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Striking Change: The Great Artistic Collaboration of Theodore Roosevelt and Augustus Saint-Gaudens

DentuckDentuck Posts: 3,812 ✭✭✭
Have any forum members read Striking Change, by Mike Moran, yet?

I'm curious to hear your opinions of the book.

Comments

  • Havent heard of this one, but for $24 Ill be buying it. If its on preorder, is it released already?
  • DentuckDentuck Posts: 3,812 ✭✭✭
    It's only been out a couple months now.

    Here are some more sample pages from the book, with commentary by Q. David Bowers:

    Striking Change: The Great Artistic Collaboration of Theodore Roosevelt and Augustus Saint-Gaudens
  • BroadstruckBroadstruck Posts: 30,497 ✭✭✭✭✭
    Striking Change - The Great Artistic Collaboration of Theodore Roosevelt and Augustus Saint-Gaudens

    President Theodore Roosevelt called the project his pet crime. In truth it was one of his greatest gifts to America. In 1905 Roosevelt challenged the brilliant and famous sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens: The United States is the best nation on Earth, but its coins are atrociously hideous. Why can we not produce coinage as beautiful as that of the ancient Greeks? Striking Change offers a fresh new look at the life of Saint-Gaudens the man and the artist and the remarkable partnership he forged with Theodore Roosevelt to reinvigorate the country s numismatic art. Author Michael Moran explores Saint-Gaudens s coin designs in the context of his monumental sculptures and American culture of the time. Through first-person accounts, behind-the-scenes conversations, and explosive public drama, we come to know the larger-than-life personalities involved in this renaissance of fine art. Striking Change illuminates the politics, the genius, the struggles, and ultimately the triumph of an extraordinary American journey.


    Changing the Face of American Coinage
    by Henry J. Duffy
    Curator, Saint-Gaudens National Historic Site, Cornish, New Hampshire

    (This article is adapted from the foreword to Striking Change: The Great Artistic Collaboration of Theodore Roosevelt and Augustus Saint-Gaudens.)

    Striking Change is beautifully illustrated with paintings and photographs from turn-of-the-century America. Here, the “Golden Door” of the World’s Columbian Exposition of 1893 is shown along with the Expo award medal designed by Augustus Saint-Gaudens.

    Augustus Saint-Gaudens is a towering figure in 19th-century American art and culture. As an artist he changed the course of American art, introducing a classical simplicity that heralded the later developments of modern art. As a teacher he influenced the next generation of sculptors. As an organizer of associations and exhibitions he brought a new understanding of art to a wide audience. And as a city planner he played a significant role in creating the city of Washington, DC, as we know it today.

    All of this is well known to art historians, but may not be as familiar in the specialized world of numismatics. It is for that reason that a new book about Saint-Gaudens and the creation of the 1907 gold coinage is not only valid, but welcome.

    The scandalous “Pie Girl” incident—an embarrassment for Saint-Gaudens and New York high society in May 1895—was captured in a newspaper cartoon of the day.

    I met Mike Moran in 2003, in Colorado, at the American Numismatic Association, for the opening of an exciting exhibition of Saint-Gaudens’s work. It was part of a five-year retrospective exhibition organized by the Trust for Museum Exhibitions, with the collaboration of the Saint-Gaudens National Historic Site. The exhibition was exciting because it was the first time that Saint-Gaudens’s work was shown in the context of the American Numismatic

    Association Museum. The exhibition was shared with the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center in a cooperative venture.

    The year 2007 is the centennial year of Saint-Gaudens’s death. The anniversary has been commemorated in many ways, including a feature-length film, exhibitions, and public programs. It is appropriate to bring this book to the public in this special year.

    Saint-Gaudens felt honored to sculpt his boyhood hero, General William Tecumseh Sherman. When he asked the impatient Sherman to button his coat and straighten his tie—to “look his rank,” like Bismarck or von Moltke—the old general growled, “Saint-Gaudens, I don’t give a tinker’s damn how men chose to wear their coats, but I want you to know that the General of the Armies of the United States of America will wear his coat any --- way he pleases.”

    Mr. Moran has approached the subject with a fresh look, recounting the events surrounding Saint-Gaudens’s design of the $20 and $10 gold coins, but also placing this accomplishment in the light of some other related work. The author’s description of the World’s Columbian Exposition medal, the Roosevelt special inaugural medal, and the Franklin medal is an added bonus for readers.

    Readers will find the characters and events fascinating and indicative of the close-knit world of art and politics in the era of Theodore Roosevelt. A dynamic president, Roosevelt sought the design of new coinage as a small part of his administration’s goal to revitalize American life. Along with the redesign of the city of Washington, DC, the renovation of the White House, and the building of other government buildings such as the Library of Congress, Roosevelt utilized the talents of Augustus Saint-Gaudens and his friends, including Charles Follen McKim, among others, to promote his dream for a new American nation.

    Striking Change includes many photographs of coins and medals rarely seen, including this unofficial inaugural medal of 1905, by Saint-Gaudens and Adolph Weinman—the personal property of Teddy Roosevelt, given by the president to his son Archie.

    Reading this book you will find yourself intrigued by the people and events described, and come to understand better the remarkable set of circumstances that came together at this moment. Perhaps at no other time could America’s foremost sculptor partner with such a dynamic president to change the face of American coinage forever. The $20 and $10 gold coins are still considered the most vibrant and beautiful designs in the nation’s coinage, telling of their era and the sense of promise envisioned by their remarkable designer.

    “Among the book’s multiple attractions,” says hobby legend Q. David Bowers, “the illustrations are beyond superb—more than have ever appeared in any other numismatically oriented reference on this artist.”

    480 pages. Hardcover 6 x 9 x 1 with dustjacket. B&W, with 32 full-color pages $24.95
    To Err Is Human.... To Collect Err's Is Just Too Much Darn Tootin Fun!
  • BroadstruckBroadstruck Posts: 30,497 ✭✭✭✭✭
    Dentuck, I was going to do a thread on this but you beat me to it. image

    I have ordered 2 copies as there just isn't any worthy Augustus Saint-Gaudens info in print... well there is now! image
    To Err Is Human.... To Collect Err's Is Just Too Much Darn Tootin Fun!
  • ZoinsZoins Posts: 33,811 ✭✭✭✭✭
    My favorite Saint-Gaudens design isn't even on a US coin.

    image

    I'd love to have the US Mint make this design.

    Photos courtesy of PandaAmerica
    Template courtesy of SpaceMonkey
  • BroadstruckBroadstruck Posts: 30,497 ✭✭✭✭✭
    I guess this would be the female model who posed for Augustus Saint-Gaudens $20 design?

    image
    To Err Is Human.... To Collect Err's Is Just Too Much Darn Tootin Fun!
  • RWBRWB Posts: 8,082
    I'd love to have the US Mint make this design.

    Yet, the winged Liberty design was rejected by Saint-Gaudens and never submitted for consideration. Would you have the mint produce a coin with a design rejected by the original artist?

    (PS: The Liberia rendition is embarrassingly awful!)

  • RWBRWB Posts: 8,082
    See: Saint-Gaudens, Zorn, and the Goddesslike Miss Anderson by William E. Hagans, American Art, Vol. 16, No. 2 (Summer, 2002), pp. 66-89 for the model.
  • ZoinsZoins Posts: 33,811 ✭✭✭✭✭


    << <i>

    << <i>I'd love to have the US Mint make this design. >>

    Yet, the winged Liberty design was rejected by Saint-Gaudens and never submitted for consideration. Would you have the mint produce a coin with a design rejected by the original artist? >>

    I don't have a problem with that if it's legal and the current owner(s) agree. Many people collect design rejects in the form of US patterns. Some collectors would also like the US to make modern versions of rejected US patterns.

    << <i>PS: The Liberia rendition is embarrassingly awful! >>

    That's why it would be good for the US Mint to make some, ideally in HR image
  • RWBRWB Posts: 8,082
    Should the Mint strike other coins from designs rejected by the artists? If you were a sculptor, would like to see your mistakes and rejects used in that way? The path to a good design is littered with rejects and failures - they are part of the creative process, but they are not the final product that the artist presents. (Would you like to have an incomplete and preliminary example of your work held out to the public as if it were your best?)

    As attractive as the winged Liberty might be (and it has it's good and bad points), we should respect the artist's genius and allow it to remain the historical footnote that it is.
  • ZoinsZoins Posts: 33,811 ✭✭✭✭✭
    The thing with coins for circulation is that artists may need to settle for a more bland version of their inspiration due to the requirements for circulation. Many people consider rejected coin designs better than what was/is put into circulation. What was rejected for one set of requirements may meet and exceed another set of requirements.
  • BroadstruckBroadstruck Posts: 30,497 ✭✭✭✭✭
    What is on Miss Liberty's head on the Liberian strike... is that a feathered headdress atop her flowing hair image
    To Err Is Human.... To Collect Err's Is Just Too Much Darn Tootin Fun!
  • ZoinsZoins Posts: 33,811 ✭✭✭✭✭
    Teddy Roosevelt had a passion for Indian headdresses and asked Augustus to add it.

    Augustus Saint-Gaudens had a passion for winged goddesses and many of his works have that theme.

    If anything, this design expresses the personal passions of Theodore Roosevelt and Augustus Saint-Gaudens better than the final designs.

    The coin is based on the June 1906 designs and covered in Renaissance of American Coinage 1905-1908.
  • RWBRWB Posts: 8,082
    The thing with coins for circulation is that artists may need to settle for a more bland version of their inspiration…

    Absolutely not! The decision has to be the artist’s as to what is or is not acceptable. The production quality of a coin design might be inferior to what the artist would like, but the artist also accepts the project with some understanding of the limitations of the medium.

    The suggestion is to take something that Saint-Gaudens specifically rejected, and use it as if the artist had approved it for coinage. If you are a carpenter, do you want a half-built house promoted as complete and final? If you paint cars do you want an incomplete paint job promoted as complete and your best work. If you write novels do you want your first draft published as if it were your best and final? (I do not want some orchestra playing my music sketches - they can wait until I've finished the compositin and orchestration.)


    … is that a feathered headdress atop her flowing hair?

    The thing sticking up like an over-moussed coiffure is one of the Indian headdresses Roosevelt wanted. It goes up, the hair goes left and the gown goes forward, the rays go right, the olive branch falls off the right edge, the wings flap one way or the other…the whole thing has no focus and is too busy. The final version (as used on the HR $20) is much simpler, focused and coherent. It’s easy to understand why S-G scrapped the winged version and also why he didn’t send it to France in June 1906 for reductions and hubs. (The Liberian version just makes things worse - the real design is better than on the "coin.")
  • ZoinsZoins Posts: 33,811 ✭✭✭✭✭


    << <i>

    << <i>The thing with coins for circulation is that artists may need to settle for a more bland version of their inspiration… >>

    Absolutely not! The decision has to be the artist’s as to what is or is not acceptable. The production quality of a coin design might be inferior to what the artist would like, but the artist also accepts the project with some understanding of the limitations of the medium. >>

    Whether or not the artist settles for a more bland version of his inspiration and what he decides is acceptable for a circulation coin project requirements are not mutually exclusive.
  • RWBRWB Posts: 8,082
    If anything, this design expresses the personal passions of Theodore Roosevelt and Augustus Saint-Gaudens better than the final designs.

    The winged design includes some of the personal preferences of TR and S-G, but that does not make it one that the artist wanted used. It was rejected by the artist.

    It is an important design, and it has a significant place in development of the designs, as I described in Renaissance of American Coinage 1905-1908, but that does not give us license to put aside the artist’s personal and professional judgment.

    This is also why I hope the mint will use the artist’s original models when they strike the 2009 reproductions.
  • ZoinsZoins Posts: 33,811 ✭✭✭✭✭
    The original decision was based on circulation coin requirements.

    A modern strike would be for non-circulation and collectors.

    The decision you are referring to was made under different circumstances than a modern strike would be made.

    We may just have to disagree on this.
  • ajiaajia Posts: 5,400 ✭✭✭
    Back to the original question....

    I have not yet read the book, but with an author named Moran how could it be anything but great! image
    image
  • DentuckDentuck Posts: 3,812 ✭✭✭
    Any relation, Agustin?

  • BECOKABECOKA Posts: 16,957 ✭✭✭
    Back to the OP, the book is pre-order only, I would imagine not many have read it.

    That said, I will be pre-ordering mine. image
  • RWBRWB Posts: 8,082
    … artist settles for a more bland version of his inspiration…

    (Angels and Victory commonly have wings, Liberty does not.)

    Bland? Does clutter and confusion equate to “exciting?” Good art has every element – every note – necessary to communicate the artist’s intent – and not one more. Look at the illustration of the final model (March 1907), study it and compare with the winged Liberty photo. Do you recall the lines from Amadeus:

    Emperor Joseph II: My dear young man, don't take it too hard. Your work is ingenious. It's quality work…. And there are simply too many notes, that's all. Just cut a few and it will be perfect.
    Mozart: Which few did you have in mind, Majesty?


    For winged Liberty, Saint-Gaudens knew his design was good, but he also knew it was not his best, most effective and powerfully expressive conception of the figure. It was, in a sense, still Victory, still winged Nike – he had to move to a higher expressive level for the figure to become Liberty.
  • ZoinsZoins Posts: 33,811 ✭✭✭✭✭
    It would be a unique US coin to feature Winged Nike. I think it would be good for there to be a Saint-Gaudens Winged Victory/Nike HR coin so more people recognize the AGE design that is so popular today started off as Victory, not Liberty image

    Clutter is subjective and different people have different perspectives. What one considers clutter for circulation may not be considered such for collection.

    As for the quotes, are you siding with Emperor Joseph II against Mozart?
  • RWBRWB Posts: 8,082
    It would be a unique US coin to feature Winged Nike.

    Super idea! Check the Krause World catalog for some very nice versions of Victory on coins. There’s also an article in COINS magazine that was published last February (? I think…)

    …hmmm on the other side we could have an aircraft carrier with the legend “Mission Accomplished.”

    But what date???
  • ZoinsZoins Posts: 33,811 ✭✭✭✭✭


    << <i> It would be a unique US coin to feature Winged Nike.

    Super idea! Check the Krause World catalog for some very nice versions of Victory on coins. There’s also an article in COINS magazine that was published last February (? I think…)

    …hmmm on the other side we could have an aircraft carrier with the legend “Mission Accomplished.”

    But what date??? >>

    If you prefer those coins, then your needs are already met image

    I prefer something else as I've stated.
  • RWBRWB Posts: 8,082
    Striking Change is an important addition to both art and numismatic history and should be consulted by anyone planning to write about Saint-Gaudens.

    The really new approach in Striking Change is the author's broad view of the relationships between Saint-Gaudens, Government officials (including John G. Carlisle and Charles Barber) and President Roosevelt. There is a lot of new material from the 1890s – particularly about the Columbian Exposition medal – that is missing from both art and numismatic publications. Whereas I focused on the coinage designs in Renaissance of American Coinage 1905-1908 following that these through 1921, Mike Moran examines the Franklin medal, sculptures and many events that might be unknown to numismatists. The author also cuts through much of the editorial distortion created by Homer Saint-Gaudens and gets back to the real Gus and Gussie (Augusta’s nickname). In the process he helps give insight into the artist and his family as real people, not idealized, two-dimensional cutouts.
  • ajiaajia Posts: 5,400 ✭✭✭
    UH.......yeah, that's it...he's my brother....and, uh, have you met my wife....MORGAN FAIRCHILD!?

    image

    Yeah, that's the ticket!
    image
  • I'm half way through this book right now and I LOVE IT!!! This the first "coin book" I've read and I must say great choice for first picks on my part.. Anyway it really sheds some light on how popular an artist he was in his day and even today... Another great thing about this book is learning the frictions of gus and Barber hehe.. Augustus Would of been so thrilled knowing Barber didn't cut the Dies for the 2009 UHR LOL.. Great read.

    Spiff

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