Daniel Chester French

Daniel Chester French
Born	April 20, 1850 Exeter, New Hampshire
Died	October 7, 1931 (aged 81) Stockbridge, Massachusetts
Nationality	American
Field	Sculpture
Movement	American Renaissance
Influenced by	Hiram Powers, Thomas Ball

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.

Life and career

French was born in Exeter, New Hampshire, to Henry Flagg French (1813–1885), 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.

French was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1913.^[2] In 1917, he designed the Pulitzer Prize gold medal presented to laureates.^[3] 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,^[4] which later became the Berkshire Theatre Festival.

French died in Stockbridge, Massachusetts in 1931 at age 81 and was buried in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, Concord, Massachusetts.

Legacy

• Chesterwood, French's summer home and studio – designed by his architect friend and frequent collaborator Henry Bacon – is now a museum.
• In 1940, French was selected as one of five artists to be honored in the 35-stamp "Famous Americans" series.^[5]

Works

Notable public monuments

• Minute Man at the Old North Bridge in Concord, Massachusetts, (1874)
• The John Harvard Monument, Harvard Yard in Cambridge, Massachusetts, (1884)
• Lewis Cass, National Statuary Hall, Washington D.C., (1889)
• Thomas Starr King monument San Francisco, California, (1891)
• Statue of the Republic, the colossal centerpiece of the World's Columbian Exposition, Chicago, 1893. His 24-foot gilt-bronze reduced version made in 1918 survives in Chicago.^[6]
• John Boyle O'Reilly Memorial, intersection of Boylston Street and Westland Avenue in Boston, Massachusetts, (1897)
• Rufus Choate memorial, Old Suffolk County Court House, Boston, Massachusetts, (1898)
• Richard Morris Hunt Memorial, on the perimeter wall of Central Park, at 5th Avenue at 70th Street, opposite the Frick Collection, in New York City, (1900)
• Commodore George H. Perkins monument at the New Hampshire State House, Concord, New Hampshire (1902)
• Alma Mater (1903), on the campus of Columbia University in New York City
• Casting Bread Upon the Waters - George Robert White Memorial, Public Garden in Boston, Massachusetts
• Samuel Spencer, first president of Southern Railway, located in front of Goode Building (Norfolk Southern offices) on Peachtree Street in Midtown Atlanta, Georgia, (1909).
• August Meyer Memorial, 10th and The Paseo, Kansas City, Missouri, 1909
• Standing Lincoln at the Nebraska State Capitol, Lincoln, Nebraska, (1912)
• Brooklyn and Manhattan, seated figures from the Manhattan Bridge, Brooklyn Museum in Brooklyn, New York, (1915)
• The Spirit of Life, memorial to Spencer Trask, in Saratoga, New York at Congress Park, 1915
• Abraham Lincoln in the Lincoln Memorial (1914-22)
• Samuel Francis du Pont Memorial Fountain, Dupont Circle, Washington, D.C. (1921)
• Russell Alger Memorial Fountain, Grand Circus Park, Detroit, Michigan (1921).
• Gale Park War Memorial & Park, Exeter, New Hampshire (1922)
• Bust of Washington Irving and reliefs of Boabdil and Rip Van Winkle for the Washington Irving Memorial, Irvington, New York, (1927)
• Beneficence, Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana. (1930)
• William Henry Seward Memorial in Florida, New York (1930)^[7]
• Death and the Wounded Soldier aka Death and Youth, The Chapel of Saint Peter and Saint Paul, St. Paul's School, Concord, New Hampshire
• Lady Wisconsin atop the Wisconsin State Capitol building.
• Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet and Alice Cogswell, Gallaudet University, Washington, D.C., (1889)
• James Woods, “Uncle Jimmy” Green, University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS. (1924)
• Gen. William Franklin Draper, Draper Memorial Park, Milford, Massachusetts. (1912)
• Minuteman, Henry Bacon designer, Jno. Williams, Inc. (NY) founder, Danville, Illinois. (1915)

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Architectural sculpture

• America at War and Peace, US Customs House & Post Office, St. Louis, Missouri, Alfred B. Mullett architect (1876–1882)
• Pediment, New Hampshire Historic Society Building, Concord, New Hampshire, Guy Lowell, architect (1909–1911)
• Bronze doors, Boston Public Library, Boston, Massachusetts, McKim, Mead & White architects, (1884–1904)
• Justice, Appellate Division Courthouse of New York State, NYC, James Brown Lord architect (1900)
• Four Continents, Alexander Hamilton U.S. Custom House , NYC, Cass Gilbert architect, (1904)
• Progress of the State, quadriga, Six statues on entablature, Minnesota State Capitol, St. Paul, Minnesota, Cass Gilbert architect (1907)
• Jurisprudence and Commerce, Federal Building, Cleveland, Ohio, Arnold Brunner architect (1910)
• John Hampden, and Edward I, two attic figures, Cuyahoga County Courthouse, Cleveland, Ohio, Lehman & Schmidt architects (1908, 1911)
• Attic Figures, pediment, Brooklyn Museum, NYC, McKim, Mead & White architects (1912)
• Wisconsin, figure surmounting the dome, Wisconsin State Capitol, Madison, Wisconsin, George B. Post architect (1914)
• Abraham Lincoln (1920), Lincoln Memorial, Washington D.C., Henry Bacon architect (1914–22)
• Alfred Tredway White Memorial, Brooklyn Botanic Garden, Henry Bacon architect (1921)
• Peace, sculpture for the Admiral Thomas E. Dewey Triumphal Arch and Colonnade that was built in Madison Square in Manhattan, New York City in 1900.
• DeWitt Clinton; Alexander Hamilton; and John Jay. Three statues prepared in 1902 for the New York Chamber of Commerce and Industry Building at 65 Liberty Street. The building was declared a landmark on 1977.
• Greek Epic; Lyric Poetry, and Religion. Sculptures for the 1908 Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences building on Eastern Parkway in Brooklyn, New York.
• Power and Wisdom. Sculpture for the 1919 First World War Memorial. Since destroyed.

Cemetery monuments

• Death and the Sculptor, a memorial for the grave of the sculptor Martin Milmore and his brothers, in the Forest Hills cemetery, Boston; this received a medal of honor at Paris, in 1900. (1893)
• Clark Memorial, Forest Hills Cemetery, Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts, (1894)
• Chapman Memorial, Forest Home Cemetery, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, (1897)
• Angel of Peace - George Robert White, Forest Hills Cemetery, Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts, (1898)
• The Ruth Anne Dodge Memorial, Council Bluffs, Iowa. Often referred to as the "Black Angel". (1918)
• Memory, the Marshall Field Memorial, Graceland Cemetery, Chicago, Henry Bacon, architect (1906)
• Slocum Memorial, Forest Hills Cemetery in Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts
• Melvin Memorial, Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, Concord, Massachusetts, (1906–08)

Selected museum pieces

• The Angel of Death and the Sculptor, Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City
• Memory, Metropolitan Museum of Art, marble carved by the Piccirilli Brothers, 1917–19, from a bronze of 1886-87, revised in 1909.
• Mourning Victory, Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City
• And the Sons of God saw the Daughters of Men That They Were Fair…, For French, an unusually erotic sculpture depicting the verse from Genesis whereby a fallen angel seduces a mortal woman thus producing the mythical Nephilim, Corcoran Gallery of Art; Washington, D.C., signed and dated 1923.

Miscellaneous pieces

• The Chicago Incendiary,
• Minute Man depicted on US Postage Stamp, commemorating Battles of Lexington and Concord

References

Notes

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

• Daniel Chester French: Sculpture In Situ
• Chesterwood Estate and Museum • Summer home, studio, and garden of sculptor Daniel Chester French
• Daniel Chester French
• Chesterwood: The Workshop of an American Sculptor, a National Park Service Teaching with Historic Places (TwHP) lesson plan
• Works by or about Daniel Chester French in libraries (WorldCat catalog)