SAINT-GAUDENS, AUGUSTUS

born March 1, 1848, Dublin died Aug. 3, 1907, Cornish, N.H., U.S. generally acknowledged to be the foremost U.S. sculptor of the late 19th century, noted for his imaginatively evocative memorial statues and the subtle modelling of his low reliefs. His father was French, his mother Irish. Saint-Gaudens was taken to New York City in infancy and at the age of 13 was apprenticed to a cameo cutter. By this craft he earned his living, while studying at night at Cooper Union (186165) and the National Academy of Design (186566) in New York City. In 1867 he went to Paris and was admitted to the cole des Beaux-Arts. Late in 1870 he set out for Rome, where, still supporting himself by cameo cutting, he worked for two years copying famous antique statues on commission and starting his first imaginative compositions. After 1875 Saint-Gaudens became settled in New York and was a recognized sculptor. With an unusual capacity for friendship, he became acquainted and collaborated with a group of men who formed a nucleus for an American artistic renascence. The group included the architects Henry Hobson Richardson, Stanford White, Charles Follen McKim, and the painter John La Farge. The most important work of Saint-Gaudens' early maturity was the monument to Admiral Farragut (1880, Madison Square Garden, New York City), the base of which was designed by White. During his middle period (188097) Saint-Gaudens executed most of the well-known works that gained him his great reputation and many honours. Working with La Farge, in 1881 he did two caryatids for a fireplace (now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City) in Cornelius Vanderbilt's residence. In 1887 came the Amor Caritas, which, with variations, long preoccupied him, and also the standing Abraham Lincoln in Lincoln Park, Chicago. The memorial to Mrs. Henry Adams (1891) in Rock Creek Cemetery, Washington, D.C., is frequently considered Saint-Gaudens' greatest work. The mysterious figure, with its shadowed face, is often called Grief, but the sculptor had no such intention; peace or nirvana better conveys the meaning. In Boston a monument to Robert G. Shaw, colonel of a Negro regiment in the Civil War, was completed in 1897 and is remarkable for its expression of movement. Saint-Gaudens also did many medallions, undertaken originally as diversion from more serious tasks, which show the influence of Renaissance medals and his early cameo cutting. Among these are designs for U.S. coins (the $20 gold piece of 1907 and the head on the $10 gold piece) and a considerable number of portraits.