Anna Hyatt Huntington (1876-1973) was one of America's foremost sculptors--justly famed in her lifetime for her vivid animal sculptures and equestrian monuments, but little remembered today. Her rendering of the human figure merits admiration as well, as any survey of her work will attest. With her husband, Archer Milton Huntington, she was also a generous and astute patron of the arts. Among other projects, they created Brookgreen Gardens (on which, see below), the first and most comprehensive public collection of American figurative sculpture.
Students, scholars, and ordinary art lovers alike will find much of interest in this selection of materials on Huntington's life and work. Begun in January 2014, in connection with the exhibition Goddess, Heroine, Beast: Anna Hyatt Huntington's New York Sculpture, 1902-1936 at Columbia University (see below), it will be updated as warranted. Suggestions for new items and corrections, as well as notifications regarding broken links, are welcome. - Louis Torres
Note on Images - Select reference sources that include high-quality images are marked [Images]. In some instances (such as the whimsical Mother Bear and Cubs), you can click once to enlarge the image--and again, to study details more closely, moving the vertical and horizontal scroll bars as needed. (Firefox is the optimal browser for viewing images, because it centers them, on a dark background.)
Biographical Material
* Wikipedia [Images: 18]
* National Academy Museum, Artists & Architects. Bio, plus information on Diana of the Chase (1922). For images of
Diana and additional background information, see below, under "Major Works."
* "Anna Hyatt Huntington." Personal reminiscences and useful information by Nancy S. Weyant, whose great-great aunt was a Connecticut neighbor of Huntington.
* "Anna Hyatt Huntington," New World Encyclopedia [Image: José Martí]
* "Anna Hyatt Huntington," Encyclopedia of World Biography.
*
Paintings and Sculpture in the Collection of the National Academy of Design (2004) [more], David Bernard Dearinger,
pp. 290-91.
* National Museum of Women in the Arts. Brief biography. [Image: Detail of portrait by Herbert Bohnert of A.H.H. sculpting The Torchbearers (see below, under "Major Works")]
* Oral history interview with Anna Hyatt-Huntington, circa 1964, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution,
Washington, D.C. Includes link to online transcript.
* "Anna Hyatt Huntington: Sculptor," South Carolina ETV video (6:58) marking Huntington's induction into the South
Carolina Hall of Fame, 1986. Interview with Robin Salmon, Vice-President for Collections and Curator of Sculpture,
Brookgreen Gardens.
* Bronze Gallery. Brief bio, plus list of books containing material on Huntington's life, followed by cover images and a
brief annotation for each book. [Images: 2 (Rolling Bear Cub, 1910)]
Image of Anna Hyatt Huntington
* Photograph by Peter A. Juley & Son.
Sculpture
Articles On
* "Wild at Heart: Rediscovering the Sculpture of Anna Hyatt Huntington," Anne Higonnet, Antiques magazine, January/February 2014.
* "Anna Hyatt Huntington's Joan of Arc," Michelle Marder Kamhi, Aristos, March 1988. [Images: 6]
At the Hispanic Society of America
* Hispanic Society of America (Museum and Library), New York City. Founded in 1904 by Archer Milton Huntington
(1870-1955). Sculpture by Anna Hyatt Huntington, Audubon Terrace, the courtyard in front of the Hispanic Society building: El Cid and two relief sculptures, Don Quixote and Boabdil (see links below). [Images: 3 thumbnails]
* A Collection in Context: The Hispanic Society of America. "The Hispanic Society Sculptural Program," Media Center for Art History at Columbia University. [Images: 4, including one of model posing for El Cid]
Exhibition
Goddess, Heroine, Beast: Anna Hyatt Huntington's New York Sculpture, 1902-1936 [more], Wallach Art Gallery, Columbia University, January 22 - March 15, 2014. [Image + video--2:32]
Exhibition Catalogue (48 pages). Wallach Art Gallery: $10 + $5 shipping and handling. Contact the Gallery to verify availability and check ordering information: wallach@columbia.edu / 212-854-6800.
* "Anna Hyatt Huntington. Goddess, Heroine, Beast," Wall Street International, January 28, 2014. [Images: 7]
* "The Most Famous New York Sculptor You've Never Heard Of," Stephanie Strasnick, ARTnews, January 21, 2014.
[Images: 4]
* "Wallach Art Gallery Presents Goddess, Heroine, Beast: Anna Hyatt Huntington's New York Sculpture, 1902-1936,"
On Campus (Columbia University), January 10, 2014.
* "Disputing the Origins of Four-Legged Treasures," Eve M. Kahn, New York Times, January 16, 2014. Scroll down for
"Solid, Lasting and Public" a review of the exhibition.
* "On Exhibit: Goddess, Heroine, Beast," Columbia News, February 20, 2014. This overview of the exhibition is
accompanied by a brief video (2:31) featuring Deborah Cullen, Director and Chief Curator of the Wallach Art Gallery,
and the exhibition's chief curator, Anne Higonnet, Professor of Art History, Barnard College.
* "'Goddess, Heroine, Beast: Anna Hyatt Huntington's New York Sculpture, 1902-1936 Exhibition," NY Art Beat, n.d.
Major Works
* Diana of the Chase (1922): replica at the National Academy of Design.
* Diana of the Chase: original cast, Brookgreen Gardens; see also enlarged image (photo by James R. Martin, Ph.D., CMA, Professor Emeritus, University of South Florida).
* Don Quixote (aluminum), Brookgreen Gardens, South Carolina (see below).
* Don Quixote (relief), Hispanic Society of America, New York City.
* El Cid, Hispanic Society of America, New York City.
* Joan of Arc, Riverside Park, New York City [Image: enlarged]
* Joan of Arc, Riverside Park, Bill Coughlin, Historical Marker Database, March 29, 2012. [Image: 8]
* Joan of Arc (Wikimedia Commons) [more]. [Images: 2]
* "Anna Hyatt Huntington and Her Joan of Arc," Nicole Semenchuk, Smithsonian Collections Blog, July 27, 2010.
* Small version of Joan of Arc, Memorial Art Gallery, University of Rochester.
* "José Julián Martí," Central Park, Official Website of the New York City Department of Parks & Recreation
* Wikipedia [Image]: José Martí
* Los Portadores de la Antorcha [Image], Wikimedia Commons, [more], Havana, Cuba.
* Anna Hyatt Huntington's "The Torchbearers" statue [Image], Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, Virginia.
* The Torch Bearers (1953) [Image], Stevens Institute of Technology, Hoboken, New Jersey.
* "An ethical lesson learned from the equestrian sculpture, 'The Torch Bearers'," University of Madrid Dental School, Madrid, Spain.
* "Discovery Museum Sculpture Up for Auction," John Burgeson, CT [Connecticut] Post, December 2, 2013.
[Images: 9]
Other Work
* In the Smithsonian American Art Museum. [Images: 20]
* Yawning Panther (1917) [Image], National Museum of Wildlife Art.
* On Pinterest. [Images: 36]
* On Tumblr.com [Images: 18]
Papers
* Anna Hyatt Huntington Papers, Syracuse University
Brookgreen Gardens [more] was founded in 1931 by Anna Hyatt Huntington and her husband, Archer Milton Huntington.
In addition to an extensive and still expanding sculpture garden for the display of work by Anna, her sister Harriet Hyatt,
and other American figurative sculptors, it constitutes a zoo and aviary.
* Brookgreen Gardens. This superb unofficial online directory of the sculpture collection at Brookgreen is compiled and
maintained by local resident and photographer Patricia Blackstock. It features high-quality thumbnails and enlarged
images, along with detailed information about each work and its sculptor. A veritable treasure trove. [Images: 200+]
* A Century of American Sculpture: Treasures from Brookgreen Gardens. Introduction by A. Hyatt Mayor, with
contributions by Joseph Veach Noble, Beatrice Gilman Proske, Gurdon L. Tarbox, Jr., and Robin R. Salmon. New York:
Abbeville Press, 1988.
* Archer Milton Huntington, Beatrice Irene Gilman Proske. New York:
The Hispanic Society, 1963.
* Brookgreen Gardens Sculpture, Beatrice Gilman Proske,
new ed. Brookgreen Gardens, S.C., 1968 (first published,
1943).
* Brookgreen Gardens Sculpture, Volume II, Robin R. Salmon. Brookgreen Gardens, S.C., 1993.
* "Anna Hyatt Huntington: A Collector's Eye," Robin R. Salmon, Brookgreen Resource Library, February 17, 2010.
Salmon is Vice President for Collections and Curator of Sculpture at Brookgreen. Her biography of Huntington is
forthcoming in 2015.
* Complete Brookgreen Collection: An Online Exhibit. A listing of 1,203 object and sculpture records itemizing the
collection. Of special interest are the illustrated sculpture entries that begin at record #82. Click on "Next" at the top to
proceed. The bibliographic notation "('Brookgreen Gardens Sculpture,' Beatrice Gilman Proske, 1968)" found in some of
the records refers to entries made by Proske for the new edition of Brookgreen Gardens Sculpture, the catalogue she had
written in 1943 at the direction of Archer Huntington.
More on the Hispanic Society, Brookgreen Gardens, and the Huntingtons
* "Archer Huntington and the Hispanic Society: A Centennial Celebration," James F. Cooper, American Arts Quarterly,
Fall 2010.
* "The Early Years of The Hispanic Society of America," interview with Beatrice Gilman Proske by Richard Cándida
Smith. Art History Oral Documentation Project, Getty Center for the History of Art and the Humanities, 1995. Digitized
by the Internet Archive in 2013. (See especially pages 31-34 for information regarding Brookgreen Gardens and the
Huntingtons.)
Beatrice Gilman Proske (1899-2002) was curator of sculpture at the Hispanic Society--founded by Archer Huntington--and she prepared the first catalogue (see link above) of the Brookgreen Gardens collection. In this interview (at the age of 95), she recalls events leading up to the purchase of Brookgreen, as well as the development of its sculpture collection. As she relates, she had admired Anna Hyatt's work even before the sculptor's marriage to Archer Huntington--meeting her for the first time in 1922, when he had sent Proske to study with the sculptor Brenda Putnam, who happened to share a studio with Anna Hyatt.
* "Beatrice Gilman Proske (1899-2002)," a remembrance written shortly after Proske's death, by Louis Torres and Michelle Marder Kamhi, Co-Editors of Aristos.
