Gutzon Borglum

Gutzon Borglum (1867–1941) was an American sculptor best known for monumental public works that helped define the heroic tradition of early twentieth-century American sculpture. Borglum was born in a log cabin near Bear Lake, Idaho on March 25, 1867, the son of Danish immigrants. After growing up in Omaha, Nebraska, he was educated in a Jesuit school in Kansas. At age 17 he went with his family to Los Angeles where he worked as a lithographer and in his leisure began sketching cowboys, Indians and western scenes. He studied in San Francisco during 1885-88 with Virgil Williams at the School of Design, Wm Keith, and Elizabeth Jaynes Putnam whom he married in 1889. The couple moved to Paris for further art study at Académie Julian and Ecole des Beaux Arts. In Paris he began studying painting but soon turned to sculpting, and while there was greatly influenced by Rodin. Borglum exhibited both oils and sculpture of western themes at the Paris Salons of 1891 and 1892, and by 1895 had achieved an international reputation.

Returning to the United States in 1902, his white stone bust of Abraham Lincoln was placed in the rotunda of the Capitol. He maintained studios in New York; Raleigh, North Carolina; and San Antonio until 1937 when he bought a home in Santa Barbara, California. Borglum received numerous important public commissions, producing sculptures of political leaders, military figures, and cultural icons that emphasized strength, individuality, and national identity. His most famous work, done from 1927 until 1941, is the heads of Presidents George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, and Theodore Roosevelt at Mount Rushmore. Over 60 feet high and blasted out of solid granite, his son, Lincoln, finished the work in 1945.

He died in Chicago on March 6, 1941 while on a speaking tour and was entombed in the Court of Honor at Forest Lawn in Glendale, California. Throughout his career, Borglum combined technical ambition with theatrical scale, believing sculpture should communicate shared civic ideals. Though sometimes controversial for his strong personality and political associations, his achievements permanently reshaped the possibilities of monumental sculpture in America.