Daniel Chester French:
Sculpting an American Vision
Daniel Chester French, Working model of Standing Lincoln for the Lincoln, NE State Capitol, plaster, 1911, NT74.21.1 Gift of the Olin Library, Wesleyan University, Middletown, CT via the papers of Henry Bacon, an alumnus.
Throughout his six-decade career, Daniel Chester French created memorials and monuments that enlivened American cities, commemorated the nation’s past, and cast a vision of America’s future.
Daniel Chester French was born in 1850 in Exeter, New Hampshire, into a distinguished New England family. In 1870, his natural talent and passion for sculpting led him to Boston and New York City to study sculpture and train in classical as well as modern techniques. In 1872, a citizen’s committee in Concord, MA commissioned the 23-year-old budding artist to create a monument in commemoration of the first battle of the Revolutionary War. "The Minute Man" was unveiled before a crowd that included President Ulysses S. Grant, Louisa May Alcott, and Ralph Waldo Emerson, but not French himself. Eager to continue his education, he had traveled to Florence, Italy, missing the grand ceremony that revealed what would become one of his most celebrated works of public art.
Within a decade of finishing "The Minute Man," French’s talent for capturing movement, emotion, and light secured his place among the leading artists in the United States. This exhibit showcases the process by which he created some of his most celebrated works of public sculpture, including "The Minute Man" and the seated Lincoln for the Lincoln Memorial.
French partnered with famed architects such Henry Bacon— with whom he designed the Lincoln Memorial; landscape and city planners; as well as skilled craftsmen like the Piccirilli brothers who carved his marble creations. Together, he and his creative collaborators worked to reimagine modern urban design. This exhibition allows visitors to examine works such as the "The Continents," designed for the United States Custom House in New York City, or study French's portraits of some of American history's most prominent figures, including Ralph Waldo Emerson and Amos Bronson Alcott. French’s blending of classical themes and modern ideals are further displayed in his figures symbolizing “Sea,” “Wind”, and “Sky” for the Dupont Memorial Fountain in Washington, D.C., as well as the monumental works "Memory" and "The Spirit of Life" for the Spencer Trask Memorial Foundation in Saratoga Springs, NY.
Online exhibition created by Dana Pilson, Curatorial Researcher and Collections Coordinator