Daniel Chester French
Daniel Chester French (April 20, 1850 - October 7, 1931) was an American sculptor. He 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.
He was born at Exeter, New Hampshire, the son of Henry Flagg French, a lawyer, who for a time was assistant-secretary of the United States Department of the Treasury.
After a year at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, French worked on his father's farm. While visiting relatives in Brooklyn, New York, he spent a month in the studio of John Q. A. 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 Concord.
Previously French had gone to Florence, Italy, where he spent a year with Thomas Ball.
French's best-known work is Abraham Lincoln in the Lincoln Memorial at Washington, D.C..
In collaboration with Edward Clark Potter he modelled the George Washington, presented to France by the Daughters of the American Revolution; the General Grant in Fairmount Park, Philadelphia, and the General Joseph Hooker in Boston.
French became a member of the National Academy of Design (1901), the National Sculpture Society, 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.
In 1940, French was selected as one of five artists to be honored in a series of postage stamps dedicated to great Americans.
Notable Works
- Abraham Lincoln in the Lincoln Memorial
- Alma Mater, Columbia University in New York City
- The Angel of Death and the Sculptor, Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City
- Angel of Peace - George Robert White Memorial, Public Garden in Boston, Massachusetts
- Beneficence, Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana
- Casting Bread Upon the Waters - George Robert White Memorial, Public Garden in Boston, Massachusetts
- Rufus Choate memorial, Boston
- Clark Memorial, Forest Hills Cemetery in Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts
- Republic the colossal centerpiece of the World Columbian Exposition, Chicago, 1893. His 24-foot gilt-bronze reduced version made in 1918 survives in Chicago .
- Concord Minute Man, Old North Bridge in Concord, Massachusetts
- Four Continents, Alexander Hamilton U.S. Custom House in New York City
- The John Harvard Monument, Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts
- Richard Morris Hunt Memorial, on the perimeter wall of Central Park, opposite the Frick Collection, in New York City
- Thomas Starr King monument San Francisco, California
- Memory, Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City
- Mourning Victory, Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City
- John Boyle O'Reilly Memorial, intersection of Boylston Street and Westland Avenue in Boston, Massachusetts
- Progress of the State, Minnesota State Capitol in Saint Paul, Minnesota
- Slocum Memorial, Forest Hills Cemetery in Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts
Other works
Among his other works are:
- Death Staying the Hand of the Sculptor, a memorial for the tomb of the sculptor Martin Milmore, in the Forest Hills cemetery, Boston; this received a medal of honor at Paris, in 1900.
- Lewis Cass, National Statuary Hall, Washington;
- Dr. Gallaudet and his First Deaf-Mute Pupil, Washington;
- Samuel Spencer (1909), 1st president of Southern Railway, located at Hardy Ivy Park in Atlanta, Georgia.
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, architect (c. 1900)
- Bronze doors, Boston Public Library, Boston Massachusetts, McKim, Mead & White architects, (1884-1904)
- Quadriga, Six statues on entablature, Minnesota State Capitol, St. Paul Minnesota, Cass Gilbert architect (1896-1901)
- "Justice, Power, & Study," US Appellate Court House, NYC, James Lord architect (1900)
- "Four Continents," New York Customs Building, NYC, Cass Gilbert architect, (1904)
- "Jurisprudence" & "Commerce," Federal Building, Cleveland Ohio, Arnold Brunner architect (1910)
- Two Attic figures, "John Hampden," & "Edward I " Cuyahoga County Building, Cleveland, Ohio, Lehman & Schmidt architects (1908, 1911)
- Attic Figures, Pediment, Brooklyn Museum NYC, McKim, Mead & White architects (1912)
- "Wisconsin", figure top of dome, Wisconsin State Capitol, Madison Wisconsin, George Post architect (1914)
- "Abraham Lincoln," Lincoln Memorial, Washington DC, Henry Bacon architect (1923)
LINKS
http://www.yeodoug.com/resources/dc_french/daniel_chester_french.html
