A Panorama of Pittsburgh
at the Frick through 10/5
Learn about Pittsburgh's past by viewing more than 130 printed views of the city.
Meissonier masterpiece
now on view at the Frick
1806, Jena is on view at the Frick through May 31, 2009.
This Sunday is
RADical Day at the Frick
Visit the Frick on 10/5 for a full day of activities and fun!
Rob Rogers discusses
political cartooning on 10/12
The Post-Gazette's award-winning editorial cartoonist will discuss his experiences covering the 2008 presidential campaign and conventions.
Music for Exhibitions
begins new season 11/18
Join Katherine Soroka and Chatham Baroque for an evening of memorable music.
View photos from the 2008 H. C. Frick Horseless Carriage Tour
Twenty-six teams of drivers made it a day of fun.
Sign up for the
Frick e-newsletter
Each month, receive the latest information about exhibitions; programs for adults, families, children, and teachers; events; specials at The Café and the Museum Shop; and more.
at the Frick through 10/5
Learn about Pittsburgh's past by viewing more than 130 printed views of the city.
Meissonier masterpiece
now on view at the Frick
1806, Jena is on view at the Frick through May 31, 2009.
This Sunday is
RADical Day at the Frick
Visit the Frick on 10/5 for a full day of activities and fun!
Rob Rogers discusses
political cartooning on 10/12
The Post-Gazette's award-winning editorial cartoonist will discuss his experiences covering the 2008 presidential campaign and conventions.
Music for Exhibitions
begins new season 11/18
Join Katherine Soroka and Chatham Baroque for an evening of memorable music.
View photos from the 2008 H. C. Frick Horseless Carriage Tour
Twenty-six teams of drivers made it a day of fun.
Sign up for the
Frick e-newsletter
Each month, receive the latest information about exhibitions; programs for adults, families, children, and teachers; events; specials at The Café and the Museum Shop; and more.
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May 6, 2004 - July 3, 2004 |
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Pittsburgh, PA — Augustus Saint-Gaudens (1848–1907) was one of the most influential American sculptors of the nineteenth century. A brilliant figure in the history of the Gilded Age, Saint-Gaudens played a preeminent role in revitalizing American sculpture with a new spirit inspired by the classical tradition. As a teacher, philosopher, poet, and organizer of arts expositions, Saint-Gaudens also helped shape the nation’s understanding of and appreciation for sculpture as a public art medium. On May 7, 2004, The Frick Art Museum opens the first major traveling exhibition of the master’s work, Augustus Saint-Gaudens: American Sculptor of the Gilded Age. An extraordinary retrospective of Saint-Gaudens’ thirty-year career, the exhibition explores seven of the artist’s major projects through some seventy-five objects, including finished full-size sculptures; studies cast in bronze, marble and plaster; portrait reliefs; decorative objects; and coins. Says William B. Bodine, Jr., Director of the Frick Art & Historical Center, “Saint-Gaudens is perhaps the most important American sculptor of the Gilded Age, rivaled only by Daniel Chester French, sculptor of the Lincoln Memorial.” Until the late nineteenth century, American sculpture was largely confined to decoration. After the Civil War, the medium came into its own as numerous monuments were commissioned to commemorate the country’s crisis and subsequent unification. At the same time, the amassing of private fortunes created an interest in sculpture for personal collections. Saint-Gaudens contributed both types. His Lincoln Monument (1887) and Shaw Memorial (1897) are among the most moving of the nation’s Civil War monuments, while his Adams Memorial (1891), created in collaboration with architect Stanford White, is one of the most evocative of his privately commissioned monuments. His portrait reliefs, often compared to the works of the great Renaissance artists, graced some of the most opulent mansions of the time, including the New York home of Cornelius Vanderbilt II. In his later years, Saint-Gaudens was commissioned by President Theodore Roosevelt to create designs for the nation’s coinage. The collaboration resulted in a series of medals and coins, such as the “Double Eagle” Twenty Dollar Gold Piece, that Roosevelt called “more beautiful than any coins since the days of the Greeks.” Augustus Saint-Gaudens: American Sculptor of the Gilded Age is organized and circulated by the Trust for Museum Exhibitions in cooperation with the Saint-Gaudens National Historic Site in Cornish, New Hampshire. The Pittsburgh presentation is supported by a generous grant from the Allegheny Foundation. The exhibition remains on view at the Frick through July 3, 2004. A Force for Change Augustus Saint-Gaudens was the son of hardworking parents who emigrated from Dublin to New York City in search of opportunity. He began his career in art at the age of thirteen as an apprentice cameo-cutter and subsequently studied at the Cooper Union and the National Academy of Design. Recognizing his talent, Saint-Gaudens' parents sacrificed their savings to send their nineteen-year-old son to study in Rome and at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris. There, he developed his personal style, combining European elegance with a distinctively American preference for factual naturalism. When Saint-Gaudens returned to New York in 1875, sculpture was dominated by a neoclassical style, which interpreted American subjects in a manner recalling ancient Greek and Roman figurative sculpture. By the 1880s, Saint-Gaudens had created a new American aesthetic, incorporating simplified, extraordinarily crafted, naturalistic forms that conveyed strong, expressive emotions. He also popularized non-traditional media and techniques, including low relief and bronze. Through his personal example, Saint-Gaudens showed how sculptors could collaborate with architects, designers and mural painters to produce powerful, well-integrated designs. In particular, the friendship and close working relationship that developed between Saint-Gaudens and architect Stanford White bore fruit in more than twenty cooperative projects, including Diana (1891), created for the tower of Madison Square Garden; and The Puritan (1886), an evocative portrait of one of the early founders of the Massachusetts Colony. Saint-Gaudens and the Gilded Age Saint-Gaudens’ American reputation was made during the “Gilded Age,” a term coined by Mark Twain to capture both the glory and ostentation of the economic heyday that followed the Civil War. The acceptance and need for sculpture arose in conjunction with the country’s new-found prosperity, as well as its desire to commemorate the crisis that just ended. Of all the Civil War monuments produced in the United States, few are as reflective of the conflict as Saint-Gauden’s Shaw Memorial (1884–1887). The monument was commissioned by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts to commemorate Colonel Robert Gould Shaw (1837–63) and his regiment, the Massachusetts Fifty-fourth, the first unit of African Americans in the Union Army. The twenty-three individually modeled faces of the infantrymen represent, perhaps for the first time in sculpture, a realistic, non-stereotypical depiction of African Americans. In addition to his monuments, Saint-Gaudens created a great variety of three-dimensional works, including cameos in stone and shell, mural paintings, stained glass, and interior decorations for some of the most opulent houses of the Gilded Age, including the New York home of Cornelius Vanderbilt II. The Ceres Panel (1881–83), part of an ensemble of allegorical panels created for Vanderbilt’s dining room, were drawn by the painter John La Farge and modeled by Saint-Gaudens in mahogany, bronze, ivory, mother-of-pearl, and marble. The room was further enhanced by relief portraits in gilded gold of Cornelius I and his great grandchildren. In his maturity, Saint-Gaudens was a sought-after portrait artist. He created more than one hundred sculptural portraits, often modeled in low relief, that depicted industrialists and financiers; their wives and children; and architects and writers, including Robert Louis Stevenson, shown propped up in bed with pencil in hand. The artist was also the first professional sculptor in the United States to produce designs for the nation’s coinage. The most famous of the medals and coins featured in the exhibition is the 1907 “Double Eagle” Twenty Dollar Gold Piece commissioned by President Theodore Roosevelt. EXHIBITION CATALOGUE Augustus Saint-Gaudens: American Sculptor of the Gilded Age is accompanied by a fully-illustrated color catalogue by Henry J. Duffy, curator of the Saint-Gaudens National Historic Site, and John H. Dryfhout, superintendent of the Site. The catalogue will be available for $39.95 ($35.96 for Frick members) in the Museum Shop. EXHIBITION ORGANIZATIONAL AND SUPPORT CREDITS Augustus Saint-Gaudens: American Sculptor of the Gilded Age is organized and circulated by the Trust for Museum Exhibitions in cooperation with the Saint-Gaudens National Historic Site in Cornish, New Hampshire. The Pittsburgh presentation is supported by a generous grant from the Allegheny Foundation, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Exhibitions at The Frick Art Museum are made possible, in part, by annual operating support grants from the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission and the Allegheny Regional Asset District. THE FRICK ART MUSEUM Part of the Frick Art & Historical Center in Pittsburgh, The Frick Art Museum contains a fine and decorative art collection. In addition to exhibiting its permanent collection, which concentrates on Italian Renaissance and French eighteenth-century works, the Museum has an active program of temporary exhibitions. Admission to The Frick Art Museum is free to the public. Free, docent-led tours of Augustus Saint-Gaudens: American Sculptor of the Gilded Age will be offered every Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday at 2:00 p.m. Group tours (for five or more) and tours of the permanent collection are available for $5 per person and must be scheduled two weeks in advance. THE FRICK ART & HISTORICAL CENTER The Frick Art & Historical Center is located at 7227 Reynolds Street in Point Breeze. Free parking is available in the Frick’s off-street lot, or along adjacent streets. Hours of operation are Tuesday – Saturday, 10:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m., Sunday 12:00 – 6:00 p.m. The site is closed Mondays and major holidays. For information and reservations, call 412-371-0600, 9:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m., Monday through Sunday. For further information or images, please contact Greg Langel at the Frick Art & Historical Center at 412-371-0600, ext. 524, or at glangel@frickart.org. Click here for more information about special events and programs offered in conjunction with Augustus Saint-Gaudens: American Sculptor of the Gilded Age. |
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