Daniel Chester French: American Sculptor | |
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Directed by | Eduardo Montes-Bradley |
Starring | Michael Richman Harold Holzer Thayer Tolles Michele Bogart Daniel Preston |
Cinematography | Eduardo Montes-Bradley |
Production company | |
Release date |
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Running time | 60 minutes |
Daniel Chester French: American Sculptor is a 2022 documentary film about Daniel Chester French, a leading American sculptor best known for his rendering of the seated President Abraham Lincoln at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., produced by Heritage Film Project with the support of the National Trust for Historic Preservation and Chesterwood. [1] Significant support for this film came from the Morris and Alma Schapiro Fund.
Daniel Chester French: American Sculptor is written and directed by the Heritage Film Project's award-winning filmmaker Eduardo Montes-Bradley. [2]
The film follows the sculptor from childhood in a farm in New Hampshire to a place of prominence amongst the leading artists of his generation in New York.
Daniel Chester French: American Sculptor recognizes for the first time the contributions of the Piccirilli Brothers to all but two works created by Daniel Chester French in marble and stone. [3]
Other aspects of Daniel Chester French included in this documentary are Chesterwood, the sculptor's home studio from 1896 to 1931, the Alexander Hamilton U.S. Custom House, Alma Mater, John Boyle O'Reilly Memorial, Standing Lincoln at the Nebraska State Capitol, The Spirit of Life , and the Marquis de Lafayette in Prospect Park, Brooklyn. [4]
Daniel Chester French: American Sculptor pays attention to the artist's relationship with Ralph Waldo Emerson in Concord, and to French's The Minute Man , a first commission for a monument created in 1874 to commemorate the centenary of U.S. independence. Following the installation of French's first monument, the director explores French's connection to Thomas Ball in Florence and his early achievements upon his return to the United States, among which the statue of the seated Abraham Lincoln standing inside the Lincoln Memorial stands above all previous works as a universal symbol of American democracy. [5]
Daniel Chester French: American Sculptor premiered on May 26, 2022, at the Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center in Great Barrington, Massachusetts. [1]
The Lincoln Memorial is a U.S. national memorial that honors the 16th president of the United States, Abraham Lincoln. An example of neoclassicism, it is in the form of a classical temple and is located at the western end of the National Mall in Washington, D.C. Henry Bacon is the memorial's architect and Daniel Chester French designed the large interior statue of a seated Abraham Lincoln (1920), which was carved in marble by the Piccirilli brothers. Jules Guerin painted the interior murals, and the epitaph above the statue was written by Royal Cortissoz. Dedicated on May 30, 1922, it is one of several memorials built to honor an American president. It has been a major tourist attraction since its opening, and over the years, has occasionally been used as a symbolic center focused on race relations and civil rights.
Daniel Chester French was an American sculptor in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. His works include the The Minute Man, an 1874 statue in Concord, Massachusetts, and his 1920 monumental statue of Abraham Lincoln at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C.
Henry Bacon was an American Beaux-Arts architect who oversaw the engineering and design of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., built between 1915 and 1922, which was his final project before his 1924 death.
Evelyn Beatrice Longman was an American sculptor whose allegorical figure works were commissioned as monuments and memorials, adornment for public buildings, and attractions at art expositions in the early 20th-century. She became the first woman sculptor to be elected a full member of the National Academy of Design in 1919.
The history of sculpture in the United States begins in the 1600s "with the modest efforts of craftsmen who adorned gravestones, Bible boxes, and various utilitarian objects with simple low-relief decorations." American sculpture in its many forms, genres and guises has continuously contributed to the cultural landscape of world art into the 21st century.
The Piccirilli brothers were an Italian family of renowned marble carvers and sculptors who carved many of the most significant marble sculptures in the United States, including Daniel Chester French’s colossal Abraham Lincoln (1920) in the Lincoln Memorial, Washington, D.C.
Chesterwood was the summer estate and studio of American sculptor Daniel Chester French (1850–1931) located at 4 Williamsville Road in Stockbridge, Massachusetts. Most of French's originally 150-acre (61 ha) estate is now owned by the National Trust for Historic Preservation, which operates the property as a museum and sculpture garden. The property was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1965 in recognition of French's importance in American sculpture.
Eduardo Montes-Bradley is a documentary filmmaker known for Evita, Rita Dove: An American Poet, and Harto The Borges. His most recent films are Black Fiddlers and Daniel Chester French: American Sculptor He’s currently working on The Italian Factor: The Piccirilli Story.
Abraham Lincoln: The Man is a larger-than-life size 12-foot (3.7 m) bronze statue of Abraham Lincoln, the 16th president of the United States. The original statue is in Lincoln Park in Chicago, and later re-castings of the statue have been given as diplomatic gifts from the United States to the United Kingdom, and to Mexico.
Judith Shea is an American sculptor and artist, born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in 1948. She received a degree in fashion design at Parsons School of Design in 1969 and a BFA in 1975. This dual education formed the basis for her figure based works. Her career has three distinct phases: The use of cloth and clothing forms from 1974 to 1981; Hollow cast metal clothing-figure forms from 1982 until 1991; and carved full-figure statues made of wood, cloth, clay, foam and hair beginning in 1990 to present.
Abraham Lincoln (1920) is a colossal seated figure of the 16th president of the United States, Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865), sculpted by Daniel Chester French (1850–1931) and carved by the Piccirilli Brothers. Located in the Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., the statue was unveiled in 1922. The work follows in the Beaux Arts and American Renaissance style traditions.
Andrew O'Connor was an American-Irish sculptor whose work is represented in museums in America, Ireland, Britain and France.
Abraham Lincoln – also known as The Gettysburg Lincoln – is a bronze statue of President Abraham Lincoln by Daniel Chester French, located on the grounds of the Nebraska State Capitol. The monument was commissioned by the Abraham Lincoln Memorial Association of Lincoln, Nebraska, and produced in 1912.
Death and the Sculptor, also known as the Milmore Monument and The Angel of Death and the Young Sculptor is a sculpture in bronze, and one of the most important and influential works of art created by sculptor Daniel Chester French. The work was commissioned to mark the grave in Forest Hills Cemetery in Jamaica Plain, Boston, Massachusetts, of the brothers Joseph (1841–1886), James and Martin Milmore (1844–1883). It has two figures effectively in the round, linked to a background relief behind them. The right-hand figure represents a sculptor, whose hand holding a chisel is gently restrained by the fingers of the left-hand figure, representing Death, here shown as a winged female.
Julian Bond: Reflections from the Frontlines of the Civil Rights Movement is a documentary film by Eduardo Montes-Bradley for Heritage Film Project, a portrait of social activist and former Georgia legislator Julian Bond.
Russell Alger Memorial Fountain is a Detroit, Michigan fountain, one of the "most successful collaborations" created by the sculptor, Daniel Chester French and architect Henry Bacon. The bronze statue was cast by the Gorham Manufacturing Company. It is located in Grand Circus Park and was dedicated on July 27, 1921.
Daniel Chester French (1850–1931) was an American sculptor who was active in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. He was born in Exeter, New Hampshire, to Anne Richardson French and Henry Flagg French on April 20, 1850. His father, a polymath, was a judge and college president who popularized the French drain. In 1867, the family moved to Concord, Massachusetts, and French enrolled at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. French did not perform well academically and, after a year, he left the college and returned to Concord where he first learned sculpture while attending art classes with Louisa May Alcott. Between 1869 and 1872, French studied anatomy with William Rimmer, and in 1870 he undertook a one-month apprenticeship with the sculptor John Quincy Adams Ward. After completing The Minute Man in 1875, French studied sculpture in Florence, Italy, for a year, during part of which he worked out of Thomas Ball's studio.
The Thomas Gallaudet Memorial is a sculpture by Daniel Chester French located on the campus of Gallaudet University in Washington, D.C., United States. The 1889 statue depicts Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet sitting in a chair and Alice Cogswell standing at his side.