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for Henry Augustus Lukeman
1871 - 1935
Augustus Lukeman was raised in New York, where he is said to have begun lessons at the National Academy and the Cooper Union School at age eleven. However, NAD school registration records do not bear this out. The young Lukeman did work as a studio assistant for Launt Thompson, and he studied anatomy for two years at Bellevue Hospital. In 1890, at a more traditional point of age, he did attend classes at the Academy, registering for the antique school for two years. He went on to study at Columbia University and, for six months, the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris.
After his return to the United States, Lukeman was an assistant to Daniel Chester French for fifteen years while simultaneously executing his own commissions. He produced portrait busts and reliefs, but specialized in large-scale monuments. In New York his figures are found on the Customs Building, the Manhattan Appellate Court House, and the Brooklyn Museum.
His work on several grandiose memorials perhaps led to his appointment to complete the Stone Mountain Confederate Memorial, near Atlanta, Georgia, a project begun but then resigned by Gutzon Borglum. Lukeman was criticized for taking over another artist's work; he used Borglum's existing scheme and altered it to include a bas-relief with figures 153 feet tall.
Lukeman must have appreciated the work of Cox, for he is known to have possessed a small nude study by him, a work which Cox considered among his best (Cox to Opdyke).
After his return to the United States, Lukeman was an assistant to Daniel Chester French for fifteen years while simultaneously executing his own commissions. He produced portrait busts and reliefs, but specialized in large-scale monuments. In New York his figures are found on the Customs Building, the Manhattan Appellate Court House, and the Brooklyn Museum.
His work on several grandiose memorials perhaps led to his appointment to complete the Stone Mountain Confederate Memorial, near Atlanta, Georgia, a project begun but then resigned by Gutzon Borglum. Lukeman was criticized for taking over another artist's work; he used Borglum's existing scheme and altered it to include a bas-relief with figures 153 feet tall.
Lukeman must have appreciated the work of Cox, for he is known to have possessed a small nude study by him, a work which Cox considered among his best (Cox to Opdyke).
