Gutzon Borglum

(John) Gutzon Borglum (March 25, 1867 –March 6, 1941). Born in St. Charles, Idaho and at the age of seven moved to Nebraska. Borglum was the American sculptor famous for creating the monumental presidents' heads at Mount Rushmore, South Dakota.

Related Topics:
March 25 - 1867 - March 6 - 1941 - St. Charles, Idaho - Nebraska - American - Sculptor - President - Mount Rushmore - South Dakota

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Born to the second wife of a Danish Latter-day Saint (LDS; see also Mormon) who practiced plural marriage in Idaho Territory, Gutzon Borglum was raised in California and trained in Paris, at the Académie Julian, where he came to know Auguste Rodin and was influenced by Rodin's dynamic impressionistic light-catching surfaces. Back in the U.S., in New York he sculpted about a hundred 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 well-placed portraits. Soon he had a national reputation.

Related Topics:
Danish - Latter-day Saint - Mormon - Plural marriage - Idaho - California - Paris - Académie Julian - Auguste Rodin - Cathedral of Saint John the Divine - 1901 - Metropolitan Museum of Art

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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 have 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.

Related Topics:
Abraham Lincoln - Theodore Roosevelt - White House - Capitol Rotunda - 1908 - Nativist - 20th century

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In 1908 Borglum won a competition for a statue of the Civil War General Philip Sheridan to be placed 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 regards 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) declaired 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)

Related Topics:
Philip Sheridan - 1923 - J.Q.A.Ward - National Sculpture Society

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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.

Related Topics:
Armory Show - 1913 - Modernism

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Such public stances made Borglum 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 70-foot statue of General Robert E. Lee on the mountain's rockface, the largest naked granite outcropping in the world. Borglum accepted, but told the committee that a 70-foot carving of Lee at Stone Mountain would look like a postage stamp on the side of a barn.

Related Topics:
Confederacy - Stone Mountain - 1915 - United Daughters of the Confederacy - Robert E. Lee - Postage stamp

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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.

Related Topics:
Jefferson Davis - 'Stonewall' Jackson

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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 onto which he was working, until he developed a gigantic magic lantern to project the image onto the side of the mountain.

Related Topics:
World War I - Magic lantern

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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, and his racial writings are purported to include such statements as "If you cross a pure bred with a mongrel dog you get a mongrel. So it is in races ... It is curious that the lowest race in civilization is the strongest physically and breeding (crossed) is always down. A Negro and a Jew will produce a Negro, but Hindu and Jew --- Jew; Chinese and Jew, offspring Jew; Italian and Jew, offspring Jew; any European race and Jew, offspring Jew."{{fact}}

Related Topics:
June 23 - 1923 - Ku Klux Klan

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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. However 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 for the work of Augustus Lukeman, Borglum's replacement, but in the abortive attempt Borglum had developed necessary techniques for sculpting on a gigantic scale that made Mount Rushmore possible.

Related Topics:
January 19 - 1924 - 1925 - Augustus Lukeman

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One of Borglum's more unusual pieces is the "Aviator" a memorial for James R, McConnell who was killed in World War I while flyng for the LaFayette Escadrille. It is located on the campus of the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, Virginia.

Related Topics:
University of Virginia - Charlottesville, Virginia

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The Mount Rushmore project is told in more detail at its own entry. Briefly, it was the brainchild of South Dakota state historian Doane Robinson. 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.

Related Topics:
Mount Rushmore - George Washington - Abraham Lincoln - Thomas Jefferson - Louisiana Purchase - Manifest Destiny - Theodore Roosevelt

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Borglum alternated exhausting on-site supervising with world tours, raising money, polishing his personal legend, sculpting a Thomas Paine for Paris and a Woodrow Wilson for Poland. In his absence, work at Mount Rushmore was overseen by his son Lincoln. When he died in Chicago, Illinois, 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.

Related Topics:
Thomas Paine - Woodrow Wilson - Chicago, Illinois

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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.

Related Topics:
Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery - 1874 - 1955 - May 20 - 1909

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