Voting Station

Daniel Chester French

Please vote to return to collections.

Artist

The Resume

    (April 20, 1850-October 7, 1931)
    Born in Exeter, New Hampshire
    Sculptor
    Notable works include The Minuteman at Concord, Massachusetts (1875); John Harvard at Harvard Yard in Cambridge, Massachusetts (1884); The Republic for the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago (1893); The Four Continents at the Alexander Hamilton Custom House in New York City (1907); Standing Lincoln at the State Capitol in Lincoln, Nebraska (1912); and the statue of Abraham Lincoln in the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC (1920)
    Known as 'the dean of American sculptors'

Why he might be annoying:

    He enrolled in MIT, flunked chemistry, physics and algebra, then dropped out.
    He married his first cousin, Mary Adams French.
    Despite a lack of experience in large-scale sculptures, he was commissioned to honor the centennial of the Battle of Concord, largely through the influence of Ralph Waldo Emerson, a family friend.

Why he might not be annoying:

    He received his first sculpting lessons from his next-door neighbor in Concord, May Alcott (sister of author Louisa May Alcott).
    He was awarded a medal of honor at the Paris Exhibition of 1900.
    He was a trustee of the Metropolitan Museum of Art (1903-31), and was responsible for acquiring the Museum's core collection of American sculpture.
    Encyclopedia Britannica wrote that his work 'is probably more familiar to a wider American audience than that of any other native sculptor.'

Credit: C. Fishel


Featured in the following Annoying Collections:

Year In Review:

    For 2024, as of last weekly ranking, Out of 1 Votes: 0% Annoying
    In 2023, Out of 3 Votes: 66.67% Annoying
    In 2022, Out of 109 Votes: 51.38% Annoying