Hailed as the “Dean of American Sculpture” during his lifetime, Daniel Chester French (1850–1931) established his reputation with the iconic statue of the Concord Minute Man; sculpted Ralph Waldo Emerson, the era’s leading voice of intellectual culture; and reached the height of his career with the seated Abraham Lincoln at the Lincoln Memorial in the nation’s capital.
On view from October 11, 2013 through March 23, 2014 in the Wallace Kane Gallery at the Concord Museum, From the Minute Man to the Lincoln Memorial was a collaboration between the Concord Museum and Chesterwood, a Site of the National Trust for Historic Preservation. The first major presentation of French’s sculpture since 1976, the exhibition drew upon the rich collections of Chesterwood, the Concord Free Public Library, the Concord Museum, as well as from the Massachusetts Historical Society and private donors.
This on-line exhibition takes you through From the Minute Man to the Lincoln Memorial and brings together new material for an exceptional view into the life of an American sculptor. Watch home movies of French’s summer gatherings at Chesterwood and hear why visitors from around the world are so moved by his work at the Lincoln Memorial. Learn how a sculpture goes from clay to bronze and see a contemporary photographer’s interpretation of French’s sculpture studio. Hear The Concord Hymn, by Ralph Waldo Emerson and carved on the base of the Minute Man statue, sung to the tune of a classic hymn. Explore the country home, studio and gardens of America’s foremost public sculptor.
Browse the Gallery Guide, From the Minute Man to the Lincoln Memorial, published by the Concord Museum, 2013, with an Introduction by Research Assistant, Dana Pilson.
Explore Chesterwood, the country home, studio, and gardens of America’s foremost public sculptor.
Read A Heritage of Beauty by Research Assistant Dana Pilson in Antiques & Fine Art, November, 2013.
Background photo credit: Concord Museum exhibition installation, 2013
Photo/film credits: Cassandra Sohn; Sara Lundberg; Chesterwood
A Heritage of Beauty
As a young sculptor in Concord, Massachusetts, French absorbed Ralph Waldo Emerson’s ideas about Nature, the Soul, and Beauty, and he translated this philosophy into bronze and marble masterpieces. Emerson not only posed for French, but he also provided a model for living. At Chesterwood, French’s summer residence beginning in 1896, the sculptor strove to emulate Emerson’s generous spirit, leading the respectable life of an artist and family man.
The cradle of Transcendentalism in Concord had informed French’s artistic sensibility, the aesthetic of his studios, his purposeful life surrounded by family and friends, and his most iconic public monuments. French died at Chesterwood in 1931 and was buried in Concord’s Sleepy Hollow Cemetery. His gravestone is inscribed, “A Heritage of Beauty.”
The Concord Studio
A series of spaces served as young Daniel Chester French’s studios—makeshift space in the family’s farmhouse, a room in the Concord courthouse, and a small studio in Boston. In 1879, having returned from Italy where he worked in the perfectly-equipped studio of the American sculptor Thomas Ball, he wrote to Ball’s wife Ellen: “I am going about building my [Concord] studio immediately.”
French felt that his studio must have the required aesthetic trappings. He again wrote to Ellen Ball, “I have been picking up pretty things for my studio & have shopped til I am sick of it, besides having about run through my funds. Any old rags (rich & handsome) that you see lying about Florence will be gratefully accepted!” His Concord studio workroom included shelves for casts, a turntable for works in progress, and as French himself described, “a cast of the Minute Man full size in one corner, the bust of Emerson & one of father on pedestals….” A reception room framed with yellow curtains included old furniture, a painted border and rugs, and a window seat fitted “luxuriously with different colored cushions.”
After French moved to New York City in 1886, he continued to use the Concord studio during the summers until he purchased land in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, in 1896, and soon built his Chesterwood residence and studio.
Learn more about the history of Concord, Massachusetts.
Explore Concord today.
Discover the William Munroe Special Collections at the Concord Free Public Library to learn more about their rich materials for research on Daniel Chester French.
Background photo credit: Chesterwood
Photo credits: Chesterwood
The Minute Man
In 1871, the Town of Concord appropriated $1,000 and asked 21-year-old Dan French to design a monument for the west side of the North Bridge. French was showing promise as a sculptor, but he had yet to create a work of such importance. On April 18, 1873, French, working in his Boston studio, began “a figure of the Continental.” For inspiration, he studied the plaster casts of classical statuary, in particular the heroically posed Apollo Belvedere.
Concord’s Monument Committee approved French’s clay model, which was then cast in plaster and sent to the Ames Foundry in Chicopee, Massachusetts, to be cast in bronze from melted down Civil War cannon. The Minute Man was unveiled at the centennial celebration of April 19, 1875, with President Ulysses S. Grant, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, and Ralph Waldo Emerson in attendance. When the flags draping the sculpture were removed, the crowd saw an energetic farmer-soldier inspired by the art of antiquity, yet relevant to the optimism of the restored Union.
Later in life, French recalled, “Perhaps as important a moment in my life was when the good people of Concord, Massachusetts, rashly voted to trust to an inexperienced sculptor a statue of a Minute Man to commemorate the opposition that the British regulars experienced at Concord Bridge. This action resulted in a statue that I think I can say without blushing is better than the citizens had a right to expect.”
Listen to Ralph Waldo Emerson’s “Concord Hymn,” which is carved into the granite base of Daniel Chester French’s Minute Man statue, sung by The Choir of First Parish in Concord; Elizabeth Norton, Director.
Read an essay about the Minute Man statue by Thayer Tolles, currently the Marica F. Vilcek Curator of American Paintings and Sculpture, The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Visit Minute Man National Historical Park to learn more about the Minute Man of 1775.
Background photo credit: Sara Lundberg
Photo credits: David Bohl
The Chesterwood Studio
By the 1890s, the towns of Lenox and Stockbridge in the western part of Massachusetts were populated with vacation homes for wealthy residents of New York and Boston. In 1896, while living in New York City, French purchased land in Stockbridge and commissioned architect Henry Bacon to design a studio on the foundation of a barn. Completed two years later, this hip-roofed building accommodated French’s full-scale public monuments in plaster.
The Chesterwood studio boasted roomy, sun-lit, and high-roofed work areas lined with shelves of plaster casts, studies, and small completed works. The adjoining low-ceilinged reception room was separated from the main room by curtains and included antique furniture, an artistic clutter of blankets, pillows, books, and decorations, and a “cozy corner” with a Pompeiian bed brought from the Concord studio.
At Chesterwood, French retained the “earth-bound as well as sky-bound” philosophy he absorbed in Concord. Enjoying a successful career, he continued to seek perfection and mastery of his art, yet he took pleasure in clipping hedges, growing grapes, and walking in the woods. The residence was well-suited for a steady stream of guests, including Concord friends and family, who visited during the summer months. French wrote of Chesterwood, “It is as beautiful as Fairyland here now… I go about in an ecstasy of delight over the loveliness of things.”
Abraham Lincoln
The Lincoln Memorial, executed toward the end of French’s career with architect Henry Bacon, reflects the expansion of the role of the artist and the architect that blossomed during the “City Beautiful” movement, a time when a philosophy of architecture and urban planning promoted monumental grandeur.
Beginning in 1915, French made at least four models for the seated Abraham Lincoln. For research, he drew upon Mathew Brady’s photographic portrait and Leonard Volk’s life casts of the president’s face and hands. While the Memorial was under construction, French brought photographic enlargements of the model to the site and, along with Bacon, decided that nineteen feet was the appropriate size for the statue. French made corrections on his six-foot plaster model before it was sent to the Piccirilli brothers’ carving studio in the Bronx, New York. The carving from twenty-eight blocks of Georgia marble took over a year, with French himself making the final adjustments.
The Lincoln Memorial was dedicated on May 30, 1922. Originally proposed two years after Lincoln’s assassination, the memorial to the “Savior of the Union” had taken half a century to realize. Each year, millions visit the Lincoln Memorial, walking up a great flight of stairs into an immense temple. There, they confront an enormous seated marble figure radiating dignity, wisdom, and gravitas.6
Visit the Lincoln Memorial.
Listen to Susan Stamberg on NPR’s Morning Edition: Hands Of An Artist: Daniel French’s Lincoln Memorial; December 23, 2009.
Learn more about the Piccirilli Studio where the Lincoln statue was carved in marble.
Background photo credit: Shutterstock
Photo credits: Laura Wolf; Carol Boughrum; Shutterstock
Monuments and Memorials
Primarily a public artist, Daniel Chester French may be the most viewed sculptor in American history. French’s major works remain on permanent exhibition in public places in twenty-one states, as well as France. French established his working style in the 1870s and 1880s, and he embraced the general shift in public sculpture from educational and moralizing works to those that are expressive and symbolic.
Always concerned with scale and harmony between his work and its base and surroundings, French examined photographic enlargements of his preliminary studies in their proposed locations. For pedestal and site design he sought the services of architects such as Charles Follen McKim and Henry Bacon. French and Bacon had worked together in the late 1890s on the Joseph Hooker equestrian for Beacon Hill. They continued to collaborate for the next twenty-five years on nearly fifty projects, culminating with the design for their architectural and artistic masterpiece, the Lincoln Memorial.
Boston area works executed at French’s Chesterwood studio included the Francis Parkman, Clark, and Melvin Memorials, the Joseph Hooker equestrian statue, and the George Robert White Memorial in Boston’s Public Garden.
Explore the public sculptures of Daniel Chester French in situ.
Learn about the process of taking a sculpture from clay to bronze at Skylight Studios in Woburn, Massachusetts.
Discover the poignant background behind Daniel Chester French’s Melvin Memorial.
Background photo credit: Sara Lundberg
Photo credits: Chesterwood; Judy Fichtenbaum; Sara Lundberg
Support
From the Minute Man to the Lincoln Memorial: The Timeless Sculpture of Daniel Chester French, an exhibition in the Wallace Kane Gallery at the Concord Museum from October 11, 2013 through March 23, 2014, was a collaboration between the Concord Museum and Chesterwood, a Site of the National Trust for Historic Preservation.
The exhibition was made possible by
Nancy and Reinier Beeuwkes
Timothy and Rebecca Blodgett
Elise and Pierce Browne
Graham and Ann Gund
Martha Hamilton
Anne Hayden and Ivan Burns
Jonathan and Judy Keyes
Martha Wallace and Edward Kane
Margaret and Chip Ziering
A special thanks to the lenders
Chesterwood, a Site of the National Trust for Historic Preservation
American Ornithologists’ Union
Chapin Library of Rare Books, Williams College
Collection of Brad Bigham
Collection of Dr. Benjamin Lincoln Smith and Family
Collection of Jonathan and Judy Keyes
Collection of the Massachusetts Historical Society
Collection of Robert Brett, Jr.
Collection of the Social Circle in Concord
Louisa May Alcott Memorial Association
Navy Art Collection, Naval History and Heritage Command
William Munroe Special Collections at the Concord Free Public Library
Thanks also to
Donna Hassler, Executive Director, Chesterwood
Anne Cathcart, Associate Manager of Collections & Programs, Chesterwood
Dana Pilson, Exhibition Research Assistant
Leslie Perrin Wilson, Curator, William Munroe Special Collections,
Concord Free Public Library
Robert Shure, Skylight Studios, Inc.
National Trust for Historic Preservation
Background photo credit: The Piccirilli Brothers assembling Daniel Chester French’s sculpture of Abraham Lincoln at the Lincoln Memorial, 1920. Photographer unknown, National Archives and Records Administration, Washington, DC. Copy print from Chapin Library, Williams College, Gift of the National Trust for Historic Preservation/Chesterwood, a National Trust Historic Site, Stockbridge, Massachusetts, NT 69.38.1305
Installation Photographs
From the Minute Man to the Lincoln Memorial: The Timeless Sculpture of Daniel Chester French was on view in the Wallace Kane Gallery at the Concord Museum from October 11, 2013 to March 23, 2014. Photos by Sara Lundberg.
