Anna Hyatt Huntington (1876-1973)

BACKGROUND

The genesis of my interest in Anna Hyatt Huntington was (again) my great-great aunt, Ethel Fairmont Snyder Beebe.   They lived near each other in Connecticut. Because of their physical  proximity, my Aunt had few letters from Anna but letters among my aunt’s  papers from others, notably those from sculptor Nancy Cox-McCormack,  made occasional reference to Huntington, commenting on visits exchanged  and Huntington’s grief upon the death of her husband. Letters from my  aunt to Nancy Cox-McCormack that have been deposited in the Sophia Smith Collection at Smith  College likewise speak of visits with the Huntingtons and attending  exhibitions of her sculptures. One of the items in my aunt’s papers that  especially piqued my interest in this sculptor was an article on her  that was published in the October, 1961 issue of Connecticut Life. One  of the illustrations for that article was a photograph of the then-85  year old sculptor atop a ten-foot platform, putting the finishing  touches on one of her last monumental equestrian sculptures, The Torchbearers.   I learned that this actually was her second representation of the  concept of passing the torch of civilization. The first included two  humans and a horse. The second was a single equestrian figure.   In  what turned out to be a curious connection between Huntington and my  world, I discovered that she and her husband had donated one of the  aluminum castings of the first treatment of The Torchbearers to  Stevens Institute of Technology, where my father taught and where I  grew up.  Appropriately, it is installed outside the entrance to the  college’s library.

In 2000, I made the decision to build  on my minimal knowledge of the life and art of Anna Hyatt Huntington by  writing a paper on her for a graduate Art History course I was taking  entitled “Women, Art and Society”. According to multiple biographical  sources, Huntington stands out as one of America’s foremost sculptors of  the early 20th century. Traditional, naturally portrayed  domestic and wild animals and heroic equestrian figures dominate her  oeuvre. However, she was equally capable of sensitively portraying  mythic figures. She and her philanthropist husband, Archer Milton  Huntington (author, poet and heir to a vast railroad empire) endowed  museums across America and created a public sculpture garden and  wildlife refuge, Brookgreen Gardens in South Carolina.  This visionary wildlife sanctuary, which is now  designated a National Historic Landmark, consists of more than 10,000  acres, including a 300-acre sculpture garden that is the home for over  500 figurative sculptures by some 240 American artists, including Anna  Hyatt Huntington. 

As I researched the work of this eminent, female animalier (a sculptor of naturalistically modeled domestic and wild animals), I  found myself especially drawn to her equestrian figures. There is an  amusing, probably apocryphal story that appears in a biography by Myrna  Eden (see bibliography) about her attraction to horses.  It is credited  to her sister Harriet, herself a sculptor. Harriet recounted that one of  her earliest memories of Anna, then four or five, involved  horses. Apparently the future sculptor of heroic equestrian figures ran  from the house with her sketchpad and lay down in the street between the  legs of a horse to observe how the legs supported the large animal and  to sketch them from that perspective. Huntington’s ability to apply her  understanding of equine anatomy and behavior to her art is  notable. Whether one is looking at any of her more than fifteen horse  sculptures, her equestrian figures of Joan of Arc, El Cid Campeador, or José Martí or one of her multiple versions of The Torchbearer(s),  her powerful treatment of the horse is breathtaking. While some of her  horse sculptures are relatively small in scale and lend themselves to  inclusion in private or museum collections, many of her heroic  equestrian sculptures are publicly installed, allowing for easy free  visual access. 

A SELECTION OF PUBLICLY INSTALLED EQUESTRIAN SCULPTURES BY ANNA HYATT HUNTINGTON 

Joan of Arc.  There are five heroic castings of this equestrian figure installed as follows: 

• New York City (Riversider Drive and 93rd Street)    
• San Francisco (California Palace of the Legion of Honor)    
• Quebec (Plains of Abraham)     
• Gloucester, Massachusetts     
• Blois,France.  

(Additionally, a reduced casting is among the Huntington sculptures at  Brookgreen Gardens.)

El Cid Campeador      

• New York City (Hispanic Society of America, Between 155-156 St, West of Broadway)     
• San Francisco (California Palace of the Legion of Honor)     
• San Diego, California (Balboa Park)     
• Seville, Spain     
• Buenos Aires, Argentina     
• Valencia, Spain      

SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY OF WORKS ABOUT ANNA HYATT HUNTINGTON      

  Cook, Doris E. Woman Sculptor: Anna Hyatt Huntington (187601973). 

  Hartford, CN: Doris Cook 1976.           

  Eden, Myrna G. Energy and Individuality in the Art of Anna Hyatt Huntington,

  Sculptor, and Amy Beach, Composer. Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow Press, 1987.           

  Evans, Cerinda W.  Anna Hyatt Huntington. Illustrated with Photographs by 

  William T. Radcliffe.  Newport News, Virginia: The Mariners Museum, 1965.           

  Parkes, Kineton. “An American Sculptress of Animals: Anna Hyatt Huntington.” 

  Apollo (1932): 61-66.           

  Potter-Hennessey, Pamela. “Huntington, Anna Vaughn Huntington.” Dictionary 

  of Women Artists”.  Ed. Delia Gaze. London and Chicago: Fitzroy Dearborn Publishers, 

  1997. 717-719.   

USEFUL WEB RESOURCES 

• Syracuse University Library. Anna Hyatt Huntington Papers     
• Brookgreen Gardens     
• National Museum of Women in the Arts: Anna Hyatt Huntington    
• Transcript of 1964 Interview Conducted by Dorothy Seckler for the Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution  

Photo Credit: Aware Women Artists