You were a man of great vision, You will be remembered as the creator some of the most beautiful monuments that have become symbols of our country. Thank you sir for the legacy of beauty you left us. I hope to see Mount Rushmore some day, remembering you after 70 years, may you rest in peace!
(John) Gutzon de la Mothe Borglum (March 25, 1867 – March 6, 1941) was an American artist and sculptor famous for creating the monumental presidents' heads at Mount Rushmore, South Dakota, the famous carving on Stone Mountain near Atlanta, as well as other public works of art.
A fascination with gigantic scale and themes of heroic nationalism suited his extroverted personality. His head of Abraham Lincoln, carved from a six-ton block of marble, was exhibited in Theodore Roosevelt's White House and can be found in the Capitol Rotunda in Washington, D.C. A patriot, believing that the "monuments we have built are not our own," he looked to create art that was "American, drawn from American sources, memorializing American achievement" according to a 1908 interview article. His equation of being "American" with being born of American parents—"flesh of our flesh"—was characteristic of nativist beliefs in the early 20th century. Borglum was highly suited to the competitive environment surrounding the contracts for public buildings and monuments, and his public sculpture is sited all around the United States.
In 1908, Borglum won a competition for a statue of the Civil War General Philip Sheridan to be placed in Sheridan Circle in Washington. D.C.
A second version was erected in Chicago, Illinois in 1923. Winning this competition was a personal triumph for him because he won out over sculptor J.Q.A.Ward, a much older and more established artist, and one whom Borglum had clashed with earlier in regard to the National Sculpture Society. At the unveiling of the Sheridan one critic, President Theodore Roosevelt (whom Borglum was later to put on Mount Rushmore) declared that it was "first rate," and another critic was to state that, "as a sculptor Gutzon Borglum was no longer a rumor, he was a fact."
Borglum was active in the committee that organized the New York Armory Show of 1913, the birthplace of modernism in American art. But by the time the show was ready to open, Borglum resigned from the committee, feeling that the emphasis on avant-garde works had co-opted the original premise of the show and made traditional artists like himself look provincial. He lived in Stamford, Connecticut for 10 years.
Borglum is buried at Forest Lawn Memorial Park, Glendale in California in the Memorial Court of Honor. His second wife, Mary Montgomery Williams Borglum, 1874–1955 (they were married May 20, 1909) is interred alongside him. In addition to his son, Lincoln, he had a daughter, Mary Ellis (Mel) Borglum Vhay (1916–2002).
Mount Rushmore
Mount Rushmore project, 1927–1941, was the brainchild of South Dakota state historian Doane Robinson. His first attempt with one of the faces was blown up after two years. Dynamite was also used to remove large areas of rock from under Washington's brow. The initial pair of presidents, George Washington and Abraham Lincoln, was soon joined by Thomas Jefferson and Theodore Roosevelt.
Borglum alternated exhausting on-site supervising with world tours, raising money, polishing his personal legend, sculpting a Thomas Paine memorial for Paris and a Woodrow Wilson one for Poland. In his absence, work at Mount Rushmore was overseen by his son Lincoln. During the Rushmore project, father and son were residents of Beeville, Texas. When he died in Chicago, following complications after surgery, his son finished another season at Rushmore, but left the monument largely in the state of completion it had reached under his father's direction.
Other works
Statue of John William Mackay in front of Mackay School of Earth Sciences and Engineering from June 1908.
Aviator, sculpted by Borglum in 1919, is located on the grounds of the University of Virginia
Monument depicting North Carolinian soldiers who fought during the Battle of GettysburgIn 1908, Borglum completed the statue of John William Mackay (1831–1902), a Comstock Lode silver baron. The statue is located at the University of Nevada, Reno.
In 1909, Rabboni was created as a grave site for the Ffoulke Family in Washington, D.C. at Rock Creek Cemetery.
In 1912, the Nathaniel Wheeler Memorial Fountain was dedicated in Bridgeport, Connecticut.
One of Borglum's more unusual pieces is the "Aviator", completed in 1919 as a memorial for James R. McConnell, who was killed in World War I while flying for the Lafayette Escadrille. It is located on the grounds of the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, Virginia.
Another impressive Borglum design is the North Carolina Monument on Seminary Ridge at the Gettysburg Battlefield in south-central Pennsylvania. The cast bronze sculpture depicts a wounded Confederate officer encouraging his men to push forward during Pickett's Charge.
With dramatic flair, Borglum had made arrangements for an airplane to fly over the monument during the dedication ceremony on July 3, 1929. During the sculpture's unveiling, the plane scattered roses across the field as a salute to those North Carolinians who had fought and died at Gettysburg.
Four public works by Borglum are in Newark, NJ: Seated Lincoln (1911), Indian and Puritan (1916) , Wars of America (1926) , and a bas-relief, "First Landing Party of the Founders of Newark" (1916).
Borglum was an active member of the Ancient Free and Accepted Masons (the Freemasons), raised in Howard Lodge #35, New York City, on June 10, 1904, and serving as its Worshipful Master 1910-11. In 1915, he was appointed Grand Representative of the Grand Lodge of Denmark near the Grand Lodge of New York.
He received his Scottish Rite Degrees in the New York City Consistory on October 25, 1907. Borglum was a member of the Ku Klux Klan. He sat on the Imperial Koncilium in 1923, which transferred leadership of The Ku Klux Klan from Imperial Wizard Colonel Simmons to Imperial Wizard Hiram Evans.
Later, he stated, "I am not a member of the Kloncilium, nor a knight of the KKK", but Shaff and Shaff add, "that was for public consumption." The museum at Mount Rushmore displays a letter to Borglum from D. C. Stephenson, the infamous Klan Grand Dragon who was later convicted of the rape and murder of Madge Oberholtzer.
In 1938 Borglum also sculpted the Memorial to the "Start Westward of the United States" which is located in Marietta, Ohio. He also built the statue of Daniel Butterfield in Sakura Park, Manhattan.
He also created a memorial to Sacco and Vanzetti (1928), a plaster cast of which is now in the Boston Public Library.
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