ceremony on July 3, 1929. During the sculpture's unveiling, the plane scattered roses across the field as a salute to those North
Carolinians who had fought and died at Gettysburg.
Borglum is buried at Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in
Glendale in the Memorial Court of Honor. His second wife, Mary Montgomery Williams
Borglum, 1874–1955 (they were married May 20, 1909) is interred
alongside him.
Canadian artist Christian Cardell Corbet was the first Canadian to sculpt a posthumous medallion of Borglum. It currently resides at the Gutzon Borglum Museum in South
Dakota.
Gallery
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North Carolina Monument, Gettysburg
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North Carolina Monument, Gettysburg, Pennsylvania
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Notes
External links
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