The Concord Minute Man of 1775
Bronze
32 1/4 x 16 x 20 1/2 in
Biography
Daniel Chester French was born in Exeter, New Hampshire on April 20, 1850. His father Henry Flag French was a lawyer who practiced in Boston. The family moved to Concord, Massachusetts in the 1860s and in 1867 Daniel French enrolled at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology at his father’s insistence.
Daniel French, however, was not suited for the academic life and failed physics, chemistry, and algebra. As a result he returned to the family farm where his future career as a sculptor began to develop. French whittled various things from wood, gypsum and even turnips. His father was sufficiently impressed with his skills to bring his work to the attention of Concord artist May Alcott. May Alcott encouraged French and provided him with clay and modeling tools.
French developed his skills by creating busts and relief portraits of family and friends. In the early 1870s French also worked in the studio of John Quincy Adams Ward and studied as well with William Rimmer. The town of Concord must have taken notice of his work as in 1873 he was awarded the commission to create a large bronze monument, The Minute Men.
This began the long series of public commission French received during his lifetime culminating in the statue of Abraham Lincoln for the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. French was awarded a number of government commissions including groups for the US Customs House, Saint Louis, US Court House and Post office, Philadelphia US Post Office and Subtreasury, Boston, and US Customs House, New York.
In 1909 French was awarded the commission to create a sculpture of Abraham Lincoln for a memorial in Lincoln, Nebraska. French collaborated with architect, Henry Bacon, on the architectural setting of the monument. French decided for this memorial to depict Lincoln in a standing pose instead of seated. His sculpture, Abraham Lincoln, and the monument were unveiled in 1912.
