Solon Borglum

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Solon Borglum
(ca. 1900)
Born(1868-12-22)December 22, 1868
Ogden, Utah
DiedJanuary 31, 1922(1922-01-31) (aged 53)
Stamford, Connecticut
NationalityAmerican
Known forSculpture

Solon Hannibal de la Mothe Borglum (December 22, 1868 – January 31, 1922)[1] was an American sculptor. He is most noted for his depiction of frontier life, and especially his experience with cowboys and native Americans.

He was awarded the Croix de Guerre by France[2] for his work with Les Foyers du Soldat service clubs during World War I.[3]

Early life

Born in

rancher in western Nebraska.[6]

Solon’s father was a physician but had worked as a wood-carver, which almost certainly influenced Solon’s older brother, Gutzon, to pursue a career as an artist. Having shown little interest in formal schooling, the younger son spent his teens working on his father’s ranch near Fremont, Nebraska. He showed a talent for drawing horses, and his careful studies of their movements prompted Gutzon to encourage Solon to pursue art as a profession.

Education

In 1893 Solon went to Omaha to study with

Cincinnati, Ohio, where he entered the Cincinnati Art Academy. One of his instructors, the sculptor Louis Rebisso, encouraged him to try sculpting. His first effort was a sculpture of a group of horses based on observations and drawings he had made at the U.S. Mail stables in Cincinnati.[7]

Borglum working, 1902

In 1898 the Art Academy awarded Borglum a scholarship that allowed him to go to Paris, where he matriculated at the

Buffalo, NY[8]

Later life

Borglum moved to the Silvermine neighborhood of New Canaan, Connecticut, where he helped found the "Knockers Club" of artists. His brother, Gutzon, lived in nearby Stamford, Connecticut from 1910 to 1920.[9]

Borglum married in 1898, and he and his wife, Emma, spent the summer of 1899 at the

Crow Creek Reservation in South Dakota. Though he later lived in Paris and New York City and achieved a reputation as one of America's notable sculptors, it was his depictions of frontier life, and especially his experience with cowboys and Native American peoples, which was the basis of his reputation.[10] In 1911, Borglum was elected into the National Academy of Design as an Associate member.[11]

In 1920, he established the

American School of Sculpture in New York City.[12] and ran the school and gave many lectures on art until his death after an appendectomy complicated by his war wounds[13] in January 1922.[14]
His legacy was carried on by his wife Emma until her death in 1934, at which point his daughter Monica and her husband, A. Mervyn Davies, oversaw the exhibition of his artwork. In 1974 they published his biography Solon H. Borglum: A Man Who Stands Alone.

Borglum's papers are held at the Archives of American Art,[15] and the Library of Congress.[16]

Works

Borglum created several animal groups while in Paris, including Lassoing Wild Horses and The Stampede of Wild Horses, which were shown at the Paris Salon in 1898 and 1899, respectively.

The year 1903 was a banner one for the artist. He had a one-man show of thirty-two small sculptures at the Keppel Gallery, New York. In his ground-breaking History of American Sculpture published that year,

St. Louis
.

Borglum received several major public commissions, including an equestrian monument of General

John Brown Gordon for the grounds of the Georgia State Capitol in Atlanta (1907), one of Rough Rider Buckey O'Neill for the plaza in front of the courthouse in Prescott, Arizona (1907), and The Pioneer, which was erected in the Court of Honor at the Panama–Pacific International Exposition in San Francisco
(1915).

Two of his works are located in Jersey City, New Jersey. His sculpture Buffalo and Bears is in Leonard Gordon Park in the city's Heights section[19]

In 1974 a group of the sculptor's descendants gave twenty bronzes, marbles, original plasters, portfolios of drawings and paintings to the New Britain Museum of American Art. Today the Museum houses the largest repository of Borglum's works.

Borglum sculpted a larger than life bronze

Teddy Roosevelt had persuaded Buckey O'Neill to join the Rough Riders and he was killed at the Battle of San Juan Hill. Borglum's statue Cowboy at Rest is also located on the grounds of the Yavapai County Court House in Prescott, Arizona.[21]

Borglum's pieces can be found at the Buffalo Bill Museum in Cody, Wyoming, including Evening, a depiction of a cowboy leaning against his unsaddled horse at the end of the day.

Two of Borglum's sculptures, Inspiration and Aspiration, which depict Native American men, stand in the front courtyard of St. Mark's Church in-the-Bowery, in the East Village neighborhood of Manhattan in New York City, flanking the front gate.

Black and white photos of Cowboy Mounting, Lost in a Blizzard (in marble), and Tamed can be found in Caffin's book.[22]

List of works[23]

Gallery of works by Solon Borglum
John Brown Gordon statue, on the grounds of the Georgia State Capitol
Bust of Giles A. Smith at Vicksburg National Military Park
Bust of Edward D. Tracy at Vicksburg National Military Park

References

Notes

  1. ^ Carrington, M. Marquette (March 1922). "Solon H. Borglum, Artist, Soldier and Patriot". Art and Archaeology: The Arts Throughout the Ages. 13 (3): 144. Retrieved 2010-03-22.
  2. ^ "Solon H. Borglum Dies after Operation" (PDF). The New York Times. January 31, 1922.
  3. ^ Library of Congress, Les Foyers du Soldat
  4. ^ Howard Shaff and Audrey Karl Shaff, ‘’Six Wars at a Time: the life and times of Gutzon Borglum, Sculptor of Mt. Rushmore’’, (Sioux Falls, South Dakota: The Center For Western Studies, 1985) pp. 17-20.
  5. ^ "Solon Borglum" on the American National Biography Online (subscription required)
  6. ^ Paller, Orvill (October 1990). "I Have a Question: Artists James T. Harwood, Gutzon and Solon Borglum, and Cyrus Dallin are said by some to be associated with the Church. Were they members?". Ensign: 52–54. Retrieved 2013-02-05.
  7. ISBN 0938290029
  8. ^ Caffin, p. 149
  9. ^ Davies, pp. 182-84.
  10. ^ Solon Hannibal Borglum: Sculptor of the Prairie (New Britain Museum of American Art)
  11. ^ "National Academicians | National Academy | National Academy Museum". Archived from the original on 2016-03-14. Retrieved 2016-03-04.
  12. ^ Davies, pp.219-25.
  13. ^ https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1922/01/31/109336514.pdf [bare URL PDF]
  14. ^ Davies, p. 242.
  15. ^ "A Finding Aid to the Solon H. Borglum and Borglum family papers, 1864-2002 | Digitized Collection".
  16. ^ Solon Hannibal Borglum papers.
  17. ^ History of American Sculpture (New York: Macmillan, 1903), pp. 478-83.
  18. ^ Caffin, chap. 10, pp. 147-62.
  19. ^ "Leonard Gordon Park". Archived from the original on 2011-11-10. Retrieved 2011-11-27.
  20. ^ Art inventories catalog Smithsonian American art museum
  21. ^ The remarkable story of Solon Borglum (Sharlot Hall Museum)
  22. ^ Caffin, p. 152, 160
  23. ^ Davies, pp.267-269

Bibliography

Further reading

External links

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