Anna Hyatt Huntington
Anna Vaughn Hyatt Huntington (March 10, 1876 – October 4, 1973) was an American sculptor who was among New York City's most prominent sculptors in the early 20th century. At a time when very few women were successful artists, she had a thriving career. Hyatt Huntington exhibited often, traveled widely, received critical acclaim at home and abroad, and won multiple awards and commissions. During the first two decades of the 20th century, Hyatt Huntington became famous for her animal sculptures, which combine vivid emotional depth with skillful realism. In 1915, she created the first public monument by  a woman to be erected in New York City. Her "Joan of Arc", located on Riverside Drive at 93rd Street, is the city's first monument dedicated to a historical woman. Biography. Huntington was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on March 10, 1876. She was the daughter of Audella Beebe and Alpheus Hyatt, a professor of paleontology and zoology at Harvard University and MIT. Her father encouraged her early interest in animals and animal anatomy. Anna Hyatt first studied with Henry Hudson Kitson in Boston, who threw her out after she identified equine anatomical deficiencies in his work (Rubenstein 1990). Later  she studied with Hermon Atkins MacNeil and Gutzon Borglum at the Art Students League of New York. In addition to these formal studies, she spent many hours making extensive study of animals in various zoos (including the Bronx Zoo) and circuses. Her work was entered in the sculpture event in the art competition at the 1928 Summer Olympics. In 1932, Huntington became one of the earliest woman artists to be elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters. She was one of 250 sculptors who exhibited in the 3rd Sculpture International held in the summer of 1949 at the  Philadelphia Museum of Art. In 1927 Huntington contracted tuberculosis. She struggled with it for a decade but survived the illness. Huntington married Archer Milton Huntington on March 10, 1923. They founded Brookgreen Gardens near Georgetown, South Carolina, incorporating Brookgreen Plantation, which was started in the late 18th century and was a major antebellum plantation. This property was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1978 and designated as a National Historic Landmark District in 1992. Hyatt Huntington was a member of the National Academy of Design and the National Sculpture Society (NSS). She and her husband donated $ 100,000 to underwrite the NSS Exhibition of 1929. Because of her husband's enormous wealth and the shared interests of the couple, the Huntingtons founded fourteen museums and four wildlife preserves. They also donated the land for the Collis P. Huntington State Park to the State of Connecticut. It consists of approximately of land in Redding, Connecticut, the town where they lived. Anna Vaughn Hyatt Huntington died October 4, 1973 in Redding, Connecticut. She is buried in Woodlawn Cemetery, The Bronx, New York City. Legacy. Hyatt Huntington's papers are held at Syracuse University, and the Archives of American Art  of the Smithsonian Institution. The Metropolitan Museum of Art ranks Huntington as among the foremost woman sculptors in the United States to have undertaken large, publicly commissioned works, alongside Malvina Hoffman and Evelyn Beatrice Longman. She was the maternal aunt of the art historian A. Hyatt Mayor. Public equestrian monuments. Hyatt Huntington's animal sculptures, figures both life-sized and in smaller proportions, are held in museums and collections throughout the United States. Her work is displayed in many of New York's leading institutions and outdoor spaces, including Columbia University, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the National Academy of  Design, the New-York Historical Society, the Hispanic Society of America, the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, Central Park, Riverside Park and the Bronx Zoo. She spent two years collaborating with Abastenia St. Leger Eberle to produce "Man and Bull", which was exhibited at the St. Louis Exposition in 1904. The Hispanic Society of America was founded in 1904 by her husband, Archie Huntington. Hyatt Huntington created the sculptures and fittings in its courtyard, including: She created two statues that are located at the entrance to Collis P. Huntington State Park in Redding and Bethel, Connecticut: "Mother Bear and  Cubs" and "Sculpture of Wolves". The park was donated to the state of Connecticut by the Huntingtons. Other equestrian statues by Huntington greet visitors to the entrance to Redding Elementary School, the John Read Middle School, and at the Mark Twain Library. The statue at the elementary school is called "Fighting Stallions" and the one at the middle school is called "A Tribute to the Workhorse". The sculpture at the Mark Twain Library, also called "The Torch Bearers", is identical in form to the one in Madrid, but is cast in bronze and appears to be smaller. In her "Horse  Trainer" (Balboa Park, San Diego) she enlivens the theme of the Roman marble Horse Tamers of the Quirinale, Rome, which had been taken up by Guillaume Coustou for the horses of Marly. Huntington's "Joan of Arc" stands at the intersection of Riverside Drive and Ninety-third Street in Manhattan catapulted her into the international spotlight after the statue was unveiled with such dignitaries as Mina Edison, Thomas Edison's second wife.