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for Solon Hannibal Borglum
American, 1868 - 1922
Solon Borglum's father, a wood-carver born in Denmark, immigrated to Salt Lake City, Utah, in 1864 after converting to Mormonism. He then studied medicine and set up practice in Nebraska. Borglum was brought up in a rural environment and planned to spend his life overseeing his father's ranch. Solon's older brother, Gutzon, who had studied in California and in Paris and was becoming established as a sculptor and painter, encouraged Solon to take up art. By 1893 Solon was in California studying with his brother but was soon spending time in the Sierra Madre Mountains painting among the Indians. He then went to Cincinnati in 1895 for two years of study at the Cincinnati Academy of Art under Louis T. Rebisso. The proceeds from a successful exhibition of his work enabled him to travel to Paris, where he met Augustus Saint-Gaudens, took a studio with Alphaeus P. Cole, and attended the Académie Julian. His sculptures Lassoing Wild Horses (1898, Art Institute of Chicago) and Winter (1898, National Cowboy Hall of Fame and Western Heritage Center, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma), shown in the Paris Salon of 1898, won wide acclaim. Borglum met Emma Vignal, daughter of a Protestant minister, in Paris; they married in 1898 and honeymooned in the United States the following year.
Borglum and his wife returned to Paris in 1900 for the Exposition Universelle, at which Borglum exhibited his Stampede of Wild Horses in the American Pavilion. Returning to America soon after, he enjoyed a series of successful exhibitions and major commissions for public sculptures.
In 1907 the Borglums settled in Silvermine, Connecticut, which became an artists' colony under his leadership. The community of artists initially called themselves the Knockers Club and met every Sunday morning in Borglum's studio to plan exhibitions of their works, among other things. (They did not reconstitute themselves as the Silvermine Guild of Artists until after the sculptor's death.)
Although Borglum was chiefly recognized for sculptures of Native Americans, his 1914 commission to create five colossal busts of Confederate generals for the Vicksburg National Military Park in Mississippi was probably his major undertaking.
Borglum was in France during World War I, serving as secretary of the YMCA. He then taught sculpture at the A.E.F. Art Training Center in Bellevue, outside Paris. He was so taken with teaching that when he returned to the United States he began his own School of American Sculpture in New York, using his book Sound Construction (1923) as a teaching aid. His relatively early death was due to the residual effects of wartime wounds.
Borglum and his wife returned to Paris in 1900 for the Exposition Universelle, at which Borglum exhibited his Stampede of Wild Horses in the American Pavilion. Returning to America soon after, he enjoyed a series of successful exhibitions and major commissions for public sculptures.
In 1907 the Borglums settled in Silvermine, Connecticut, which became an artists' colony under his leadership. The community of artists initially called themselves the Knockers Club and met every Sunday morning in Borglum's studio to plan exhibitions of their works, among other things. (They did not reconstitute themselves as the Silvermine Guild of Artists until after the sculptor's death.)
Although Borglum was chiefly recognized for sculptures of Native Americans, his 1914 commission to create five colossal busts of Confederate generals for the Vicksburg National Military Park in Mississippi was probably his major undertaking.
Borglum was in France during World War I, serving as secretary of the YMCA. He then taught sculpture at the A.E.F. Art Training Center in Bellevue, outside Paris. He was so taken with teaching that when he returned to the United States he began his own School of American Sculpture in New York, using his book Sound Construction (1923) as a teaching aid. His relatively early death was due to the residual effects of wartime wounds.
