As early as 1880, Augustus Saint-Gaudens sought the 27-year-old Howard Pyle’s advice on the proper costume for his statue of Robert Richard Randall...
Years later, in a letter of February 23, 1898, to Saint-Gaudens’ wife, Augusta, Pyle said:
Indeed, my dear madam, you greatly magnify my work by comparing it as you do with that of Mr Saint Gaudens. I do - I believe - the best that I am able, but I am very conscious that my best falls far, far short of his.
But I’ve always felt that that the Saimt-Gaudens’ work was, in many ways, the three-dimensional embodiment of Pyle’s. Apart from attention to historical details, etc., they share a certain “solidity of form”, for want of a better description.
Years later, in a letter of February 23, 1898, to Saint-Gaudens’ wife, Augusta, Pyle said:
Posts
4 comments:
Weren't they both members of the Tile Club? ASG was known as "The Saint," and A.B. Frost as "Icicle," as I recall. Would that I were a fly upon that wall.
Despite the fact that Pyle was friends with many Tile Clubbers, I don't think he was an official member. He may have been a guest, though, since he designed a tiled fireplace surround in 1881 or so. More on THAT soon...
We know they were friends since Pyle dedicated the illustration "A Dream of Young Summer" published in Harper's June 1901 to Saint-Gaudens. This painting is now in the collection of the Brandywine River Museum and although it is difficult to see, Pyle's dedication to Saint-Gaudens is painted at the lower edge of the painting.
That's right: in February 1902 Pyle gave it in exchange for a head of "Victory" that Saint-Gaudens had sent a few weeks earlier.
"[W]hatever its short-comings," Pyle said of the painting, "it is a sincere effort to express a thought."
Post a Comment