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Daniel Chester French is best known as the sculptor of the Lincoln in the Lincoln Memorial. In 1896, he purchased 150 or so acres in the Berkshires and began dividing his time between there and New York City. The Chesterwood home and studio were designed by Henry Bacon, who later designed the Lincoln Memorial. After French’s death in 1931, his daughter Margaret French Cresson preserved the studio and its contents. That included many plaster models of works that were commissioned in bronze or marble. The Chesterwood property is now under control of the National Trust for Historic Preservation. (Chesterwood is in Stockbridge, MA, just down the road from the Norman Rockwell Museum, which this summer – through 10/31/2021 – is showing Enchanted: A History of Fantasy Illustration. Blog posts on that exhibition here and here.)

In this post: a selection of French’s works displayed in the permanent exhibition, “Daniel Chester French: Sculpting an American Vision,” in the Barn Gallery at the Chesterwood visitors’ center.

French’s home & view

Chesterwood has gorgeous views of the Berkshire Mountains from the house and grounds.

“Rogers Groups”

When he was very young, French sculpted small genre pieces of the sort that were very popular after the Civil War. John Rogers (1829-1904) was most famous for making this sort of inexpensive group, which Americans bought by the tens of thousands.

The Minuteman

French’s first major commission was the Minuteman, a seven-foot-tall bronze commemorating the centennial of the Battle of Concord, April 19, 1775. Above are views of the plaster model in the visitors’ center at Chesterwood. This is the version in the monument at Concord. After studying in Europe, French later reworked the figure to make the anatomy more persuasive; a small bronze of that version a small bronze of that version is on view in the adjacent Daniel Chester French Study Collection Gallery. Alas, I don’t have a decent photo of it.

The Milmore Memorial

This is a plaster cast of the Milmore Memorial, a.k.a. The Angel of Death and the Sculptor. Photos of the monument in the original bronze are here. More familiar to me is the marble version at the Metropolitan Museum, commissioned from French and completed in 1926.

It occurred to me to wonder what I find appealing in a sculpture that includes the Angel of Death. The answer: to me, this memorial says, “This is a person worth remembering. This is a person whose life mattered.” And I like hearing about people who made their lives matter. This piece commemorates Martin Milmore (1844-1883), a sculptor who died at the age of 39, and his brother Joseph, a stone carver. One of the pair’s most notable collaborations was a sphinx: that’s why French shows the Angel of Death gently reaching out to stop the sculptor’s chisel as he works on a that mythological creature.

The Dupont Memorial

This finished version of the piece, dedicated in 1921, was a fountain for Washington, DC. Photos of it are here. The fountain and Dupont Circle, where it’s placed, honor Samuel F. Dupont (1803-1865), a rear admiral of the US Navy during the Civil War. Water streams down from a basin between three allegorical figures that refer to Dupont’s naval exploits. In the photo above, the model second from the left is Sky, who holds the Earth in one hand and has stars scattered above her head. Next to her is Sea, who holds a ship’s hull in one hand, has a fish at her feet, and a seagull on her shoulder. At the right is Wind, who guides a sailing ship that rests on waves between his feet, as he grips a shell in his other hand.

I love the angles of Wind’s face, and the way his hair blows forward in the stiff breeze.

Next week: some of the sculptures in French’s studio.

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