It is 1901 and Heins & Lafarge hire a young 34 year old to oversee the sculptures at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine. John Gutzon de la Mothe Borglum became the Cathedral’s first sculptor. He was born in Idaho Territory in 1867 to Danish immigrants. Gutzon Borglum studied at the Mark Hopkins School of Art in San Francisco in the 1880’s. Eventually, he lived, worked and studied in Paris. In Paris, From 1890 to 1893, he studied the academic approach to sculpting at the Academic Julian and the Ecole des Beaux Arts. Auguste Rodin was a major influence on his work. By 1896, Gutzon exhibited both painting and sculpture in London and Paris.
In 1901, when Gutzon moved to New York he was commissioned to create sculptures for the Cathedral. Sculpture had overtaken all his artistic pursuits. The Metropolitan Museum of Art purchased his piece “Mares of Diomedes”. It was the Museum’s first purchase by an American sculptor. This officially sealed his fame. The commission included the Belmont Chapel and the statues for the remainder of the Cathedral. To be the Cathedral’s first sculptor to work on a building whose construction would extend over several generations of artisans was an awesome, exciting project for a young artist.
The inside entrance to the Chapel of Saint Saviour is bordered by twenty carvings of angels representing the heavenly choir. On the exterior of the Chapel are two life-size angels, The Angel of the Nativity and the Angel of the Resurrection.
The Angel Controversy
A small conflict arose from these two carvings. The building committee chair told Borglum that he believed the heads and figures in general should be made:
If not distinctly masculine, at least not distinctly feminine
– Dr. John Peters, Canon of the Cathedral
After letting Dr. Peters know that art and tradition largely depicted angels as women, Gutzon complied. This was fairly easy since the angels were still in clay form. This should have been the end to it except a reporter who followed events at the Cathedral asked Gutzon what happened. The reporter listened to the explanation. However, controversy sells more newspapers than facts and the next day headlines read “Borglum Smashes His Lady Angels in Anger”.
It was a story that went viral and soon everyone had an opinion on the sex of angels. Poems were written, clergy weighed in with serious opinions, jokes flourished and debate went on for a few weeks. Gutzon stated he didn’t know if angels were women, but he did know women were angels. The sculptor retained the somewhat feminine angels in the chapel. He applied more manly countenance to the two outside the church.
The Volume of Work
During the span of several years, The Cathedral’s first sculptor was responsible for modeling approximately one hundred sculptures in various chapels and the apostles on the roof. As the Cathedral’s first sculptor he designed and modeled bishops, saints, and scholars. The firm of Barr, Thaw and Fraser of Hoboken, N.J. copied his models in limestone. They carved the work on site in a carving shed at Gutzon’s insistence. This followed a centuries old tradition from European cathedrals.
The Chapel of Saint Columba, The Chapel of Saint Boniface and the Chapel of Saint Saviour contain many examples of Gutzon’s work. Outside are the nine-and-0ne-half foot statues of the Apostles and Gabriel, the Angel of the Annunciation, blowing his trumpet from the roof.
Later Life
In later years, Gutzon was involved in many public commissions and several projects of enormous proportions. One, at Stone Mountain Georgia ended badly and caused his connection to the Ku Klux Klan to haunt his reputation. The design and supervision of the work at Mount Rushmore was more rewarding.
The undertaking was remarkable, given the tools and technology available. To ensure correct scale, a protractor was attached to the top pf each head, with a 30-foot arm traversing this arc and extending out over the face graduated in feet and inches. A 1/12 scale model of each head had a similar set up so that plumb lines could be dropped from the arm in any place. Measurements taken from the model were then expanded 12 times to indicate the amount of rock to be removed. Each face had a measurement made every 6 inches, vertically and horizontally. This information was painted on the spot so that inexperienced work crews could simply follow the information and remove the correct amount of granite. They went through about 400 pneumatic drill bits a day. Each one was taken down to the blacksmith’s shop to be heated, sharpened, re-heated and tempered.
- The New York Architect, Vol. 5 Issue 1, 1911
- Gutzon Borglum & His Life Work, Robin Borglum Kennedy