MAG'S SAINT-GAUDENS PORTRAITS
by Honey Heyer
A recent gift to the MAG American collection is a pair of bronze relief portraits of Hettie Evarts Beaman (1852-1917) and Charles Coatsworth Beaman Jr. (1840-1900) by Augustus Saint-Gaudens. They were given by Mary Ellen Shumway Gaylord, the Beamans’ great-granddaughter, who inherited them from her parents, Hettie and F. Ritter Shumway, well-known Rochester philanthropists.
Saint-Gaudens was the most prominent American sculptor in the latter half of the nineteenth century. During that period of great prosperity and national aspiration, he produced public memorials which transmitted both the vitality and personality of his subjects. Most famous of his works are the statues of Admiral David Farragut and the equestrian sculpture of General Sherman in New York City, the Shaw Memorial in Boston, the standing Abraham Lincoln and the seated Lincoln, both for Chicago, and the haunting Adams Memorial in Rock Creek Cemetery, Washington, D.C.
Saint-Gaudens was born in Dublin, Ireland, in 1848. His father, a French shoemaker, and his Irish mother immigrated to New York City when Augustus was an infant. Apprenticed to a French cameo cutter at age fourteen, he attended night classes at Cooper Union and later studied at the National Academy of Design. At nineteen he went to Paris, supporting himself as a cameo cutter, and was accepted at the École des Beaux-Arts. When the Franco-Prussian war broke out, he left for Rome and found work there in a studio, gradually gaining experience and skill.
Some of Saint-Gaudens's favorite works were the bas-relief portraits commissioned by friends and notables of the time—a type descended from Renaissance and Baroque models derived from Greek and Roman precedents. The Gallery's newly-conserved bronze portrait of Charles Coatsworth Beaman, Jr. (94.51) in profile, a half-length standing figure from the right side, hand in his pocket, conveys the confidence and presence of the serious but affable lawyer. The inscription "Charles Coatsworth Beaman by his friend Augustus Saint-Gaudens" is at the base of the work and the year 1894 in Roman numerals at the top.
The portrait of Hettie Evarts Beaman (94.50), age 48, is a left-side profile as she sits in a Windsor chair, her -hands folded together in an air of repose and gentle dignity. This shallower relief carving has the quality of drawing, and the bronze surface a greenish patina. A small wreath of ivy leaves surrounds her name in the
background, and an inscription, "Cornish, New Hampshire, 1900," followed by a monogram, is at the top.
Saint-Gaudens first met Hettie Evarts and her father William in 1872 in the sculptor's studio in Rome. There they commissioned a marble bust of Evarts, a distinguished New York City lawyer and later U.S. Senator. In 1874 Saint-Gaudens returned to America, where the vitality and sensitivity of his work were acclaimed. By 1881 he was recognized as one of the great American sculptors.
In 1885 his friend Charles Beaman, now married to Hettie Evarts, persuaded Saint-Gaudens to spend summers renting property from him in Cornish, New Hampshire, as a retreat from the heat and congestion of New York City. Cornish became the locus of a lively artistic and literary community centered around Saint-Gaudens. This "circle of friends" expanded over the years and included Thomas Dewing, George de Forrest Brush, Frederick MacMonnies, Kenyon Cox, Daniel French, Charles Platt, Stephen Parrish, father of Maxfield Parrish, and scores of others. (Maxfield Parrish was to arrive later.) The Beamans lived and entertained at their home, Blow-Me-Down Farm, and their granddaughter Hettie Beaman Lakin Shumway (named after her grandmother) was born there.
When Saint-Gaudens finally bought his property from Beaman in 1891, he named it Aspet, after his father's birthplace in France. As purchase price Beaman asked $2500 and the bas-relief portrait now in MAG's collection. Saint-Gaudens' colleague, architect Stanford White, helped plan renovations of the property,
Active almost until his death, Saint-Gaudens spent summers in Cornish and the rest of the year on 36th Street in New York City. He died at Cornish in 1907. Casts of his works are preserved at Aspet, now the Saint-Gaudens National Historical Site.
On a local note, Saint-Gaudens originated the design for the caryatids at the Albright Museum (now Albright-Knox) in Buffalo, providing variations in hands or drapery of the models. Though he did not live to complete the Buffalo work, sculptor Frances Grimes, who had been his assistant in Cornish, completed the commission from his sketches.
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