CHAPTER EIGHT

_VARIETY OF LIFE IN A STUDIO_

Gutzon’s first studio in New York was originally a barn that extended across the rear of some ancient brownstone-front houses in Thirty-eighth Street near Third Avenue. He transformed it into one large room with a high skylight and a narrow balcony across the end opposite the entrance. Under this, behind the spiral stairway, was a dressing room, then a door leading to a little fountain and a storage place for clay and coal, and finally an inglenook with built-in seats on both sides of the fireplace and shelves above them for books and bric-a-brac.

To enter the studio you passed through a green door opening from Thirty-eighth Street, along the old driveway bordered by geraniums to the proper entrance which led into a small anteroom. On the street door was a sign gruffly announcing that visitors were received “By appointment only.” But it was easy to get to the anteroom; and no matter how hard a secretary might try to carry out orders, Gutzon would certainly call out a welcome to anybody who owned a voice he recognized. His studio was only a step from Grand Central Station; so many of his friends dropped in just to watch him work. And because he had decided to love all mankind and knew that many of these people had come from a long distance, he would never let them be turned away.

There was always something going on in this place until the day he moved to Stamford--politics, social reform, park improvements, drama, and sometimes sculpture. And in the background was a phalanx of New York’s clever people, studio helpers, secretaries, models, friends and acquaintances. They flowed in and out at all hours of the day and night, and there seemed never to be any end to them.

Among his early helpers were Marian Bell, daughter of the inventor of the telephone, and her friend Alice Hill of Washington. Gutzon probably enjoyed making the pair of them sweep up the studio and mix clay. Once he made them dye untold yards of muslin until their hands were completely discolored. Art was difficult, he told them, because it was made up of so many different, disagreeable things. But, somehow, they liked his instructions, and they looked on the studio as a second home. Alice was married there to Frank Harris, a musician and inventor of an electronic pickup system to transmit music over the telephone. It was demonstrated successfully before an audience in the American Museum of Natural History in New York.

Other helpers developed into sculptors with independent studios of their own. Among them were George Lober of New York; Merrill (“Bud”) Gage of Santa Monica, California; “Bob” Garrison of Denver and New York; M. F. Malin of Salt Lake City; and William Tolentino of the Philippine Islands. Tolentino had been recommended by Mrs. Woodrow Wilson.

Malvina Hoffman, though never a studio helper, was a familiar practitioner in it and often a guest of the Borglums. Gutzon gave her occasional technical advice, beginning with her first attempt at carving. She had modeled a head of her father on the end of a piece of lead pipe with no proper armature, and was copying it in marble. Another New York sculptress, Ethel Hood, whom he met later, impressed him so much that he invited her to work with him in the Black Hills, but by that time she was too busy in the East.

Perhaps the most indispensable worker and helper was Robert (“Bob”) A. Baillie of Closter, New Jersey. Gutzon repeatedly called him “the best marble carver in the United States.” He started in the Thirty-eighth Street studio to work on the carving of figures for the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, and remained there steadily for ten years. When Gutzon began to be called away more and more from New York on distant commissions Baillie’s work for other sculptors increased, and in time he was one of the most sought-after assistants in New York.

The models, too, were interesting, but only a few are remembered now. There was a man with a white beard who had posed for many sculptors, including Mr. Barnard. There was Lord Methuen’s former valet who had lost the weekly payroll while returning from the bank. Best of all was sweet, gentle Julia Percy, who posed for some of Gutzon’s best marbles.

She married a sculptor who had worked in the studio and went with him to California. Unfortunately the marriage was not happy and ended in divorce. Long afterward, in 1947, she wrote a few recollections of her life in the studio:

During my youth while working as a model for Mr. Borglum, his talks to students talented enough to be invited to the studio were always of a constructive nature. He gave advice as to their outlook on life and conduct of living. The younger ones were told that they could set an example in their schools and be a help at home. His reverence and respect for womanhood were well known by all who were acquainted with him.

Talent and sincerity were what he looked for. He had no use for plagiarists--“cribbers,” he called them--especially in the field of architecture. He had a keen sense of humor and many a laugh we all had at the way he would tell of an amusing incident he had seen. One of his sayings when referring to someone who lacked initiative was, “You can’t pick up custard with a hook.” He also could tell a man’s character by a look at his clothes. If worn for any length of time, he said, they seem to take on the lines of the body.

When making a statue or a portrait bust in marble, he would first model it in clay from life. Then a plaster cast from the clay figure was made by the studio help. The stone cutter used the plaster figures to measure from and, with the aid of a pointing machine (with three points), he would cut the stone to within an inch of the finished surface in some parts. Then Mr. Borglum would take over, working with mallet and chisel direct from the model upon the marble. If a defect in the marble showed up (which in my experience occurred only in the cream-colored Maryland marble), he would cut deeper and set the whole figure back or change the pose slightly to escape the flaw.

To do the finishing he used fine tools and sandpaper, every now and then wetting the marble with a sponge to help bring out the lifelike effect he was striving for. His high ideals inspired me to do my best to express in the pose the spirit of the idea he was portraying in the marble. I consider it an honor and a great privilege to have worked for him.

An entertaining character who worked in the studio and slept there was a Japanese called “Humbo” by the others; and there was another student from Japan, scholarly Takamura, who was admitted by an introduction from Daniel Chester French and a somewhat exceptional letter written by himself. This notice had begun:

If you will not take me, I must greatly disappoint myself. I must have no work, no study, no hope, no pleasure. My coming to this country must end by all in vain. Please, please let me have your favor, just like Mr. Honpo. I do not care much of money. I shall be quite satisfied with only a little, if you could. I will do anything you order. Pray accept my request, sympathising with a lonely little soul from a far country over the sea.

Other models included young Lieutenant Phil Sheridan, who spent many hours posing for the equestrian statue of his father in Washington. Among the horses were Smoke, a Virginia hunter, and Halool, a thoroughbred Arab imported by Walter Davenport, the cartoonist. These horses wandered about the studio on the days they were needed, and were perfectly gentle. They were kept at a riding academy in the park where Gutzon occasionally rode bareback with a group of army men.

Edith Wynne Matthison, the actress and a dear friend, posed for the heroic-sized figure called “Rabboni” in Rock Creek Cemetery at Washington. That figure is in startling contrast to the beautiful, brooding figure of the Adams Memorial by Augustus Saint-Gaudens in the same place. The “Rabboni” expresses joy and hope, while the other is complete negation. Still others who came to pose were the Mortimer Schiff children of whom the sculptor made a portrait relief to accompany the portrait of the Jacob Schiff children made in the previous generation by Saint-Gaudens.

One of the sculptor’s most revered friends was John S. Clark, much older than himself, who came all too seldom from Boston. He was engaged in writing a life of John Fiske, the historian, and took a great interest in the sculptor’s work. He liked most of all the marble figures of “Conception,” “Motherhood” and “Martyr,” which he spoke of as a trilogy. In a letter written in 1907 Clark makes this interesting comparison of literary and sculptural work:

I daily realize that I am engaged in a task not unlike several you have in hand. I have really to create an imaginary portrait of a great man with mere words. My task is to create so distinct an image that it can be realized by the imagination as a truthful representation of the real man. In the process of work I have to employ many of your methods for producing effects, and I can see more clearly than ever before how widely different is genuine artistic work from imitative work of literal reproduction.

Whether you come to Boston or not, know this--that you stand in my heart as one of my dearest friends and that there is no success or honor that comes to you that does not warm the “cockles of my heart” to a ruddy glow.

In those early days in New York, before Gutzon became involved in many big public memorials, he had more time to express his creative fancies or “pipe dreams” in marble. A larger than life-size nude figure of a woman which he called “Conception” or “Inspiration” caused some stir and was considered too daring in certain circles. To him it represented the holiness of creation, and his small marble called “Wonderment of Motherhood” was produced in the same reverent, humble spirit.

A second marble figure symbolic of motherhood represented a woman on her knees, holding up her infant child in her arms as if offering it on an altar. This was a step toward his marble “Atlas,” a female figure on her knees, about four feet high, holding a globe representing the world in her arms, lifting it up to God instead of balancing it on her back as in the old mythology. Of his “Conception,” which with other of his works was exhibited at Columbia University, George Luks, the painter, said:

Here in all the sublimity of majesty we see the symbolism of life, the symbolism of love, affection, devotion and piety. Like the chrysalis that liberates the butterfly, we see the soul that hovers above this classic piece of marble. We seem to feel the same thrill as we watch the distended lips that drink the breath of life. We wonder. There is something in this appealing countenance that strikes us with peculiar awe. We see a soul rising above passion. We feel the same admiration that we do for a flower that forces itself up through the muddy soil into a new life and light--a sort of emancipation. We see the early morning sun break through the skies of splendor, the unfolding of the rose, the _Wille zum Guten_, the revelation.

The group called “I Have Piped and Ye Have Not Danced” was produced in the studio at about this time, but never during his life got out of the plaster stage because Gutzon could never afford a large enough piece of marble when he had the time to carve it. The thought of it had been in his mind a long time. The initial idea, he said, had come to him at a concert where Ysaye, the violinist, had been playing. The way the women stood up at the end of the concert, arranging their furs and chattering about where they were going next made him feel that the music had passed completely over them, leaving no impression. He exhibited the female figure alone as a pastel sketch in Boston in 1901, where it elicited the following description of the group from Lillian Whiting, poet and art critic:

It is the ideal figure of a girl, her hands thrown up and clasped to the right, the head turned a little to one side, and the countenance bearing the most inscrutable expression. She has been piping to Pan, who lies at her feet unmoved, unrecognizing, until she drops the pipes and the melody ceases. Then he is aroused and turns to see why the music is heard no more. It is one of the most typical interpretations of life. The artist paints his ideal vision. The poet offers his dream. The musician sings his song. And the world goes on, careless, unheeding. At last, saddened and spent for want of that sympathy which should have made life all joy and ecstasy, the painter turns his canvas to the wall. The poet drops his pen. The song of the singer is heard no more, and the world turns to ask the meaning of this silence.

Since Borglum’s death the figure has been carved in marble and is in California.

In the meantime a very large “pipe dream,” something made for his own pleasure, the sculptor said, was gradually taking shape in his New York studio. His love for horses and the exceptional opportunity for studying their movements at the Baldwin ranch in California were still bright in his mind. They always were. He said once that he never saw a horse anywhere that he didn’t study it and learn something new.

In his studies for the Grant competition he had become acquainted with army equipment, and he later began a group of artillery horses with their trappings. Because such externals were bothersome to his composition, he abandoned them and concentrated on horses alone, adding the figure of an Indian for interest. He was familiar with the ways of those expert riders--how a man could decoy horses out of a corral and by riding around and around them until they followed his mount could lead a dash into the open. That was the moment chosen by the sculptor for his group--five wild horses in full gallop.

The group was cast in bronze by the Gorham Company and exhibited in their window on Fifth Avenue. Not only because the action of those horses was very lifelike but because the plan was wholly American in both subject and design, it attracted instant attention and was purchased by James Stillman and presented to the Metropolitan Museum. It happened that Sir Purdon Clarke, an Englishman, was director of that institution at the time.

For a long time it stood in the entrance hall and was almost the first thing that caught the eye of the visitor. Near it was Rodin’s “Age of Bronze,” a slight figure which was one of Gutzon’s favorites. School children, who were taken on regular tours through the museum, used to vote the horses as their favorite exhibit. The name “Mares of Diomedes” was given to the group by some classical scholar who recalled the story of Hercules and the wild horses of King Diomedes. The sculptor never cared much for the name; it harked back too loudly to outworn mythology.

More and more Gutzon’s sense of the bigness of America, of her value to the world, of the importance of her heroes, was growing upon him. He had bought a large block of marble and one day began to carve the head of Abraham Lincoln--his first experiment in colossal sculpture. He worked on it for weeks until it became a perfect likeness of the man, but still he worked while watchers feared that one more stroke of the chisel might ruin the whole work. And then a miracle happened. Suddenly a real character seemed to look out from the carved features. The face became inhabited.

A colored woman, whose duty it was to sweep the studio and to whom that huge block of marble had always been a nuisance because she couldn’t push it around, at last raised her eyes from the floor and exclaimed in astonishment: “How’s Mista Bo’glum know ol’ Abe was in dat rock?”

The head was taken over to Gorham’s and exhibited in their window. Robert Lincoln, son of Abraham Lincoln, happened along and he also exclaimed in astonishment, “I never expected to see Father again.” Later he wrote that he considered it the best likeness of his father that he had ever seen. Truman Bartlett, who had made a study of all the known portraits of Lincoln, went farther, saying there had not yet been sculptured a head of Lincoln that could compare with it.

It was the centenary of Lincoln’s birth, and Gutzon, as a matter of sentiment, asked President Theodore Roosevelt if he would let the head stand in the President’s room at the White House during Lincoln’s birthday. Roosevelt welcomed it and after it had gone back to New York wrote to inquire what had become of it. He said he wished it could be kept in Washington permanently.

The letter was brought to the attention of Eugene Meyer, Jr., who bought the colossal head and presented it to the nation. Congress, in accepting the gift, specified that it should be placed in the rotunda of the Capitol, never to be removed. As a demand for replicas began to be heard, the superintendent of the Capitol grounds allowed the sculptor to make a copy of it in plaster. Bronze duplicates of it are now at Lincoln’s tomb in Springfield, Illinois, in the Hall of Fame in New York, in the University of Southern California and in the collection of the Chicago Historical Society. The sculptor made another head for himself, which is now at the Detroit Museum of Art.

The carving of this head in marble, done as a labor of love, had far-reaching consequences. It brought to Gutzon friends and admirers. It led, undoubtedly, to his making the seated figure of Lincoln in front of the courthouse in Newark and finally to the carvings at Stone Mountain and Mount Rushmore.