Augustus Saint-Gaudens
Augustus Saint-Gaudens
American, b. Ireland, 1848 – 1907
Once referred to as the“ American Michelangelo,” the work of Augustus Saint-Gaudens takes cues from the Italian Renaissance and the Beaux-Arts tradition. A master of form, his art embodies a sense of drama, sentiment, and honor. Saint-Gaudens was born in Dublin to French and Irish parents. When he was six months old, they immigrated to the United States eventually settling in New York City where his father sold“ French Ladies’ Boots and Shoes.” After completing his education at age thirteen, Saint- Gaudens served as an apprentice to the cameo-cutter Louis Avet. After three years with Avet, who frequently underwent bouts of rage, Saint-Gaudens found a more amiable master in Jules Le Brethon. Thereafter, he moved to Paris in 1867 where he lived in the Latin Quarter with an Italian jeweler named Lupi. Here, he also began his formal studies, first at the Petite École and later at the École des Beaux-Arts under the sculptor François Jouffroy. Following the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War during the winter of 1870, Saint-Gaudens moved to Rome where he met the painter Augusta Fisher Homer; they married seven years later.
In 1876, Saint-Gaudens received his first important commission— the Admiral David Farragut Monument. In collaboration with the architect Stanford White, the memorial was unveiled in 1881. Now receiving a flood of commissions, Saint-Gaudens creations would go on to include a statue of Diana which topped White’ s Madison Square Garden, interior projects for Cornelius Vanderbilt II and Henry Villard, as well as numerous public monuments honoring Abraham Lincoln, Robert Gould Shaw and the 54th Massachusetts Regiment, General William Tecumseh Sherman, and Mrs. Henry Adams. By 1900, Saint-Gaudens’ health was waning. Still taking on a number of commissions, he spent the remainder of his life working from his studio in Cornish, New Hampshire. In his tribute to Saint-Gaudens, the architect Glenn Brown writes:“ Augustus Saint-Gaudens, the great artist of the age,
Kenyon Cox( American, 1856 – 1919), Augustus Saint-Gaudens, 1887, replica 1908, oil on canvas, 33 1/2 x 47 1/8 in., The Metropolitan Museum of Art, gift of friends of the artist, through August F. Jaccaci, 1908, 08.130
was a charming companion, a true friend, and citizen leading to ideal life. His affable manner, quiet humor,
quick appreciation, broad culture, and perfect taste made his companionship sought and enjoyed”( Brown, 240).
REFERENCES:
Aspet, H., and Glenn Brown. Catalogue of Sculptured Works of Augustus Saint-Gaudens with Biographical Sketch. Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago, 1909.“ Augustus Saint Gaudens.” The Independent, August 15, 1907, 405. Dearinger, David Bernard, ed. Paintings and Sculpture in the Collection of the National Academy of Design. Volume 1, 1826 – 1925. New York: Hudson Hills Press, 2004.
Duffy, Henry J., and John Dryfhout. Augustus Saint-Gaudens: American Sculptor of the Gilded Age. Washington, D. C.: Trust for Museum Exhibitions in cooperation with the Saint- Gaudens National Historic Site, Cornish, New Hampshire, 2003.
Irwin, Grace. Trail-Blazers of American Art. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1930.
Tharp, Louise Hall. Saint-Gaudens and the Gilded Era. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1969.
Tolles, Thayer. Augustus Saint-Gaudens in The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2009.
108 THE TILE CLUB: Camaraderie and American Plein-Air Painting