Augustus Saint-Gaudens

Augustus Saint-Gaudens , 1848-1907, American sculptor, b. Dublin, Ireland. An apprentice in cameo cutting, he gained mastery over sculpture in low relief. He had an unusual genius for plastic expression and an unfailing enthusiasm and industry. He was trained at the École des Beaux-Arts, Paris, and gained knowledge of the Italian Renaissance from his stay (1870-73) in Italy. Saint-Gaudens became the foremost sculptor in the United States and a strong influence in the development of American sculpture. In 1881 his statue of Admiral Farragut for Madison Square, New York City, set a new standard for public monuments. Stanford White collaborated on the pedestal for this figure and several others. In 1887 the figure of Lincoln in Lincoln Park, Chicago, was completed. Other works that followed are Deacon Samuel Chapin ( The Puritan ), Springfield, Mass.; the Shaw Memorial, Boston Common; General Logan, Chicago; General Sherman, entrance to Central Park, New York City; and the seated Lincoln for the Chicago lake front. Of the portrait tablets and plaques, most notable are Dr. McCosh, Princeton, N.J.; Robert Louis Stevenson for St. Giles, Edinburgh, Scotland; and charming low reliefs of children. Among ideal figures is the Adams Memorial, Rock Creek Cemetery, Washington, D.C., one of his most splendid works.

Bibliography: See his portrait reliefs (1969); biography by L. H. Tharp (1969). His brother, Louis, 1854-1913, was also a sculptor of talent.

Saint-Gaudens, Augustus (1848–1907). The leading American sculptor of his period. Saint-Gaudens was born in Dublin of a French father and an Irish mother who settled in America when he was a baby. He began his career as a cameo-cutter in NewYork, then studied for three years in Paris (1867–70) and three in Rome (1870–3), returning to America in 1874. His first important commission was the Admiral Farragut Monument (1878–81) in Madison Square Park, New York, and following its successful reception he quickly achieved a leading reputation among American sculptors and retained this throughout his life. Saint-Gaudens was an energetic artist and he produced a large amount of work in spite of the high standards of craftsmanship he set himself. His preferred material was bronze and he excelled particularly at memorials. Although his style is generally warmly naturalistic, his most celebrated work, the Adams Memorial (1886–91) in Rock Creek Cemetery, Washington, is a powerful allegorical figure. It commemorates the wife of a friend of Saint-Gaudens who had committed suicide, and the mysterious female figure, swathed in magnificent voluminous draperies, has been interpreted as ‘Grief’, although the sculptor himself saw the elegiac work as embodying ‘the Peace of God’. Saint-Gaudens was a highly important figure in the development of American sculpture; he turned the tide against Neoclassicism and made Paris, rather than Rome, the artistic mecca of his countrymen.