Adams+Memorial

Date: modeled 1886-1891, cast 1969
 * [[image:http://ids.si.edu/ids/deliveryService?id=http://americanart.si.edu/images/1970/1970.11_3a.jpg&max=460 width="216" height="285" link="@http://americanart.si.edu/collections/search/artwork/?id=21528"]] || itle: **Adams Memorial**

Artist: **Augustus Saint-Gaudens** Born: Dublin, Ireland 1848 Died: Cornish, New Hampshire 1907

Medium: Roman Bronze Works (Founder), bronze Dimensions: 69 7/8 x 39 7/8 x 44 1/2 in. (177.4 x 101.4 x 112.9 cm.) Smithsonian American Art Museum Museum purchase

Accession: 1970.11 || "Clover" Adams, wife of the writer Henry Adams, committed suicide in 1885 by drinking chemicals used to develop photographs. Adams, who steadfastly refused to discuss his wife's death, commissioned Augustus Saint-Gaudens to create a memorial that would express the Buddhist idea of nirvana, a state of being beyond joy and sorrow. In Adams's circle of artists and writers, the old Christian certainties seemed inadequate after the violence of the Civil War, the industrialization of America, and Darwin's theories of evolution. Saint-Gaudens's ambiguous figure reflects the search for new insights into the mysteries of life and death. The shrouded being is neither male nor female, neither triumphant nor downcast. Its message is inscrutable. Clover's gravesite in Rock Creek Park in Washington, D.C. quickly became a tourist attraction, but Adams resisted all attempts to sentimentalize the memorial as a symbol of grief. He acknowledged the power of Saint-Gaudens's sculpture, however, and allowed reproductions to be made and sold to a chosen few.
 * Exhibition Label: **

On the day befor FDR's inauguration in 1933, Eleanor Roosevelt asked her friend Lorena Hickok to pick her up at the Mayflower Hotel, where she and the president-elect were staying. Mrs. Roosevelt instructed the cab driver to take them to Rock Creek Cemetery so that she might gaze upon the statue:

She said: "In the old days when we lived here, I was much younger and not so very wise. Sometimes I'd be very unhappy and sorry for myself. When I was feeling that way, if I could manage, I'd come here alone and look at that woman. And I'd always come away feeling better. And stronger. I've been here many, many times."

Eleanor found solace communing with that shrouded figure of grief and in later years would usually visit the cemetery whenever in Washington. To learn more about the Adamses, Elearnor gave Franklin a copy of The Education of Henry Adams, which had been privately printed in 1906 and had just been reissued for general purchase.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">The artist John La Farge described the moment that Henry Adams asked Augustus Saint-Gaudens to create a sculpture to honor the memory of his wife: <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">“Mr. Adams described to him in a general way what he wanted, going, however, into no details, and really giving him no distinct clue, save the explanation that he wished the figure to symbolize ‘the acceptance, intellectually, of the inevitable.’ Saint-Gaudens immediately became interested, and made a gesture indicating the pose in which Mr. Adams’ words had suggested in his mind. ‘No’ said Mr. Adams ‘the way that you’re, that is a Penseroso [an artwork showing someone grieving].’ Thereupon the sculptor made several other gestures until one of them struck Mr. Adams as corresponding with the idea. As good luck would have it, he would not wait for a woman model to be brought in and posed in accordance with the gesture indicated by the sculpture, so Saint-Gaudens grabbed the Italian boy who was mixing clay, put him into the pose, and draped a blanket over him. That very blanket, it may be stated here, is on the statue, and forms the drapery of the figure. ‘Now that’s done,’ said Mr. Adams ‘the pose is settled… I don’t want to see the statue till it’s finished.” <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">Kobbe, Gustav. “ <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">Interview with John La Farge.” Evening Star (New York) January 17, 1910


 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">Suggested Questions: **
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">How would you compare this sculpture to the Tecumseh or Lincoln sculptures?
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">What is the mood of the sculpture-- How does it make you feel?
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">What do you think of the way the Museum has chosen to put it on display? Does it affect the way you see it?

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">Casting Shadows- The Adams Memorial and Its Doubles <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">Adams Memorial- Rock Creek Cemetery <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">Augustus Saint-Gaudens Biography <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">Adams Memorial and Eleanor Roosevelt
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">Resources: **

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14.3px;">[|Artist Biography] <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14.3px;">[|SAAM Collections Page]
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14.3px;">Links: **