Augustus Saint-Gaudens: United States Coin Designs

Ten Dollar Gold Coins by Augustus Saint-Gaudens

Twenty Dollar Gold Coins by Augustus Saint-Gaudens

"After the erection of the new studio on the spot where the old one had burned, my father turned not only to the reconstruction of the statues which he had lost, but before long to a monument to Marcus A. Hanna, memorials to Christopher Lyman Magee and James MacNeill Whistler, the Caryatids for the Albright Art Gallery, the United States coins, and other commissions.

The scheme for the United States coins - the cent, the eagle, and the double eagle - also originated about this time at a dinner with President Roosevelt in the winter of 1905. There they both grew enthusiastic over the old high-relief Greek coins, until the President declared that he would have the mint stamp a modern version of such coins in spite of itself if my father would design them, adding with his customary vehemence, 'You know, Saint-Gaudens, this is my pet crime.' Saint-Gaudens wrote Roosevelt, 'The making of these designs is a great pleasure, but the job is even more serious than I anticipated. You may not recall that I told you I was 'scared blue' at the thought of doing that; now that I have the opportunity, the responsibility looms up like a spectre.'

He first purposed to model the cent with a flying eagle, the formal lettering treated in a new fashion, and to execute for the gold coins a full-length figure of Liberty mounting a rock, with a shield in her left hand and a lighted torch in her right, backed by a semi-conventional eagle, with wings half-closed. For one reason and another, however, the scheme proved impracticable. So after months of confusion, he settled that the one cent would exhibit a profile head and the lettering; that the ten-dollar gold piece should carry the same head, with the inscriptions shifted, and the standing eagle; and that the twenty-dollar gold piece should exhibit the full-length figure of Liberty, without wings or shield, and the flying eagle.

To accomplish this result, my father altered and realtered the coins for a year and a half. The flying eagle he developed from the bird on the 1857 'White Cent.' In all, he created seventy models of this bird, and often stood twenty-five of them in a row for visitors to number according to preference.

The profile head he modeled in relief from the favorite, but superseded but of the Sherman 'Victory,' adding feathers only upon the President's emphatic suggestion. 

Finally he attached the difficult problem of the inscriptions by placing upon the previously milled edge of the coin, in one case, the forty-six stars and, in the other, the thirteen stars with the 'E Pluribus Unum.' The motto 'In God We Trust,' as an inartistic intrusion not required by law, he wholly discarded and thereby drew down upon himself the lightning of public comment. It is interesting to discover in regard to this that Secretary Salmon P. Chase received quite as severe a censure for placing the words upon this coin as was aroused by their removal." 

To be continued

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

 

Augustus Saint-Gaudens: The Seated Lincoln

"Abraham Lincoln: The Head of State"
by Augustus Saint-Gaudens

Homer Saint-Gaudens wrote: "The larger productions of the years which followed, began with a second Lincoln for Chicago, Illinois, wherein my father realized his long-cherished hope of returning to one of his earlier commissions and of developing it again according to his later ideas. It is interesting to record that he nearly lost this opportunity, however, through that very absorption in his work which had placed him where he stood. 

As in the case of the first Lincoln monument, so with the second, the Committee asked him to enter a competition, which, of course, he refused to do, and then came again with a direct offer. Near the time of this second visit, about noon of a Sunday morning, my mother went to the studio where my father was working alone. On a large board was written: 'Lincoln Committee, Century Club, ten o-clock.'

'Have you see them?' asked my mother. 'Great Scott! No!' cried my father, staring at the board. He had forgotten his appointment, engrossed in his task. At once my mother hurried to the Century Club to inquire about what had happened. Alas! Here she found only a note saying they had waited an hour in vain. From the Club, she went to the hotel where she met Mr. Norman Williams and another member of the Committee who intimated that any man so oblivious to punctuality should not be entrusted with the monument. Nevertheless, she succeeded in setting matters straight.

So now, Saint-Gaudens began the project. He set his mind this time upon Lincoln the head of state, rather than Lincoln the man, as in his earlier monument. Accordingly, to reach his solution of combining the personal with the national, he shifted the three four-foot models of the statue back and forth over seats of countless shapes and sizes; he added thereto the flag of the United States. 

While the statue progressed, Saint-Gaudens' answers to a number of questions which arose concerning it clearly revealed how he never hesitated to tread on the toes of Nature if forced thereto in the process of gaining the effects of Nature. As in the standing Lincoln he had lengthened the body a trifle at the waist, so here he slightly elongated Lincoln's legs from the knee down, to guard against the foreshortening by the low point of view of the visitor. On the other hand, he spared no pains to obtain correct materials for costume and figure. He even asked Mr. John Bixby, who posed for the statue, to wander among the farmers dressed in black broadcloth of the cut of Lincoln's time, that he might wear the proper wrinkles in the suit."

To be continued

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

 

Augustus Saint-Gaudens: Advice to Artists

"Sherman Monument"
(detail of wing overlapping trousers)

"Sherman Monument"
(detail of coat overlapping hand and hat)

Augustus Saint-Gaudens said: "If you have modeled your best sculpture in the small, you should have accomplished your best results for your work when it is made big. Your subject should contain both the detail required upon close inspection, and the breadth that makes it tell at a distance." 

Homer Saint Gaudens added: "This need for carrying power he constantly dwelt upon in his modeling. I remember that one day as he watched four or five assistants engaged on various portions of the Sherman, he broke the silence with: 'I am going to invent a machine to make you all good sculptors.' 

The stillness promptly became uneasy. 

'It will have hooks for the back of your necks and strong springs.' 

The stillness grew even more uneasy. 

'Every thirty seconds it will jerk you fifty feet away from your work, and hold you there for five minutes contemplation!'"

He also disliked objects wholly analyzed, since he believed that the unreserved is the uninteresting. Accordingly, he experimented with Sherman's lowered right hand and hat until he had drawn across it a bit of the coat; and in the same way he satisfied himself by lapping the Victory's wing over Sherman's left leg."

To be continued

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

 

Augustus Saint-Gaudens: In Favor of Academic Training

"Portrait of Homer Schiff
Saint-Gaudens" by
Augustus Saint-Gaudens

Homer Saint-Gaudens wrote: "As one earnest of his enthusiasm [for the establishment of an American Academy in Rome] my father delivered two speeches. The task was ever fraught with much agony to his modest nature. But here he felt the cause too high and his own opinions too vital to hesitate on grounds of personal comfort. Therefore, early in its progress, he said in Washington:

"I have been asked to express my ideas concerning the Roman Academy. What I have to say can be said in few words and I take pleasure in so doing... because I am of the firm conviction that an institution, such as that, is an admirable one. My reason for thinking it admirable, is my belief that the strenuous competition required to gain access to the Village Medici, as well as the four years of study in that wonderful spot, tend to a more earnest and thorough training than could elsewhere be gained under the present conditions of life in our times.

In the repeated attacks that are made on the Roman Academy and on the Ecole des Beaux Arts and in the incessant cry for greater freedom in the development of the artistic mind, there is a certain amount of truth. But in such reaction the pendulum swings too far and the real question is lost sight of. There is a middle ground on which to stand. It seems to be rarely realized that the very men who are shown as examples against the schools were, if not actually brought up in the School of Rome, all men of thorough academic training. Only after such training does the mind become sufficiently mature and the individual personality so developed as to be able to indulge in unqualified freedom and liberty of expression.

Rodin, one of the leaders of the movement against Academic education, had a thorough and arduous training during the early years of his career, and I am of the opinion that that training instead of dwarfing or minimizing his extreme power of expression, has been of enormous assistance to it. Leaving out of the question the exhaustive early study of the great masters of the past, Michelangelo and others, and coming to our own times, to the brilliant men of the French school, we find that all have had the same early experience. Paul Dubois, one of the masters of French Art - although not a member of the Villa Medici - had a training fully equal to that which could be gained there, and is one of its strongest supporters. Houdon, Rude, Falguière, men whose work lives and breathes with divine fire, were trained there. Puvis de Chavannes and Baudry, to enter another domain, I may add to my list. It is needless to say that none of these were injured by it...

Four years of undistracted attention, devoid of pecuniary worries and surrounded by a sympathetic environment where the whole thought is directed to the highest artistic achievement possible in the formative years of a young man's life, can be anything but an enormous assistance and of vital importance to the few who have the divine gift. If it were but one in a century who was helped in this way, the institution would be worthwhile.

When this is accomplished there is nothing I shall be more proud to have my children's children associate me with than the achievement of this work." 

To be continued

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

 

Augustus Saint-Gaudens: The American Academy at Rome

The Interior of the Villa Mirafiori (The American 
Academy at Rome), 1910

Homer Saint-Gaudens wrote: "It must not be thought that my father spent his whole time in Cornish. On the contrary, both his work and his outside interests frequently took him elsewhere. These interests were many and scattered, and he fled to them as a relief from his own troubles. He had to do, for instance, with the regulation of American Sculpture Competitions, the founding of an American School of Fine Arts in Rome, and the beautifying of the National Capitol in Washington.

Let me turn now to the American Academy at Rome, in which, as I have said, my father took a major interest. Its object is to provide for American students of the Fine Arts who already have laid at home a firm foundation for their work, much the same advanced instruction as the French Government offers in the Villa Medici. That this school might be firmly established with an endowment of one million dollars, my father lent his strongest aid, since he had never forgotten the poignant charm and deep inspiration of his life and work in the Eternal City. 

His first efforts began in company with a number of other artists who were working in the Chicago World's Fair, where, in short order, through their enthusiasm, the movement was set on foot. For some time their endeavors had poor success, despite the fact that, lacking an endowment, the friends of the undertaking used their own resources, and devoted art scholarships such as the Rinehart and Lazarus funds to support the pupils. At last, however, an exhibition of the work in the School, held in 1904, proved so satisfactory that Mr. Charles F. McKim and Saint-Gaudens set about taking advantage of the interest aroused, by soliciting subscriptions.

They were soon generously aided by Mr. Henry Walters of Baltimore, who, besides purchasing the Villa Mirafiori as a home for the Academy, presented them with one hundred thousand dollars to start an endowment fund. This lead was quickly followed by Mr. J.P. Morgan, Mr. William K. Vanderbilt, Harvard University through Mr. Henry L. Higginson, and Mr. James Stillman, each of whom, by giving one hundred thousand dollars brought the sum up to the five hundred thousand dollar point from which the rest of the endowment was obtained with comparative ease."

Tomorrow we'll hear from Augustus Saint-Gaudens himself on the benefits he saw in establishing the Academy.

To be continued

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

 

Augustus Saint-Gaudens: Studio Fire

"The Parnell" by Augustus Saint-Gaudens

Homer Saint-Gaudens wrote: "Here in Cornish my father spent the last seven years of his life. For the most part they were as happy as his health would allow, though with them came two shocks which affected him deeply. The first was brought by the fire that burned his largest studio in October, 1904, the second by the murder of Stanford White in June, 1906.

At the time of the fire I was with my father witnessing a performance of 'Letty' at the Hudson Theater in New York City. We learned of the loss of the studio on returning to the hotel. Though my father took the news with a self-possession that showed that, despite his ill-health, the years had brought him a share of mental peace, nevertheless I am sure it caused him great distress. The destruction was almost total, probably because the one man who would have understood how to save what was valuable, Mr. Henry Hering, was also enjoying a well-earned vacation; and on that evening, curiously enough, unknown to us, was sitting in another part of the Hudson Theater.

The fire started in a stable adjoining the studio about nine o'clock at night, when, as it happened, there was not a man on the place. The two maid-servants noticed it only after it had got well under way; so that before they could summon aid, the flames were pouring straight upward into the still night air. Then, though our neighbors gave their best assistance, little could be done because of their natural ignorance of the value of various bits of work, or of how to handle sculpture.

For instance, the Parnell statue was held to the floor by a few hasps, which might easily have been torn up with any bit of iron but which made it impossible to move the work by pressure against its side, so that the best of unskilled efforts to save it were in vain. While, again, many precious moments were spent dragging out an iron stove, despite the fact that a quantity of important casts lay loose at hand. As a result almost all of four years' work perished, a number of bas-reliefs, the Parnell, the nearly finished seated Lincoln, and a statue of Marcus Daly, which sank into the embers with flakes of plastoline bursting from it as if from some tortured body.

But not only did my father's sculpture receive a severe setback. He lost as well what he regarded as even more valuable, the stored furniture of his New York house, most of his treasured papers and letters, such as those from Robert Louis Stevenson, all of his portfolios containing records of twenty years, many photographs of commissions then on hand which he was unable to reproduce, his own drawing of his mother, the portrait of him by Kenyon Cox, the sketch of him by Bastien-Lepage, the Sargent sketch of him and a water color of a Capri girl, paintings by Winslow Homer, William M. Chase, and William Gedney Bunce, and many other pictures and objects reminiscent of his life. 

The one bit of good fortune in the whole affair lay in my father's owning a second studio; so that this, with other buildings and adaptable barns in the vicinity, allowed the work to progress again immediately while he comforted himself with the thought that the monuments would improve because of the imposed recreation."

To be continued

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

 

Augustus Saint-Gaudens: In the Midst of Ill Health

"Cornish Celebration Presentation Plaque"
by Augustus Saint-Gaudens*

Homer Saint-Gaudens wrote: "More vital to my father's happiness than his friends about him, aside from the members of his own family, were his studio assistants: Mr. James Earle Fraser, Mr. Henry Hering, Miss Elsie Ward, Miss Frances Grimes, all shared in his play as well as in his work - golfed with him, tobogganed with him, tipped over in sleighs with him, laughed at his desperate efforts at manipulating the flute, and made caricatures of each other in the evenings. 

My father felt the most sincere interest in their futures. So, now, while his sickness increased, instead of the customary egotism of the invalid growing with it, quite the opposite took place. As he hoped more for his own comfort he seemed more anxious for the happiness of others, and consequently there developed in him a deeper and deeper desire to forward their opportunities. Gratefully he recognized not only in them, but in all those others about the studio - such as Mr. Gaetan Ardisson, molder, who had worked for him for twenty years - an untiring skill, self-effacement, and loyalty to his desires in the days when his failing strength made more and more difficult his task and theirs.

Late in 1905 my father's condition was such that he had a trained nurse always by him, and in February, 1906, he went to the Corey Hill Hospital in Brookline, Massachusetts. The following summer a special physician came to Windsor, but by August my father was so ill that he was unable to leave his room for weeks at a time. In the spring of 1907, however, he was much better. He could sit sketching directions for his assistants on a pad and was carried from place to place in an improvised sedan-chair, even coming occasionally to meals at my house, nearly a quarter of a mile from his. By July, however, he was back in his room once more, never to leave it. Knowing that he was not the man to dwell of sickness or misery, I tell of this side of his life as briefly as possible, and only that it may be understood what he had to fight against during those last days."

To be continued

* In commemoration of Saint-Gaudens' twenty years in Cornish, New Hampshire, residents wrote, organized and acted in an allegorical play performed on June 22, 1905. Saint-Gaudens made and distribute silvered bronze plaquettes to express his gratitude to the players and musicians. This large gilded version was a gift to the playwright, who wrote and directed the masque. The inscribed text records the participants' names, while a classical temple framed by pine trees draped with stage curtains and masks recalls the sylvan setting on the sculptor's property."

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