Alongside the Connecticut River amid bucolic hills and mountains lies the western New Hampshire town of Cornish. This small town, home to the world’s longest two-span covered bridge, became famous in the mid-20th century as the place where elusive author J.D. Salinger chose to retreat permanently from New York City. Cornish’s artistic history, though, extends to the late-19th century. Starting in 1885, America’s preeminent sculptor, Augustus Saint-Gaudens, routinely left his New York City residence and studio to spend summers in the cooler clime of Cornish.
American Renaissance Sculptor
Saint-Gaudens (1848–1907) was born in Dublin to a French father and Irish mother. Soon after his birth, his family moved across the Atlantic to New York City. As a youth, Saint-Gaudens wanted to pursue art, so he apprenticed to a cameo cutter. This practice of working on a miniature relief scale served him well in later undertakings of commemorative medals and U.S. coins. Saint-Gaudens also took classes at Cooper Union and the National Academy of Design. He decided to become a sculptor, and at age 19 he moved to Paris to study at the École des Beaux-Arts. Afterwards, he moved to Rome for several years, where he received his first commissions.
Cornish Colony
While working on one of his most famous tributary sculptures, Chicago’s “Abraham Lincoln the Man,” Saint-Gaudens spent his first summer in Cornish, New Hampshire. His stay was, in part, because he had been told that in the town, he could find men who looked like Lincoln to serve as models. Such a man was found just over the Vermont border. Saint-Gaudens referenced an 1860 life mask of Lincoln’s face and casts of his hands, studied his writings, and looked at his photographs to lend authenticity to the sculpture. The sculptor drew even on his own memories of twice seeing Lincoln in person. The finished work expresses the president’s heroic character and his introspective nature. Standing in front of a decorative Chair of State that’s based on an Ancient Greek throne, Lincoln’s contemplative head is bowed as he prepares to deliver an address.
While in Cornish during the summer of 1885, Saint-Gaudens resided in a house that was originally an early 19th-century inn; he transformed the hay barn into his studio. He fell in love with the area and purchased the property in 1892, renaming the house Aspet after his father’s French birthplace. He renovated the estate to suit his creative and practical needs. Lush gardens were designed with his input, and a new building called the Little Studio replaced the barn. It served as his private studio. His assistants worked in a larger one nearby.
Artists visited Saint-Gaudens and his family, who frequently entertained on the extensive grounds and in their home; the rooms are beautifully preserved with original furnishings. Knowledge of the charms of Cornish and nearby Plainfield, New Hampshire spread and other creatives became summer or full-time residents.
Saint-Gaudens National Historical Park
The Little Studio is used today as an exhibition space for Saint-Gaudens’s art. In the center of the room is a bronze copy of his celebrated “Diana.” The figure is his only female nude, and it is unique for depicting the Roman goddess’s form in a streamlined, elegant, and strong manner. The original sculpture was installed as a weathervane on top of Stanford White’s Madison Square Garden. It was one of the first statues in New York City to be lit with electric lights and became tremendously popular. It’s an example of Saint-Gaudens’s innovative collaborations with preeminent architects for public art.
More than 100 additional works by the artist are situated throughout Saint-Gaudens National Historical Park. Among the pieces are full-size bronze casts of Saint-Gaudens’s career highlights. One dramatically positioned work is the gilded “Amor Caritas,” placed in a Roman-style atrium erected on the estate after the artist’s death. The sculpture is of Saint-Gaudens’s vision of ideal beauty, a recurrent theme in his work. The female figure is ornamented with passion flowers and between her curved wings is a tablet decorated with acanthus.
Sherman Monument
Saint-Gaudens’s final masterpiece was the equestrian public memorial “Sherman Monument,” which stands in the Grand Army Plaza at the southeast corner of Central Park. It took the artist, a notorious perfectionist, 11 years to complete, and it was finished in Cornish, where he had moved permanently in 1900. The work commemorates Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman.
In the composition, the general rides on horseback while being led by Victory, a winged allegorical figure posed for by Hettie Anderson, an in-demand African American model. Triumphant Victory carries and wears symbols of success: a palm frond, crown of laurel, and a decorative eagle. This sculpture recalls the Louvre’s “Nike of Samothrace,” and is another example of Saint-Gaudens incorporating classical inspiration into an innovative American interpretation. The work was met with great praise.
Saint-Gaudens passed away a few years after unveiling “Sherman Monument.” While his wife and son continued to summer at Aspet, the zenith of the Cornish Colony came to a close. In 1919, the family founded the Saint-Gaudens Memorial to manage the estate. The organization donated the 190-acre site to the National Park Service in 1965.
Saint-Gaudens’s remarkable work and legacy is preserved in Cornish, as well as in museums and parks throughout the country. He worked at a time when the nation saw itself as heir to the heroism and humanity of ancient civilizations and the Renaissance. His patriotic vision and production of an American school of sculpture reflected and enhanced the art and history of the late 19th- and early 20th- century.
