About this item
Highlights
- The definitive biography of Daniel Chester French, the artist who created the statue for the Lincoln Memorial, John Harvard in Harvard Yard, and The Minute Man in Concord, Massachusetts.
- About the Author: Harold Holzer is Lincoln scholar and prizewinning author of numerous books on Civil War-era art and history, including Lincoln and the Power of the Press: The War for Public Opinion and Lincoln: How Abraham Lincoln Ended Slavery in America.
- 464 Pages
- Art, Individual Artists
Description
About the Book
The definitive biography of Daniel Chester French, the artist who created the statue for the Lincoln Memorial, John Harvard in Harvard Yard, and The Minute Man in Concord, Massachusetts.Book Synopsis
The definitive biography of Daniel Chester French, the artist who created the statue for the Lincoln Memorial, John Harvard in Harvard Yard, and The Minute Man in Concord, Massachusetts.
Review Quotes
[Monument Man] is a wonderful book, both an important chronicle of the moment when American sculpture reached its first maturity and a biography that brings the man, his art, and and his time vividly to life.
[An] exceptional book by Lincoln scholar Harold Holzer...[T]hirteen well-crafted chapters chronicling the long life and prolific career of Danial Chester French.
As one of the foremost living authorities on Abraham Lincoln, Harold Holzer has long straddled the crossroads of history and art with his own inimitable brand of scholarship.... This book will surely rank as the authoritative life of a man whose creations in stone and bronze have become inseparable parts of our historical memory.
From French's New England upbringing to his death at his beloved Chesterwood estate and studio...Holzer leaves no stone unturned.
It is a thing as rare as it is welcome-an authoritative book about a visual artist that is both well written and jargon free, and that seamlessly addresses a professional audience as well as the general reader. Just such a book is what the historian Harold Holzer has given us in Monument Man: The Life and Art of Daniel Chester French.
It's a conundrum: the most instantly recognizable sculpture by an American - the colossal marble "Abraham Lincoln" reigning over the Lincoln Memorial in Washington - was created by an artist few people can name. Harold Holzer's Monument Man: The Life and Art of Daniel Chester French aims to correct this art history deficit....As Holzer says, speaking of French's crowning masterpiece, the sculpture of Lincoln, "The artist, the subject, and the hour had met." The same might be said of Holzer....[His] scholarship is impeccable.
This beautifully written, impeccably researched biography does much to resuscitate French's substantial contributions to American art.
About the Author
Harold Holzer is Lincoln scholar and prizewinning author of numerous books on Civil War-era art and history, including Lincoln and the Power of the Press: The War for Public Opinion and Lincoln: How Abraham Lincoln Ended Slavery in America. Holzer appears frequently on radio and television, most recently C-SPAN and CNN and in Lincoln and Civil War documentaries for the BBC, PBS, and the History Channel--a period coincident with French's life and times. Formerly chairman of the Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Commission and Foundation, he currently serves as director of the Roosevelt House Public Policy Institute at Hunter College, City University of New York. In 2008 he was awarded the National Humanities Medal, and in 2023 the Saint-Gaudens Medal.
The National Trust for Historic Preservation protects significant places representing diverse cultural experience by taking direct action and inspiring broad public support. Its purpose is to save the places that shape the American experience, to honor personal and shared stories, and to inspire a more vibrant future. In 1969, French's daughter, Margaret French Cresson, donated Chesterwood, the former summer home, studio, and gardens of Daniel Chester French in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, to the National Trust. Monument Man was commissioned by the National Trust to celebrate and coincide with the fiftieth anniversary of Cresson's gift.
