Augustus Saint-Gaudens: The Shaw Memorial, Pt. 1

Sketches in clay for Shaw Memorial

Plaster for the Shaw Memorial by Augustus Saint-Gaudens
at the National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.

"I had scarcely moved into the studio in which I would work for the next fifteen years, when I renewed my acquaintance with the man who was largely instrumental in obtaining the one piece of work which remained in that place through almost my whole stay. The man was the architect, Mr. H.H. Richardson, the work the Shaw relief. [The monument marks Robert Gould Shaw's death on July 18, 1863, after he and his troops attacked Fort Wagner, one of two forts protecting the strategic Confederate port or Charleston, South Carolina.]

Mr. Richardson was also a great friend of Messrs. Atkinson, Lee and Higginson. Consequently it was at his suggestion that they determined to see whether it was not possible to have me execute a monument to Colonel Robert Gould Shaw, which had been proposed but abandoned. They had about fifteen thousand dollars, and I was engaged to complete it for that sum, since I, like most sculptors at the beginning of their careers, felt that by hook or crook I must do an equestrian statue, and that here I had found my opportunity. 

Therefore I proceeded with this theory until the Shaw family objected on the ground that, although Shaw was of a noble type, as noble as any, still he had not been a great commander, and only men of the highest rank should be so honored. In fact, it seemed pretentious. Accordingly, in casting about for some manner of reconciling my desire with their ideas, I fell upon a plan of associating him directly with his troops in a bas-relief, and thereby reducing his importance. I made a sketch showing this scheme, and the monument as it now stands is virtually what I indicated.

I began work on it at once, and soon it took up the entire width of the studio, as it stood about two-thirds of the way back from the street, with behind it a platform about eight feet high, on which I placed whatever statue I had to do that would ultimately be on a pedestal. However, I, through my extreme interest in it and its opportunity, increased the conception until the rider grew almost to a statue in the round and the soldiers assumed far more importance than I had originally intended. Hence the monument, developing in this way infinitely beyond what could be paid for, became a labor of love, and lessened my hesitation in setting it aside at times to make way for more lucrative commissions, commissions that would reimburse me for the pleasure and time I was devoting to this." 

To be continued

(Excerpts from "The Reminiscences of Augustus Saint-Gaudens" by Augustus Saint-Gaudens and his son, Homer Saint-Gaudens.)