Citizen Memorial: Daniel Chester French and Mary Adams French - Stockbridge, MA

Daniel Chester French

and 

Mary Adams French

Stockbridge, MA

N 42° 16.957 W 073° 18.715

Short Description: 

A memorial to the famous artist Daniel Chester French and his wife Mary Adams French is located under the portico of St. Paul's Church at 29 Main Street, Stockbridge, MA.

Long Description:

Daniel Chester French and his wife Mary Adams French were parishioners of St. Paul's Church Episcopal Church when they were in residence at their summer estate and studio home in Stockbridge called Chesterwood. Their memorial is a 4' high by 2.5' wide casting of a sculpture of an angel on a 3' high square marble base. The sculpture was created by Daniel Chester French and is called Spirit of Life. The base is inscribed:

IN SWEET

REMEMBRANCE

DANIEL CHESTER

FRENCH

AND

MARY HIS WIFE

1949

Daniel Chester French (1850 - 1931) was a famous and prolific American sculptor. He was born in Exeter, NH on April 20, 1850. He studied anatomy and drawing, attended the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and studied in Florence, Italy in the studio of Thomas Ball. He gained great acclaim for his first sculpture - the Minuteman Statue at Concord, MA.

As his reputation grew he gained many important commissions. He is most famous for his seated sculpture of Lincoln at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington DC. In 1888, he married is cousin Mary Adams French (1859 – 1939). Wikipedia lists the following works by Daniel Chester French:

Minute Man at the Old North Bridge in Concord, Massachusetts, (1874)

Bust of Major General William Francis Bartlett at Memorial Hall, Harvard University, (1881)

The John Harvard Monument, Harvard Yard in Cambridge, Massachusetts, (1884)

Lincoln at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington DC. (1888),

Lewis Cass, National Statuary Hall, Washington D.C., (1889)

Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet and Alice Cogswell (1889), Gallaudet University, Washington, D.C.

Thomas Starr King monument San Francisco, California, (1891)

Statue of the Republic, the colossal centerpiece of the World's Columbian Exposition, Chicago, 1893. His 24-foot gilt-bronze reduced version made in 1918 survives in Chicago.

John Boyle O'Reilly Memorial, intersection of Boylston Street and Westland Avenue in Boston, Massachusetts, (1897)

Rufus Choate memorial, Old Suffolk County Court House, Boston, Massachusetts, (1898)

Richard Morris Hunt Memorial, on the perimeter wall of Central Park, at 5th Avenue at 70th Street, opposite the Frick Collection, in New York City, (1900)

Commodore George H. Perkins Monument at the New Hampshire State House, Concord, New Hampshire (1902)

Alma Mater (1903), on the campus of Columbia University in New York City

Wendell Phillips Memorial, Public Garden in Boston, Massachusetts

America, statue outside the National Museum of the American Indian at the Alexander Hamilton U.S. Custom House, Manhattan, NYC (1907)

Casting Bread Upon the Waters - George Robert White Memorial, Public Garden in Boston, Massachusetts

Melvin Memorial, Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, Concord, Massachusetts, Henry Bacon, architect
(1906–08)

Samuel Spencer, first president of Southern Railway, located in front of Goode Building (Norfolk Southern offices) on Peachtree Street in Midtown Atlanta, Georgia, (1909).

August Meyer Memorial, 10th and The Paseo, Kansas City, Missouri (1909)

Statue of General James Oglethorpe located in Chippewa Square, Savannah, Georgia (1910)

Standing Lincoln at the Nebraska State Capitol, Lincoln, Nebraska, (1912)

Brooklyn and Manhattan, seated figures from the Manhattan Bridge, Brooklyn Museum in Brooklyn, New York, (1915)

Minuteman, Henry Bacon designer, Jno. Williams, Inc. (NY) founder, Danville, Illinois. (1915)

The Spirit of Life, memorial to Spencer Trask, in Saratoga Springs, New York at Congress Park, 1915

Abraham Lincoln in the Lincoln Memorial (1914-22), executed by the Piccirilli Brothers.

Samuel Francis du Pont Memorial Fountain, Dupont Circle, Washington, D.C. (1921)

Alfred Tredway White Memorial, Brooklyn Botanic Garden, Henry Bacon architect (1921)

Russell Alger Memorial Fountain, Grand Circus Park, Detroit, Michigan (1921).

Gale Park War Memorial & Park, Exeter, New Hampshire (1922)

Bust of Washington Irving and reliefs of Boabdil and Rip Van Winkle for the Washington Irving Memorial, Irvington, New York, (1927)

Beneficence, Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana. (1930)

William Henry Seward Memorial in Florida, New York (1930)

Death and the Wounded Soldier aka Death and Youth, The Chapel of Saint Peter and Saint Paul, St. Paul's School, Concord, New Hampshire

James Woods, “Uncle Jimmy” Green, University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS. (1924)

Gen. William Franklin Draper, Draper Memorial Park, Milford, Massachusetts. (1912)