Gutzon Borglum, Abraham Lincoln, Bronze Bust

Description

Gutzon Borglum is best known for Mount Rushmore and his bust in front of the Lincoln tomb.

Many of Borglum’s works are large-scale public monuments, such as the Confederate Army memorial at Stone Mountain, Georgia. Some of his work, such as a bust of Lincoln and statues in the National Statuary Hall, rest in the U. S. Capitol.

Stamped #7; produced by the “lost wax” method with a deep, rich tonality.

From the collection of James “Big Jim” Thompson, the longest serving Governor of the State of Illinois.

Borglum, John Gutzon de la Mothe (1867-1941). Bronze Lincoln Bust, Signed “G. Borglum sc”. New York City [“NYC”] “Bedi Ressy Foundry, n.d. 19″ high x 7″ wide x 10-1/2” deep. Resting on a marble base.

More About Gutzon Borglum…

Borglum (1867–1941). Born in the Idaho Territory, Borglum was the son of Danish immigrants who adopted the Mormon faith. Borglum left home for San Francisco at age 12. He was apprenticed to a lithographer and then a fresco painter. In 1901 he settled in New York City and opened a studio. That year the Metropolitan Museum of Art commissioned Borglum to create its first sculpture by a living American artist. Borglum’s bronze sculpture of John Ruskin is on view today at the museum.

He went on to produce a large Abraham Lincoln Bust, exhibited at the White House and later installed in the U.S. Capitol. Towards the end of his life, Borglum created the iconic Presidential Memorial at Mount Rushmore. He subsequently lived in Spain, London, and Paris, where he became a close friend of Auguste Rodin. 

A flamboyant and ceaseless self-promoter, Borglum died from a heart attack in Chicago in March, 1941. Coincidentally, only a few blocks from Abraham Lincoln Book Shop’s former location. He was in Chicago on a two-year lecture tour designed to raise money in order to finish Mt. Rushmore. His son, Lincoln Borglum-who had been working on the project from the start-completed the work on Mt. Rushmore in October of that year.