Snuff
Bronze
8 3/8 x 6 1/8 x 9 3/8 in
Biography
Laura Gardin Fraser was an acclaimed and honored sculptor of medals, fountains and monuments. She was the first woman to design a coin for the United States Treasury, a commission she won in 1921 with her design for the Alabama Centennial Commemorative half-dollar. In 1926, she was also the first woman to win the Saltus Medal of the American Numismatic Society, the highest award for medal artistry in the United States. She created, among others, the American Numismatic Society Centenary Medal, American Geographic Society Morse Medal and George Washington Bicentennial Medal.
Fraser was born in Chicago, Illinois on September 14, 1889. She studied sculpture at the Art Students League of New York from 1907-1911. Fraser won the Saint-Gaudens medal in her first year at the League, a scholarship in her second year, and the Saint-Gaudens figure prize in her last year of school. After graduation, she was an instructor for 2 years and in 1913, married fellow sculptor and former instructor James Earle Fraser.
Fraser's career as a sculptor began with her creations of animals, fountains, medals, and coins. In 1926, James Earle and Laura Gardin Fraser sculpted their only wife-husband collaboration, the Oregon Trail Memorial Half Dollar.
Laura Gardin Fraser was judged by the Commission of Fine Arts as the winner of the 1931 competition to obtain coin designs to honor George Washington on the 200th anniversary of his birth, she did not, however, receive the commission. The judges were overruled by Andrew Mellon the Treasury Secretary. During this time, Laura Fraser also created a bas-relief equestrian plaque of Washington astride his horse, based on a painting in the Congress Hall in Philadelphia, as well as a portrait medallion for the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York. Her original 1931 design was finally used in 1999 for a Washington Commemorative $5 gold piece (half eagle) on the bicentennial of his death. The design features a right-facing portrait of George Washington on the obverse and an eagle with spread wings on the reverse.
Laura Gardin Fraser died on August 13, 1966 in Westport, Connecticut.
