Daniel Chester French

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Daniel Chester French

Signature, Daniel C. 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 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 in Italy, where he spent a year working with sculptor Thomas Ball.

French's best-known work is the sculpture of a seated Abraham Lincoln at the Lincoln Memorial in 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.

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 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.

Daniel Chester French on a U.S. Postal Service stamp

In 1940, French was selected as one of five artists to be honored in a series of postage stamps dedicated to great Americans.

French is buried in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, Concord, Massachusetts.

Republic, 1918 reduced version, Chicago

[edit] AAAS members

Daniel Chester French

[edit] Notable works

• Abraham Lincoln in the Lincoln Memorial
• Standing Lincoln" at the Nebraska State Capitol, Lincoln, Nebraska
• Alma Mater, campus of 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, Old Suffolk County Court House, Boston, Massachusetts, 1898
  

  

  Concord Minute Man
• Clark Memorial, Forest Hills Cemetery in Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts
• 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 [1].
• Concord Minute Man, Old North Bridge in Concord, Massachusetts
• Continents (sculpture)|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 (statue)|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
• Brooklyn and Manhattan, Brooklyn Museum in Brooklyn, New York

[edit] Other works

• 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 D.C.,
• Dr. Gallaudet and his First Deaf-Mute Pupil, Gallaudet College, Washington, (1889)
• Samuel Spencer, 1st president of Southern Railway, located at Hardy Ivy Park in Atlanta, Georgia, (1909).
• Samuel Francis du Pont Memorial Fountain, Wilmington, Delaware (1921).
• Death and the Wounded Soldier, The Chapel of Saint Peter and Saint Paul, St. Paul's School, Concord, New Hampshire

[edit] Architectural Sculpture

Abraham Lincoln in the Lincoln Memorial, Washington, D.C.

• 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)

• Quadriga, Six statues on entablature, Minnesota State Capitol, St. Paul, Minnesota, Cass Gilbert architect (1896-1901)

• Justice, Power, and Study, US Appellate Court House, NYC, James Lord architect (1900)

• Four Continents, New York Customs Building, NYC, Cass Gilbert architect, (1904)

Marshall Field Memorial, Graceland Cemetery, Chicago

• Jurisprudence and Commerce, Federal Building, Cleveland, Ohio, Arnold Brunner architect (1910)

• John Hampden, and Edward I, two attic figures, Cuyahoga County Building, 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 Post architect (1914)

• Abraham Lincoln, Lincoln Memorial, Washington D.C., Henry Bacon architect (1923)

[edit] Publications

• Caffin, American Masters of Sculpture (New York, 1903)
• Taft, ''History of American Sculpture (New York, 1903)
• Coughlan, in Magazine of Art (1901)
• Caffin, in International Studio, volumes xx (1903), lx (1910), and lxvi (1912)

[edit] Reference

• Kvaran, Einar Einarsson, Architectural Sculpture of America

[edit] External links

• Daniel Chester French: Sculpture In Situ
• Chesterwood Estate and Museum • Summer home, studio, and garden of sculptor Daniel Chester French