Chesterwood

ABOUT

Chesterwood is the historic home, studio, and gardens of America’s foremost public monuments sculptor, Daniel Chester French, best known for his Minute Man, in Concord, MA, and the Abraham Lincoln for the Lincoln Memorial, in Washington, DC. Informative guided tours as well as open touring hours take visitors through the buildings and grounds to learn about French’s life and work. On view are hundreds of French’s preliminary plaster maquettes and working models, along with finished works in bronze and marble; the final plaster model for the seated Abraham Lincoln is the focal point in the Studio. Visitors will also see antique furniture, paintings, and decorative objects in the elegant, Gilded-age family Residence, and are encouraged to explore the formal gardens, woodland trails, and to enjoy a breathtaking mountain view from Studio piazza.

SPECIAL RESOURCES

_{Daniel Chester French at work on the clay model of Ambrose Swasey, 1922. Photogarph courtesy of Chapin Library, Williams College, Gift of the National Trust for Historic Preservation/Chesterwood.}

“. . . I hope you will come to ‘Chesterwood’ and rest. It is as beautiful as fairy-land here now, the hemlocks are decorating themselves with their light-green tassels, the laurel is beginning to blossom and the peonies are a glory in the garden. I go about in an ecstasy of delight over the loveliness of things.”

— Daniel Chester French to Newton Mackintosh, June 13, 1911

“One day, when I was at work in the little studio in the field at Glendale he [Daniel Chester French] came in . . . and said ‘Make the concaves bigger’ – ‘Write it large on the wall!” That moment I think I saw real sculpture for the first time.”

— Evelyn Beatrice Longman, undated letter to Margaret French Cresson

_{Evelyn Beatrice Longman. Photograph courtesy of Chesterwood.}

“I began my own study of sculpture with my father in his studio. . . I cared only about doing portraits. People’s faces always fascinated me. So, while my father was working on his Lincoln, for instance, I would be struggling in a corner with some long-suffering model gracing the stand in front of me.”

— Margaret French Cresson

Daniel Chester French (1850–1931)

Born in Exeter, NH, Daniel Chester French also lived in Concord, MA, where he took art lessons with May Alcott. In 1873 he received his first commission: the Minute Man for Concord. Before its dedication, he left for Florence, Italy, to work in the studio of American sculptor Thomas Ball. Upon his return, French joined his family in Washington and commenced a series of government commissions, thanks to his father, Assistant Treasury Secretary.

In 1888, French married his cousin Mary Adams French and moved to NYC; after 1896 they summered at Chesterwood. French’s successful career included commissions for portraits, allegorical groups for Beaux-arts buildings, monuments, and memorials. In 1914, he received the most important commission of his career: a figure of Abraham Lincoln for the Lincoln Memorial. French continued to sculpt until his death, still at work on the marble Andromeda. He is buried in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery in Concord.

Evelyn Beatrice Longman (1874–1954)

Evelyn Beatrice Longman was French’s only female assistant. The two artists formed a strong professional relationship: they collaborated on works, French recommended Longman for commissions, and they provided each other with support and criticism. Longman was a close friend of the family and was married at Chesterwood in 1920. The Chesterwood collection includes two portraits by Longman of French’s daughter Margaret.

Margaret French Cresson (1889–1973)

Margaret French Cresson grew up in NYC and at Chesterwood, where her father often used her as a model. As a young adult, she was at the center of the Stockbridge social scene, and hosted many parties in the Studio. She married William Penn Cresson in 1921. She attended art school in New York and took sculpture lessons with her father, showing a talent for portraiture. Upon inheriting Chesterwood in 1939, Margaret continued her sculpture career while also devoting the rest of her life to preserving Chesterwood and honoring her father’s legacy.

_{Studio interior at Chesterwood with 6-foot Lincoln model. Photograph by Gregory Cherin, courtesy of Chesterwood.}

_{Margaret French Cresson at work on a clay bas-relief in the Chesterwood studio, September 1933. Photograph Courtesy of Chesterwood.}

LEARN MORE

For French, there was no place lovelier than Chesterwood, his “heaven.” Having visited his friend and colleague Augustus Saint-Gaudens in Cornish, NH, in the early 1890s, French was eager to establish a country studio in which to work and escape the stresses of the city. In 1896 he purchased the former Warner Farm in the Glendale section of Stockbridge and asked his friend, architect Henry Bacon to design a Studio and Residence to replace the existing farmhouse.

For thirty-five years, the Frenches spent winters in New York and summers at Chesterwood, where the sculptor spent long hours in the studio. He also found time for long walks in the woods and tending to his vegetable gardens and grape vines. Family and friends visited “Hotel Chesterwood” all season long, and Mary French hosted Friday teas on the Studio piazza. Daughter Margaret often had a houseful of guests, and they filled summer days with games of tennis, dinner parties, and dancing in the Studio garden.

All three family members were active in the Stockbridge community, volunteering for committees and taking part in the activities of the town. French sat on the committee for the annual Stockbridge Exhibition of Painting and Sculpture, and both he and Margaret exhibited their works frequently. French would open his Studio to the community, inviting them to examine his most recent works.

He labored on many of his most important commissions at Chesterwood: the seated Abraham Lincoln (Lincoln Memorial, Washington, DC), The Spirit of Life (Spencer Trask Memorial, Saratoga Springs, NY), Mourning Victory (Melvin Memorial, Concord, MA), the Four Continents and the Manhattan Bridge Groups (NYC).

The Studio features a large, skylit workroom, a reception room for entertaining, and a south-facing piazza with a view of Monument Mountain. Today, the studio contains sculpture, plaster casts, and working models that document French’s creativity and prolific output.

After French’s death in 1931, his daughter Margaret French Cresson worked tirelessly to preserve the Studio, amass a collection of his maquettes and models, and write a biography, Journey Into Fame. In 1969 she donated much of Chesterwood to the National Trust for Historic Preservation. Upon her death in 1973, the entire property came to the Trust. The preservation of the Studio, gardens, and Residence enables visitors to imagine how French and his family spent their time at Chesterwood: sculpting and entertaining, enjoying life and nature, and the “loveliness of things.”

IN COLLABORATION WITH THE NATIONAL TRUST