Bashford dean biography of martin

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Daniel Chester French attained prominence as the leading American monumental sculptor of the early twentieth century. Born in Exeter, New Hampshire, he spent his youth in Cambridge and Amherst, Massachusetts, before moving with his family to Concord in 1867. That fall he entered the Massachusetts Institute of Technology but withdrew after two semesters. French began his first serious study of sculpture during the winter of 1868–69, receiving modeling supplies and lessons from Abigail May Alcott. His brief formal art training consisted of a month-long apprenticeship with John Quincy Adams Ward in 1870, supplemented by evening drawing classes at the National Academy of Design. In Boston, during the winters of 1871 and 1872, French attended anatomy lectures given by William Rimmer and took drawing lessons from William Morris Hunt.

Between 1870 and 1874, French executed twenty-five decorative statuettes in plaster; some, such as Joe’s Farewell (), were reproduced in parian. French’s first foray into public art came in 1873, when his hometown of Concord, through the auspices of family friend Ralph Waldo Emerson, commissioned The Minute Man (1871–75; Minuteman National Historic Park) to commemorate the centennial of the Battle of Concord. Although the full-size bronze respond

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