Give the man room : $b The story of Gutzon Borglum — John Shaqi
Give the man room : $b The story of Gutzon BorglumCasey, Robert J. (Robert Joseph)
General
Give the man room : $b The story of Gutzon Borglum
Casey, Robert J. (Robert Joseph)
Borglum, Gutzon, 1867-1941
The whereabouts of Murphy was never traced because his first name
apparently had been forgotten, and hundreds of Murphys passed through
St. Mary’s before it surrendered its charter and became a Jesuit
seminary sometime after the First World War. People who knew the place
in the eighties are not surprised at Gutzon’s declaration that his real
inspiration came from there. It was a small school that had grown out of
an early mission to the Potowatomi Indians, but it had few
characteristics that identify the tank-town college. Out of it in half a
century came a singular troop of famous persons, many of whom no doubt
crossed Gutzon’s path without realizing that he was a fellow alumnus.
Judges, lawyers, bishops, educators, engineers, builders, doctors,
merchants, chiefs, sailors, soldiers, politicians, inventors, musicians
and all the rest of them are included in the list. It is interesting to
note that Borglum is the institution’s only offering to sculpture.
His life at old St. Mary’s seems to have been perfectly normal. He had
several fights which he remembered ever after. He remembered, too, that
he was always in the right, which is likewise perfectly natural. His
chief exploit in fisticuffs was a wrangle with three rather hard lads in
the dining room, and there is a tradition that he won. At any rate, he
learned how to protect himself with his bare fists--a skill that he
always counted as a major asset.
He finished the academy course--the equivalent of high school--when, at
that period in the West, he was considered sufficiently adult to find a
job. Dr. James suddenly moved his family to California. Gutzon quit St.
Mary’s and went to work as a lithographer’s apprentice in Los Angeles,
and studied engraving and designing on stone. At the end of six months
he was producing work that he thought was good. That, of course, was
nothing to cause any emotional outbursts among the lithographers,
because Gutzon thought that everything he produced was good.
The young man wanted better pay, but he didn’t get it. The lithographer
said that if he stayed at his work he would someday be an experienced
hand. But Gutzon sacrificed this opportunity. He went to work for a
fresco painter, and he got more money. He rented a little studio and did
part-time work as he pleased.
On a ranch somewhere in the vicinity was Solon Borglum. Of all the
family he was closest to Gutzon because he had shown interest in art.
Gutzon eventually got him to leave the ranch and to take up the study of
painting and sculpture seriously. He contributed to Solon’s support and,
in time, to his tuition in a Cincinnati art school. But there is little
mention of this in his written record, for he was shy about such things.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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