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Title:	Monuments and Myths: The America of Sculptors Augustus Saint-Gaudens and Daniel Chester French
Date:	6/29/2024 - 1/5/2025
Address:	James A. Michener Art Museum, 138 S. Pine Street, Doylestown, PA 18901
Location:	Doylestown, PA
Hours:	10:00am - 5:00pm
Cost/Cover:	free - $15
Web Page:	https://www.michenerartmuseum.org/mam_exhibitions/monuments- ...
Contact Info:	215.340.9800

Details:

Augustus Saint-Gaudens (1848–1907) and Daniel Chester French (1850–1931) were the preeminent American sculptors of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. As friendly rivals, they transformed sculpture in the United States, producing some of the country’s most recognizable public artworks, including French’s Seated Abraham Lincoln in the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. and Saint-Gaudens’s Diana, which graced the top of Madison Square Garden in New York. With an aesthetic of remarkable formal elegance, Gaudens and French created a picture of national ambition rooted in conceptions of liberty, grandeur, and common cause.?These narratives of an ascendant America, however, reflect only a partial vision of the nation. Rife with the potential for multiple meanings and contested histories, the artworks in this exhibition encourage us to question the stories that public art tells and to explore what—and whose—histories remain hidden from view.? Drawn primarily from the collections of the artists’ historic homes and studios, Monuments and Myths is the first exhibition to bring together Saint-Gaudens and French in this way, probing their intersecting biographies and examining the affinities that made both of them leaders in their field. As we collectively refocus our attention on the role and meaning of historic monuments, it is a timely moment to ponder the continuing power of these artists’ sculptures and to examine how it has shaped—and continues to inform—our understanding of America.?