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
Oddly enough, this group came back into public view in 1946 in an art
dealer’s window in Fifty-seventh Street, New York City. It was found to
have been purchased by a Philadelphian at an auction sale of the effects
of “Diamond Jim Brady.” A copy made from this is now in the Witte Art
Museum, San Antonio, Texas.
All in all, in 1900 Gutzon Borglum was one of the most popular artists
in England. He lived in a comfortable villa, he had plentiful work, and
what he did was enthusiastically received. And mental dejection did not
keep him from having a rather full and varied social life.
In a letter to Mrs. Frémont he mentioned meeting a Madame Helen Bricka,
who brought his work to the attention of the Duke and Duchess of Teck of
whose household she was a member. Gutzon visited the Duke and Duchess
and so met, and threw into the air, a little boy who grew up to be the
Duke of Windsor and, for a time, the King of England.
Through Madame Bricka he was summoned by Queen Victoria to bring his
work, both painting and sculpture, to Windsor Castle for an exhibition.
But for a young man born on the shore of Bear Lake, Idaho, the
invitation was not clear enough. One may be permitted a bit of
speculation as to what might have happened if he had caught the
meaning--if he had paraded with his work under royal patronage before
the aristocracy of Great Britain. But it is futile thought. He sent his
art to Windsor for an exhibition, but he never met the queen. It never
occurred to him that a queen might want to see him.
He had a very successful one-man show at Macmillan’s in Bond Street,
and he made many friends in England and France, some of them American
artists. Some of these appeared later in his life and in his
correspondence in the United States. One of them was Carl Sobieski,
descendant of the famous Polish general. Another, who noted his
experience entertainingly, was the writer R. M. Eassie. He told Gutzon
of hearing of his connection with the Angels of St. John the Divine, in
the heart of Africa, thirty-five miles from the nearest whites.
One of Gutzon’s last entries in his London journal tells of a party in
1901 at his home, “Harlestone Villa,” in St. John’s Wood. It is worth
mentioning in that it honored Isadora Duncan and marked her debut as a
dancer.
Gutzon had known the Duncans in California. Isadora’s father had
recently been in London and was on his way back to America when his
ship, the _Mohegan_ foundered off the Irish coast. The sculptor had gone
from England to take charge of Duncan’s body and to see that he was
properly buried.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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