American Art: FAMOUS AMERICAN SCULPTORS

Hi everyone!

We are going to continue talking about the American sculpture. We will focus on two famous sculptors and also name some of their works. We mentioned them in our first post about the sculpture, but thanks to this post, you are going to know more about them. They are Gutzon Borglum and David Smith.

We have to say that they were painters too, but these artists are better known for their sculptures.

1. GUTZON BORGLUM (1867- 1941)

He was born near Bear Lake (Idaho) on March 27, 1867, but he moved with his family to Fremont (Nebraska) when he was seven years old. From an early age, he became interested in art and he learned it by attending a private school in Kansas. In 1888, he made a portrait of the General John C. Fremont. Thanks to this, he gained popularity and from this moment, the development of his career begun.

Some years later, he went to Paris, where he decided to study art at the Julien Academy and the École des Beaux-Arts. In this city, he met the famous French sculptor Auguste Rodin and he abandoned painting for sculpture. In 1896, he went to England where he got much success and finally he returned to the United States in 1901. He decided to focus on the style of “American” art, so he made sculptures as Mares of Diomenes (1904), which was the first American sculpture to be purchased by the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, and the marble bust of Abraham Lincoln (U.S. Capitol, 1908). In these works the “emotional impact of volume” can be observed.

Mares of Diomedes

Bust of Abraham Lincoln

He also created the equestrian statue of the General Philip Sheridan (Washington, 1908), the Seated Lincoln (1911) and the Wars of America (1926), both in New Jersey.

General Philip Sheridan

The Sited Lincoln

The Wars of America

The real success of Borglum came when he wanted to carve mountains. He began to design a scale of Lee, Jefferson Davis and Stonewall Jackson in the Stone Mountain (Georgia, 1923), but he was dismissed due to problems with the employers who directed the project. Thanks to this, he could do his most important work, the Mt. Rushmore National Memorial Monument (Dakota, 1927). This work or art appeared when the South Dakota historian suggested to create a sculpture in the Black Hills. He accepted and moved with his family to South Dakota to carry out the project. This work was to sculpt the faces of four important presidents in U.S. history: George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Thomas Jefferson and Theodore Roosevelt. This monument also created some problems with the President of Mount Rushmore, but finally, the relationship ended well. Borglum son's, Lincoln Borglum, also worked in this sculpture while his father travelled to Washington to get money to work on other projects and he finished it when his father died in 1941, so Gutzon Borglum never saw his work completed.

Stone Mountain

Mount Rushmore

2. DAVID SMITH (1906- 1965)

He was born in on March 9, 1906 in Indiana and in 1921 he moved to Ohio. In 1925, he started working in an automobile factory in Indiana, where he learned the technique that he used during his career (soldering and spot-welding). In 1926, he moved to New York, he met his wife Dorothy Denher and he decided to study at The Art Students League school, where he began to add three-dimensional elements to his paintings. Thanks to John Graham (artist and writer), he met important artists in New York and also welded metal sculptures of Pablo Picasso and Julio Gonzalez and between 1932 and 1933 he worked in a welding shop in Brooklyn.

His mature period began in the 40s. In those years, he experimented with new materials that he hadn't previously used as marble, cast aluminum and wood. His works were about the war, but also music and dance.

In the following decade, he won two Guggenheim awards. With the money received of this award, he could make works of higher quality and size. An example of this it is the Hudson River Landscape sculpture (1951).

Hudson River Landscape

Smith wanted to represent human and universal themes. A representation of this is the Agricola series (1951-1957) formed of 16 sculptures and Tanktotem series (1952-1960) formed of 10 sculptures. In these achievements can be observed the use of industrial objects and assembly to build them. Most of the artistic life of the sculptor was to create different types of “series” and name them with the material that he had used or the subject represented.

Agrícola series

Tanktotem series

At the end of the 50s, due to the success of this career, the Museum of Modern Art exhibited 34 of his sculptures.

In the 60s, the end of his career arrived. In this period he made the Cubi series (1961-1965) formed of 28 sculptures and the most famous. They were made of stainless steel and geometric figures.

Cubic series

In 1962, at an art festival in Italy to which he was invited, Smith created 27 sculptures that formed the Voltron series (1962-1963). He got this name because he used the materials of an abandoned factory in Voltri.

Voltron series

Finally, he died in Vermont (1965) in a car accident when he was on one of his best artistic level.

As a conclusion, we can say that they are two artists who created their works in the same century, but they are totally different. On the one hand, Borglum preferred to represent realistic things to understand, especially, the history of the United States, while Smith felt better with abstract art to let the imagination run free. On the other hand, the materials used also had nothing to do: one used bronze and marble or stone and the other was decanted from the metal.

Some prefer the first one because it is the traditional sculpture, and other the second one because it is more modern. Which one do you prefer?

We wait for your answers and hope you have enjoy this post! See you soon.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Information:

-http://www.nps.gov/moru/historyculture/upload/Sculptor%20Gutzon%20Borglum%20A.pdf

-http://www.springvilleartmuseum.org/collections/browse.html?x=artist&artist_id=123

-http://forgottennewsmakers.com/2010/08/03/gutzon-borglum-1867-1941-sculptor-of-mount-rushmore/

-http://www.theartstory.org/artist-smith-david.htm

- http://www.davidsmithestate.org/chronology.HTML

Pictures:

-Gutzon Borglum: https://www.google.es/search?q=gutzon+borglum&biw=1138&bih=536&source=lnms&tbm =isch&sa=X&ei=N2c7Vb3kMaa17gbGv4GICg&ved=0CAYQ_AUoAQ#imgrc=an9kujYdVpVvTM%253A%3B0_ggJFIE3Rl9wM%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fforgottennewsmakers.files.wordpress.com%252F2010%252F08%252Fgutzonborglum.jpg%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fforgottennewsmakers.com%252F2010%252F08%252F03%252Fgutzon-borglum-1867-1941-sculptor-of-mount-rushmore%252F%3B328%3B480

-Mares of Diomedes: http://travelphotobase.com/i/USDC/DCHC157.JPG