Roundtable

Second Annual Daniel Chester French Lecture: The Female Form Revealed

Thursday, September 15
6:00 PM
        
Daniel Chester French (1850-1931) was America’s foremost sculptor of public monuments from the late 1870s to the late 1920s. Many of these works commemorate historical figures and range from his heroic allegories such as The Minute Man of 1875 in Concord, Massachusetts, to grand-manner portraits, such as the colossal Abraham Lincoln that French executed in 1922 for the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC. His fame for these male-oriented masterpieces is well deserved, but in fact French was equally proficient at modeling the female figure, especially in its classicizing, idealized form.    
   Dr. David Dearinger, Director of Exhibitions and Susan Morse Hilles Senior Curator of Paintings & Sculpture at the Boston Athenaeum, will introduce a number of French’s masterpieces of sculpture idealizing the female form and investigate the stylistic and iconographic devices that he used to make them effective and memorable works of art.

Refreshments will be available in the Grand Gallery prior to the lecture from 5:00-6:00 pm.

This lecture is presented in conjunction with Chesterwood, the former summer home, studio and gardens of Daniel Chester French, in Stockbridge, MA. This historic site is owned and operated by the National Trust for Historic Preservation.