Anna Hyatt Huntington

Anna Hyatt Huntington

Anna Hyatt Huntington
Born Anna Vaughn Hyatt
March 10, 1876
Cambridge, Massachusetts
Died October 4, 1973 (aged 97)
Redding, Connecticut
Nationality American
Education Art Students League of New York
Known for Sculpture
Awards Chevalier de la Légion d'honneur[1]

Anna Vaughn Hyatt Huntington (March 10, 1876 – October 4, 1973) was an American sculptor and was once among New York City's most prominent sculptors. At a time when very few women were successful artists, she had a thriving career. She exhibited often, traveled widely, received critical acclaim at home and abroad, and won awards and commissions. During the first two decades of the 20th century, Hyatt Huntington became famous for her animal sculptures, which combine vivid emotional depth with skillful realism. In 1915, she created the first public monument in New York City by a woman: Her Joan of Arc, located on Riverside Drive at 93rd Street, is also the city’s first monument dedicated to a historical woman.[2]

Life and career

Huntington was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Her father, Alpheus Hyatt, was a professor of paleontology and zoology at Harvard University and MIT, and served as a contributing factor to her early interest in animals and animal anatomy. Anna Hyatt first studied with Henry Hudson Kitson in Boston, who threw her out after she identified equine anatomical deficiencies in his work (Rubenstein 1990). Later she studied with Hermon Atkins MacNeil and Gutzon Borglum at the Art Students League of New York. In addition to these formal studies she spent many hours doing extensive study of animals in various zoos (including the Bronx Zoo)[3] and circuses. She was one of 250 sculptors who exhibited in the 3rd Sculpture International held at the Philadelphia Museum of Art in the summer of 1949.

In 1932, Huntington became the first woman artist to be elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters.[4]

Huntington and her husband, Archer Milton Huntington, founded Brookgreen Gardens near Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. She was a member of the National Academy of Design and the National Sculpture Society and a donation of $100,000 from her and her husband made possible the NSS Exhibition of 1929. Because of her husband's enormous wealth and the shared interests of the couple, the Huntingtons were responsible for founding fourteen museums and four wildlife preserves. They also gifted Collis P. Huntington State Park, consisting of approximately 800 acres (3.2 km2) of land in Redding, Connecticut, to the State of Connecticut.

She was the aunt of the art historian A. Hyatt Mayor.

Death and legacy

Anna Hyatt Huntington, works on a statue of Jose Marti

Anna Vaughn Hyatt Huntington died October 4, 1973. She is buried in Woodlawn Cemetery, Bronx, New York,[5] next to her husband Archer Milton Huntington who preceded her in death on December 11, 1955.[6]

Her papers are held at Syracuse University,[7] and the Archives of American Art.[8]

The Metropolitan Museum of Art listed Huntington among the foremost woman sculptors in the United States to have undertake large, publicly commissioned works, alongside Malvina Hoffman and Evelyn Longman.[9]

Public equestrian monuments

Her animal sculptures, figures of both life-sized and in smaller proportions, are in museums and collections throughout the United States. Hyatt Huntington’s work is now displayed in many of New York’s leading institutions and outdoor spaces, including Columbia University, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the National Academy of Design, the New-York Historical Society, the Hispanic Society of America, the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine, Central Park, Riverside Park and the Bronx Zoo.[2] She spent two years collaborating with Abastenia St. Leger Eberle to produce Man and Bull, which was exhibited at the St. Louis Exposition in 1904.

The Hispanic Society of America was founded in 1904 by her husband, Archie Huntington. Anna was responsible for the art in its courtyard,[10] including:

Two statues by Anna Hyatt Huntington are located at the entrance to Collis P. Huntington State Park in Redding and Bethel, Connecticut: "Mother Bear and Cubs" and "Sculpture of Wolves". The park was donated to the state of Connecticut by the Huntingtons. Other equestrian statues by Huntington greet visitors to the entrance to Redding Elementary School, Rt. 107 and John Read Middle School, Rt. 53 and at the Mark Twain Library, Rt. 53. The statue at the elementary school is called "Fighting Stallions" and the one at the middle school is called "A Tribute to the Workhorse". The sculpture at the Mark Twain Library, also called "The Torch Bearers" is identical in form to the one in Madrid, but is cast in bronze and appears to be smaller.

In her Horse Trainer (Balboa Park, San Diego) she enlivens the theme of the Roman marble Horse Tamers of the Quirinale, Rome, which had been taken up by Guillaume Coustou for the horses of Marly.

Huntington's Joan of Arc stands at the intersection of Riverside Drive and Ninety-third Street in Manhattan. The work earned her the first-place award at an exhibit in Paris in 1910 that was taken back when the judges stated that it was too good to have been created by a woman. There are other versions in San Francisco, Blois, Gloucester, Massachusetts and Quebec City, Quebec.

Photographic gallery

  1. ^ Christen, Arden G., and Joan A. Christen. 2007. "An Ethical Lesson Learned from the Equestrian Sculpture, "The Torch Bearers," at the University of Madrid Dental School," Journal of the History of Dentistry 55(3): 160-164. Accessed: March 8, 2013.
  2. ^ Wright, Robert. 2011, May 31. "Buenos Aires: Monumento al Cid Campeador," Line of Sight (blog). Accessed: March 8, 2013.

See also

Notes

  1. "Anna Hyatt Huntington Papers". Syracuse University. Retrieved December 29, 2011.
  2. 2.0 2.1 From a statement by The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Art Gallery of Columbia University, dated February 12, 2014.
  3. Foner, Daria Rose. "Anna Hyatt Huntington's Jaguars". Wild Things: The Blog of the Wildlife Conservation Society Archives. Wildlife Conservation Society. Retrieved 13 February 2014.
  4. John P. O'Neill, ed. (2001). American Sculpture in the Metropolitan Museum of Art: A catalogue of works by artists born between 1865 and 1885. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. p. 600. ISBN 0-87099-923-0.
  5. Anna Vaughn Hyatt Huntington at Find a Grave
  6. Archer Milton Huntington at Find a Grave
  7. "Anna Hyatt Huntington Papers An inventory of her papers at Syracuse University". Library.syr.edu. Retrieved 2013-01-14.
  8. Archives of American Art. "Summary of the Anna Hyatt-Huntington papers, 1902–1967 | Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution". Aaa.si.edu. Retrieved 2013-01-14.
  9. http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/scul/hd_scul.htm "Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History: American Women Sculptors," Metropolitan Museum of Art. Retrieved 2014-04-28.
  10. Dare, Kitty. "The Hispanic Society Sculptural Program". Media Center for Art History at Columbia University. Retrieved 21 April 2013.
  11. "buenos aires: monumento al cid campeador | line of sight". Wrighton.com.ar. 2011-05-31. Retrieved 2013-01-14.
  12. Illustration.
  13. http://www.histden.org/journal/jhd_v55_2007_3_secured.pdf
  14. "The Talk of the Town: Package". The New Yorker. Retrieved 2013-01-14.
  15. "Visit the SC Williams Library at Stevens Institute of Technology". Stevens.edu. Retrieved 2013-01-14.
  16. Note: this may be a scale model of the oversize statue of the same subject at the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry, in Syracuse, New York, pictured elsewhere in this article.

References

External links

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