MAG’S ROGERS GROUP
by Joan K. Yanni
(John Rogers' Taking the Oath is a popular subject for docents leading tours. Who was Rogers and what is going on in the narrative sculpture? Cynthia Goldstein researched the subject for docent and curatorial files. The following is excerpted from her findings.)
John Rogers (1829-1904) was born in Boston, left high school after two years, and worked as a mechanic. He became interested in art after discovering a supply of clay in a local brick yard, and began to model figures, which he gave as gifts to family and friends. His job as a mechanic ended during The Panic of 1857, and his dormant ambition to be a professional artist came to life.
Feeling that he needed professional training in Europe, Rogers studied in Paris and Rome, but became discouraged with classical sculpture because it did not allow for "the little odds and ends that I used to put round my groups to help tell the story." And without a story, Rogers thought, a piece of sculpture was pointless.
He returned to America, decided to give up sculpture, and took a job as a draftsman in Chicago. Here, one of his pieces owned by an acquaintance was exhibited in one of Chicago's first art exhibitions, and Rogers was urged to make a clay group to be raffled off in a citywide charity bazaar. His Checker Players was a hit, and a demand for his work grew rapidly. He moved to New York City with the intention of marketing his groups from there.
Rogers' hold on American affection came from his sympathy with the common man and his perfect sense of timing. His views were staunchly Unionist, anti-slavery, and pro-Lincoln. Since the time did not require military service, his failure to enlist excited no adverse comment—on the contrary, he was praised for contributing to the war through his plaster groups which immortalized scenes of the Civil War and Reconstruction.
At age 35, Rogers married. After a European trip, he returned to his New York studio and searched for an idea for his next sculpture. Finally he wrote to his wife, who was visiting her parents, "Eureka, Hattie, Eureka! I have got a wrinkle which I think is going to make a good group...a proud Southern woman taking the oath and drawing rations. There is a chance to make a magnificent woman—something of the style of Marie Antoinette in the trial scene..."
Taking the Oath was the result. A catalogue advertisement published in 1866 describes the piece: "A Southern lady, with her little boy, compelled by hunger, is reluctantly taking the oath of allegiance from a Union officer, in order to draw rations. The young negro is watching the proceedings while he waits to have the basket filled for his mistress." Inspired by a theme which captured his deepest feelings and by the joy he had found in his marriage, Rogers gave the work the best that was in him as an artist and a sensitive interpreter of the Civil War experience. Into this composition went more modeling and characterization, more subtlety than is to be found in any of his earlier works—or in many of those which came after.
From 1860 to his retirement in 1893, Rogers produced over 80 different groups and sold somewhere between 70,000 and 80,000 of them. More than two-thirds were scenes from everyday life; the rest were inspired by literature or history. To produce his works, Rogers had what amounted to a factory, sometimes making as many as 12,000 copies of a group from molds. He always designed and modeled the groups himself, however, and they are remarkable for fine detail and for their wit and humor or display of feeling, whichever was appropriate to the subject. The average Rogers Group sold for under $15 and could be bought in general stores or from a catalog. To a dealer who called him foolish for pricing his works so low, Rogers said he preferred to put them "at a price that no one who likes them need hesitate to buy."
Rogers Groups declined in popularity by the mid 1890s. Though Rogers produced a few busts and an equestrian statue for Philadelphia, his fame rests on his plaster groups. He died in 1904.
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