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Augustus Saint-Gaudens: Fraser Medallion Fetes Genius, Pays Tribute to His Mentor

For collectors, the name Augustus Saint-Gaudens conjures up the exquisite gold coins he designed and his key role in shepherding through a coinage renaissance in U.S. early in this century. His eagle and double eagle are certainly among the most beautiful modern coins of any nation.

To his contemporaries, however, Saint-Gaudens was better known for his dozens of superb monumental sculptures which ushered in the Beaux-Arts movement in the United States. Among historical memorials, his two statues of Abraham Lincoln in Chicago parks and his Robert Gould Shaw memorial on Beacon Hill in Boston are particularly moving.

Saint-Gaudens was unsurpassed as the master of Civil War memorials. His most famous monument is his equestrian William Tecumseh Sherman in New York City’s Grand Army Plaza. Completed while the sculptor was in Paris, the work was awarded a grand prize at the Paris Exposition of 1900.

It was also awarded a gold Medal of Honor the following year at the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, N.Y., before it was situated at the southeast corner of Central Park in 1903. Collectors may recall that in this memorial Sherman is led by a striding, diademed Liberty, which Saint-Gaudens soon adapted for his beautiful gold coins.

Saint-Gaudens was also a renowned medalist, so it is fitting that one of his foremost students should be given the opportunity to execute a medal honoring the master’s achievement. It was also highly fitting that the student, James Earle Fraser, had assisted Saint-Gaudens in finalizing the Sherman sculpture for which he was being honored.

Fraser, of course, is justifiably renowned for his Indian Head/Bison five cent coin, yet many art historians also consider James Earle Fraser the greatest American sculptor of medals. Certainly his “monuments in miniature” stand him in the front ranks of that art form. Yet as Fraser matured as an artist, he too ventured far from these tiny classics becoming a stellar creator of monuments and architectural figures himself.

In retrospect, then, the medals of James Earle Fraser are not his principal artistic legacy. Yet they are an interesting blend of American nationalism and European Renaissance traditions, and withal they are also very good.

Although the medal he created to honor his mentor Augustus Saint-Gaudens is was one of Fraser’s earliest, it remains one of the principal achievements of his medallic art. Fraser was an excellent choice to produce this medal. Not only did he prove to be an accomplished master of the medium, but he was closely associated with Saint-Gaudens and perhaps his most capable protégé.

Fraser had come under the tutelage of the great sculptor while he was studying abroad. While attending the Academie des Beaux-Arts and the Academies Julian and Colarossi in Paris, Fraser received the John Wanamaker $1,000 first prize from the American Art Association in Paris at its salon show of 1897-98. This accolade acknowledged Fraser’s three exhibits at the show: an early model for his “End of the Trail,” a portrait bust and a medal design.

Fraser’s success drew the attention of Saint-Gaudens, one of the competition’s judges. The elder sculptor invited the promising art student to apprentice in his studio, and Fraser worked with the great sculptor in Paris from 1898 to 1900.

Following Saint-Gaudens’ great success at the Paris world’s fair, the young sculptor returned to the U.S. with his mentor to assist the great artist at his New Hampshire studio for another two years. As his chief assistant, Fraser helped the master execute the great golden ornament of General Sherman and Liberty, which adorns the southeast corner of Central Park at Fifth Avenue and 59th Street in New York City.

As a medalist Saint-Gaudens was an advocate for the Renaissance style of Benevenuto Cellini and Antonio Pisanello. Although their imagery was frequently derived from Greek mythology their humanistic Renaissance tradition stressed realistic depictions rather than ideal representations of human subjects. Medal obverses typically featured large bust portraits surrounded by simple lettering occupying the entire surface. Medallic legends extended out to the edge, and the medals had no borders or rims. Medal reverses referred symbolically to the meaning or significance of the person or event commemorated.

Of the many students who were protégés of Saint-Gaudens, Fraser and John Flanagan were to become the most talented medalists. Each achieved the perfect synthesis of the ideal, the real and the traditional in medallic design, according to art historians. Both were prolific, and some today confuse Flanagan’s monogram “JF” for Fraser’s monogram “JEF.”

It is fitting that James Earle Fraser’s first important medallic commission would be to honor his mentor. While still working with Saint-Gaudens at his New Hampshire studio, Fraser was invited by commissioners of Buffalo, New York’s Pan-American Exposition to produce a special Medal of Honor to recognize the life and works of his mentor. This came at the time when “Fraser was closely associated with him, and thus could probably interpret him better than anyone else,” XXX McSpadden wrote.

In 1902 Fraser established a studio of his own at 3 MacDougal Alley, a cul-de-sac in New York City’s Greenwich Village. He renovated a former carriage house as an apartment studio, and soon other artists move to the area. Fraser’s studio later became the site of the Jumble Shop, a meeting place for the next generation of artists.

As an independent artist, Fraser was successful from the start. He set out to create “powerful figures in the nude,” but by chance also turned out a bas relief portrait of a friend’s child. His style was in perfect harmony with the public taste of his times, according to art historian Patricia Janis Broder.

One of his first important private commissions was a large medallion of Horatio Hathaway Brewster, the young son of prominent industrialist Hathaway Brewster. Fraser captured a remarkable likenesses and when he exhibited the medallion at the National Academy Exhibition at the National Gallery in Washington D. C. in 1902 he received much recognition.

From this favorable notice additional patronage flowed to the young sculptor. “From that time [Fraser] was never without a portrait commission, until he turned to large public commissions,” according to Martin H. Bush. “Suddenly I was overcome with requests for portraits,” Fraser later recalled. “I haven’t been able to avoid a commission since.” In the next half dozen years Fraser created a dozen more important portrait reliefs.

Fraser also commenced with heroic statues and displayed two monumental sculptures at the 1904 St. Louis Worlds Fair. His seated statue of Thomas Jefferson and equestrian statue of a Cheyenne Warrior captured Fraser a gold medal for his work.

In 1904 Fraser won an open design competition for another important medallic commission. The American Institute of Electrical Engineers desired an award medal commemorating Thomas Alva Edison. On Nov. 11, 1904, he was informed by Saint-Gaudens that he was the unanimous selection of a National Sculpture Society jury in an open competition to do the Edison medal. Saint-Gaudens told his former student how pleased he was with Fraser’s selection, and asked Fraser to provide several sketches of his ideas for approval. “I know you will do a good thing,” Saint-Gaudens wrote.

Although Fraser was enthusiastic about the Saint-Gaudens medal, the completed work would take most of a decade. Fraser determined to honor his teacher in the finest Italian Renaissance style. His original plastilene model for the obverse depicted the bearded sculptor nearly life size.

While the work was in progress, Fraser wrote to Saint-Gaudens: “Nothing has ever given me more pleasure than your words of praise in regard to the medal which I am doing for you. Not only because I am glad that it is good artistically, but because it pleases you.”

According to the April, 1910 (1907?) “Century” magazine, the medal “was made from sitting given in Cornish in 1906.” A delightful sketch Fraser made for this portrait is in the collection of the National Cowboy Hall of Fame and Western Heritage Center, and is reproduced with this article.

Apparently the crush of other work and Fraser’s desire to turn out a perfect job put completion of the Saint-Gaudens medal in the “slow lane.” In 1906 the Electrical Engineers medal was awarded to Elihu Thompson for merit in electrical research. The medal was received with great acclaim.

In 1906 Fraser became an instructor at the New York Art Students League, following in the footsteps of Saint-Gaudens there. The busy Fraser was also a visiting teacher in Buffalo New York. In his off hours Fraser was busy in his studio on his own work. An article in the October 1906 issue of the “Craftsman” paints a picture of a maelstrom of activity going on in the converted stable on MacDougal Alley. Fraser was actively producing portraits and busts. He also turned out a number of medals during this period, of which unfortunately little is known.

In between all these activities he continued his work on the Saint-Gaudens medal. Although commissioned in 1901, production of this medal was much delayed. The present writer has not found any other reviewer who acknowledges this time lapse, but patient examination of contemporary periodicals reporting on the progress of this medal indicates that to be the case.

Some of the delay arose from Saint-Gaudens’ poor health. Complications also arose when Fraser moved from Saint-Gaudens’ studio in Cornish, NH to New York City shortly after receiving the commission. Almost immediately, Fraser became extremely busy with other commissions, while the Saint-Gaudens medal proceeded at a more leisurely pace.

Fraser spent a great deal of time reworking this design trying to create a worthy work of art and one which Saint-Gaudens would appreciate. A plaster cast of the medal obverse in “Century” magazine for 1907 shows a slightly smaller bust without the artist’s signature which appears beneath the truncation on the finished medal. That same source shows a plaster cast of the medal reverse which also differs from the completed design. The plaster shows slight variations in the design and the signature “Fraser Fecit” is inscribed at 3 o’clock near the edge.

Accompanying the photographs, “Century” reported in 1907 that “the design for this medal has been recently completed,”: and “the medal in gold is to be four inches in diameter.” A similar article confirming this timeline appeared contemporaneously in the New York “Tribune.”

Saint-Gaudens died in 1907. Doubtless, the Master would have been pleased with the finished result. Fraser’s design elements and placement of legends are in strict accordance with the Renaissance ideals Saint-Gaudens so admired. Fraser expressed “the Renaissance spirit in modern terms, intelligently balancing the ideal [the medal’s reverse] with the real [its realistic portrayal of Saint-Gaudens],” according to the subject’s sculptor son, Homer Saint-Gaudens, writing in “Century” magazine in 1907.

The younger Saint-Gaudens wrote Fraser personally to express his appreciation for the sculptor’s efforts. “The portrait you did of my father for the medal is the only good portrait extant,” the sculptor’s son enthused.

Modern scholars have agreed unanimously with the younger Saint-Gaudens’ views. The placement of the bust and the balanced treatment of the epigraphy “are designed to recall work by the masterful medalist of the Quattrocento,” according to Cornelius Vermeule, writing in his seminal work “Numismatic Art in America.” “The design was at once dignified and appropriate, and was the means of attracting other work of the same sort,” McSpadden wrote.

Art historian XXXX Baxter concurs. His obverse is “striking . . with its noble portrait bust of the sculptor,” according to Baxter. she cites his “naturalistic treatment of the portrait of Saint-Gaudens,” which is patterned after Saint-Gaudens’ own medal for the centennial of Washington’s inauguration in 1899. Unfortunately, that critic notes, “there is nothing in Fraser’s design that marks it as specifically American.”

The bust has come in for much comment. Vermeule calls the bust a “Greco-Roman herm-bust.” “Century” magazine calls Fraser’s portrait “remarkable in representing the intensity, mastery, and sweetness of the subject.” The text also follows the Renaissance norm. Vermeule commends Fraser’s handling of the great deal of text. The epigraphy does not dwarf nor distract from the portrait bust.

The medal’s reverse has also elicited praise. Baxter refers to Fraser’s reverse featuring “a classicizing allegory of sculpture, represented by a heroic male nude holding a hammer and chisel and Pegasus, a symbol of the Muses’ inspiration.” Fraser’s use of Pegasus is a recurrent theme in many of his other artistic compositions, including the four monumental sculptures for the Arlington Memorial Bridge Plaza in Washington, D.C.

Here Fraser employs Pegasus “both for its symbolic value and for visual effect,” according to Baxter. “Century” magazine reported: “ideal composition of the reverse of the medal has a grace, force, and dignity in keeping with the art of the master to whom he was so deeply devoted.”

Later Fraser created a portrait relief of Saint-Gaudens. Later still, he sculpted the Saint-Gaudens bust for the Hall of Fame of Great Americans at New York University. The bust was unveiled by the subject’s grandchildren in 1926.

Heritage co-chairman Jim Halperin’s 182-millimeter plaster for the obverse of this medal was in the Joe Lepczyk auction of October 1980. The plaster is identical to the 102-millimeter cast gold medal that was ultimately given to Saint-Gaudens’ wife except for size, indicating that this model is among the final designs Fraser completed before the medal was cast.

Replicas in bronze, 91-millimeters in diameter, a reduction of the award medal were also made for the New York City’s Metropolitan Museum of Art and other institutions. The specimen at the Met was the gift of Mr. and Mrs. Frederick S. Wait (1909).

Fraser was extremely proud of his work on the medal. It was one of Fraser’s exhibits at the 1923 Exhibition of American Sculpture sponsored by the National Sculpture Society at Audubon Terrace in New York City. Fraser also displayed a large cast bronze uniface medallion of the medal’s obverse and a 152-mm cast bronze medallion of the medal’s reverse. He displayed two specimens of this cast medal. This was also one of the medals displayed by Fraser in summer 1932 at the Jeu de Pommes international exhibition of medals in Paris and thereafter purchased by the Louvre.

The famous sculptor, Augustus Saint-Gaudens posing
with one of his many remarkable works.