Saint-Gaudens, Augustus

Saint-Gaudens, Augustus

(sānt-gôd`ənz), 1848–1907, American sculptor, b. Dublin, Ireland. His family immigrated to New York when he was an infant. An apprentice in cameo cutting at 13, he gained mastery over low-relief sculpture. He had an unusual genius for plastic expression and an unfailing enthusiasm and industry. He studied drawing at Cooper Institute (now Cooper Union) and the National Academy of Design. Moving (1867) to Paris, he was trained at the École des Beaux-Arts, Paris, and gained knowledge of the Italian Renaissance from his stay (1870–75) in Italy. He returned to America where his statue of Admiral Farragut (1881) for Madison Square, N.Y.C., set a new standard for public monuments and made Saint-Gaudens one the foremost Beaux-Arts sculptors in the United States and a strong influence in the development of American sculpture. Stanford WhiteWhite, Stanford,
1853–1906, American architect, b. New York City; son of Richard Grant White. In 1872 he entered the office of Gambrill and Richardson in Boston, at the time when H. H. Richardson was at the peak of his fame.
..... Click the link for more information.  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 lakefront. 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 his idealized figures is the veiled 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.

Saint-Gaudens, Augustus

 

Born Mar. 1, 1848, in Dublin; died Aug. 3, 1907, in Cornish, N.H. American sculptor.

Saint-Gaudens studied at the National Academy of Design in New York from 1864 to 1866 and the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris from 1867 to 1870. He worked in Rome (1870–72 and 1873–75) and in the United States. Saint-Gaudens was the most outstanding American sculptor of the 19th century. He combined precision and severe restraint with grace, vivid expressiveness, spontaneity, and naturalism.

Saint-Gaudens’s works include the bronze monuments to Admiral D. G. Farragut in New York (1881), A. Lincoln in Chicago (1887), and R. Shaw in Boston (1897), the Adams Memorial (bronze, 1891, Rock Creek Cemetery, Washington, D.C.), and the bas-relief portrait of R. L. Stevenson (bronze, 1899–1900, National Portrait Gallery, Washington). Another major work is Diana (copper, 1892, Philadelphia Museum of Art.)

REFERENCE

Hind.C. L. Augustus Saint-Gaudens. London-New York, 1908.

Saint-Gaudens, Augustus

(1848–1907) sculptor; born in Dublin, Ireland. His parents emigrated to New York City in 1848. He was apprenticed to cameo cutters (1861–67), studied at Cooper Union and the National Academy of Design (1864–67), in Paris (1867), and established a studio in Rome (1870–72). He traveled throughout his life, but set up a studio in New York City (1875–97), and maintained a summer home and studio, Aspet, in Cornish, N.H., later to become a national historic site (1964). Considered the major American sculptor in the beaux-arts style, he created many commissioned works for John La Farge, Stanford White, and Charles McKim, among others, and was a founder of the Society of American Artists (1877). He is honored for his coin designs; Grief, his sculpture for the grave site of Mrs. Henry Adams (1886–91); the Robert Gould Shaw Memorial (1884–97), a commemoration of Shaw's leadership of a black Civil War division; and the equestrian sculpture of General Sherman (1897–1903), among many other fine works.