Last chance to see traveling exhibition Monuments & Myths


Studio interior at Chesterwood with Lincoln and Andromeda. Photograph by Gregory Cherin, courtesy of Chesterwood.
Interior of the Little Studio with Diana at Saint-Gaudens National Historical Park. Courtesy NPS.

Monuments and Myths: The America of Sculptors Augustus Saint-Gaudens and Daniel Chester French is the first exhibition to examine the intersecting significance of the two foremost American sculptors of the Gilded Age. French (1850–1931) and Saint-Gaudens (1848–1907) were friendly rivals who transformed sculpture in the United States, producing dozens of the nation’s most recognizable public artworks—from Saint-Gaudens’s Diana atop New York City’s Madison Square Garden to French’s Seated Abraham Lincoln in the Lincoln Memorial, Washington, DC. Drawing upon the collections of the artists’ historic homes, Chesterwood and the Saint-Gaudens National Historical Park, the project includes approximately seventy sculptures, models, maquettes, and more. Introducing audiences to the sculptors’ careers, the exhibition examines how their art shaped and reflected America’s complicated negotiation of national identity in the years between the Civil War and the Great Depression.