Everything about Gutzon Borglum totally explained
(John) Gutzon de la Mothe Borglum (
March 25,
1867 –
March 6,
1941) was an American
artist and
sculptor famous for creating the monumental
presidents' heads at
Mount Rushmore, South Dakota, as well as other public works of art.
Background
Gutzon Borglum was born in
Chicago, Illinois. At the age of ten, he moved to
Nebraska, and later graduated from
Creighton Preparatory School. He was trained in
Paris at the
Académie Julian, where he came to know
Auguste Rodin and was influenced by Rodin's impressionistic light-catching surfaces. Back in the U.S. in
New York City he sculpted saints and apostles for the new
Cathedral of Saint John the Divine in 1901, got a sculpture accepted by the
Metropolitan Museum of Art— the first sculpture by a living American the museum had ever purchased—and made his presence further felt with some portraits, he also won the
Logan Medal of the arts.
Gradually his reputation passed that of his younger brother,
Solon Borglum, already an established sculptor.
A fascination with gigantic scale and themes of heroic nationalism suited his extroverted personality. His head of
Abraham Lincoln, carved from a six-ton block of marble, was exhibited in
Theodore Roosevelt's
White House and can be found in the
Capitol Rotunda in
Washington, D.C. A bully patriot, believing that the "monuments we've built are not our own," he looked to create art that was "American, drawn from American sources, memorializing American achievement" according to a 1908 interview article. His equation of being "American" with being born of American parents—"flesh of our flesh"—was characteristic of
nativist beliefs in the early 20th century. Borglum was highly suited to the competitive environment surrounding the contracts for public buildings and monuments, and his public sculpture is sited all around the United States.
In 1908 Borglum won a competition for a statue of the Civil War General
Philip Sheridan to be placed in
Sheridan Circle in Washington D.C. A second version was erected in Chicago in 1923 (
illustration, left) Winning this competition was a personal triumph for him because he won out over sculptor
J.Q.A.Ward, a much older and more established artist, and one whom Borglum had clashed with earlier in regard to the
National Sculpture Society. At the unveiling of the Sheridan one critic, President Theodore Roosevelt (whom Borglum was later to put on Mount Rushmore) declared that it was "first rate," and another critic was to state that, "as a sculptor Gutzon Borglum was no longer a rumor, he was a fact." (Smith:see References)
Borglum was active in the committee that organized the New York
Armory Show of 1913, the birthplace of
modernism in American art. But by the time the show was ready to open, Borglum resigned from the committee, feeling that the emphasis on avant-garde works had co-opted the original premise of the show and made traditional artists like himself look provincial. He lived in
Stamford, Connecticut for 10 years — from 1910 to 1920.
Stone Mountain
Borglum's nativist stances made him seem an ideologically sympathetic choice to carve a memorial to heroes of the
Confederacy, planned for
Stone Mountain, Georgia. In 1915, he was approached by the
United Daughters of the Confederacy with a project for sculpting a high bust of General
Robert E. Lee on the mountain's rockface, the largest naked granite outcropping in the world. Borglum accepted, but told the committee, "
Ladies, a twenty foot head of Lee on that mountainside would look like a postage stamp on a barn door."
Borglum's ideas eventually evolved into a high-relief frieze of Lee,
Jefferson Davis, and
'Stonewall' Jackson riding around the mountain, followed by a legion of artillery troops.
After a delay caused by
World War I, Borglum and the newly-chartered Stone Mountain Confederate Monumental Association set to work on this unexampled monument, the size of which had never been attempted before. Many difficulties slowed progress, some because of the sheer scale involved. After finishing the detailed model of the carving, Borglum was unable to trace his ideas onto the massive area on which he was working, until he developed a gigantic magic lantern to project the image onto the side of the mountain.
Carving officially began on
June 23,
1923, with Borglum making the first cut. At Stone Mountain he developed sympathetic connections with the reorganized
Ku Klux Klan, who were major financial backers for the monument. Lee's head was unveiled on Lee's birthday
January 19,
1924, to a large crowd, but soon thereafter Borglum was increasingly at odds with the officials of the Association. His domineering, perfectionist, irascible, authoritarian manner brought tensions to such a point that in March 1925 Borglum smashed his clay and plaster models and exited Georgia permanently. His tenure with the association was over. None of his work remains, as it was all cleared from the mountain's face for the work of
Augustus Lukeman, Borglum's replacement, but in his abortive attempt, Borglum had developed necessary techniques for sculpting on a gigantic scale that made Mount Rushmore possible.
Mount Rushmore
His Mount Rushmore project was the brainchild of South Dakota state historian
Doane Robinson. His first attempt with one of the faces was blown up after two years. Dynamite was also used to remove large areas of rock from under Washington's brow. The initial pair of presidents,
George Washington and
Abraham Lincoln were soon joined by
Thomas Jefferson, for this monument sited in the sacred Native American heartland of the
Louisiana Purchase, and to make the theme of
Manifest Destiny perfectly clear,
Theodore Roosevelt.
Borglum alternated exhausting on-site supervising with world tours, raising money, polishing his personal legend, sculpting a
Thomas Paine memorial for Paris and a
Woodrow Wilson one for Poland. In his absence, work at Mount Rushmore was overseen by his son
Lincoln. When he died in Chicago, following complications after surgery, his son finished another season at Rushmore, but left the monument largely in the state of completion it had reached under his father's direction.
Other Works
In 1908, Borglum completed the statue of John William Mackay (1831-1902), a
Comstock Lode silver baron. The statue is located at the
University of Nevada, Reno.
One of Borglum's more unusual pieces is the "Aviator", completed in 1919 as a memorial for James R. McConnell, who was killed in World War I while flying for the
Lafayette Escadrille. It is located on the grounds of the
University of Virginia in
Charlottesville, Virginia.
Another impressive Borglum design is the
North Carolina state monument on
Seminary Ridge at the
Gettysburg Battlefield in south-central
Pennsylvania. The cast bronze sculpture depicts a wounded
Confederate officer encouraging his men to push forward during
Pickett's Charge. With dramatic flair, Borglum had made arrangements for an airplane to fly over the monument during the dedication ceremony on
July 3,
1929. During the sculpture's unveiling, the plane scattered roses across the field as a salute to those North Carolinians who had fought and died at Gettysburg.
Borglum was an active member of the Ancient Free and Accepted Mason (the
Freemasons), raised in Howard Lodge #35, New York City, on June 10, 1904, and serving as its Worshipful Master 1910-11. In 1915, he was appointed Grand Representative of the Grand Lodge of Denmark near the Grand Lodge of New York. He received his Scottish Rite Degrees in the New York City Consistory on October 25, 1907. The museum at Mount Rushmore proudly displays a letter to Borglum from D. C. Stephenson the infamous Klan Grand Dragon of Indiana and 22 other northern states. Stephenson was responsible and convicted of murder for the abduction, forced intoxication, and sadistic rape of Madge Oberholtzer which lead to a suicide attempt and eventual death.
Borglum is buried at
Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in
Glendale in the Memorial Court of Honor. His second wife, Mary Montgomery Williams Borglum, 1874–1955 (they were married
May 20,
1909) is interred alongside him.
Canadian artist
Christian Cardell Corbet was the first
Canadian to sculpt a posthumous medallion of Borglum. It currently resides at the Gutzon Borglum Museum in South Dakota.
In 1938 Borglum also sculpted the Memorial to the "Start Westward of the United States" which is located in
Marietta, Ohio.
Gallery
Image:AviatorGB.jpg|Aviator - Grounds of the University of Virginia
Image:BorglumNC monument.jpg|North Carolina Monument, Gettysburg
Image:BorglumNCmonument.jpg|North Carolina Monument, Gettysburg, Pennsylvania
Image:MSJC_by_John_Gutzon-Borglum.jpg|Mission San Juan Capistrano, painted in by 1894 Fred Behre and John Gutzon Borglum, Watercolor and gouache.
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