 My name is Michael Gelber as the Public Building Services Regional Commissioner for the U.S. General Services Administration's Northeast and Caribbean region. It is my pleasure to partner with the director of the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of the American Indian, Kevin Gover, and the National Archives and Records Administration's Archivist of the United States, David Ferriero, to present a discussion of the four continents, featuring our guest speaker, Harold Hozer. The General Services Administration manages an inventory of over 1,600 owned federal properties and provides stewardship of many prominent historic landmarks and public works of art. The monumental sculptures known as the four continents are key assets within our nation's public art inventory. As you will hear in the upcoming presentation, these four sculptures are integral to the Alexander Hamilton U.S. Custom House, a historic building located on the southern tip of the island of Manhattan in New York City. This site is one rich in national memory. It was once determinist of a Native American trail that traversed the island and is known today as Broadway. It was also where the purported sale of Manhattan took place in 1626 between the Lenape tribe of the Algonquin Nation and Dutch colonists. Eventually, it was the nucleus of the settlement area that became New Amsterdam. Fast forward a few hundred years and the federal government acquired the site, hired architect Cass Gilbert, and eventually finished constructing the Custom House in 1907. In the 1980s, GSA oversaw a major restoration and conversion of the Custom House into the multi-tenanted federal building we know today, major building tenants of the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian, the National Archives, and the U.S. Bankruptcy Court. GSA embraces the special opportunity to work with the Smithsonian and the National Archives to better understand our past and ensure all who visit this building learn more about our nation's rich, complex, and diverse history. Thank you for being a part of this conversation. Hello, I'm Kevin Gover. I'm the Director of the National Museum of the American Indian. As you may know, we have museums both in New York, as well as on the National Mall of Washington, D.C. As you also know, our New York Museum is in the Alexander Hamilton U.S. Custom House and a historic building in New York City that has some very interesting sculptures, all about it. The four that we're going to talk about today are interesting pieces in and of themselves. As you know, Daniel Tester French was a major sculptor of public art and very much a person of his time. The four sculptures that we're talking about, the continents, very much reflected the popular, the common, the known understanding of people of the United States at that time. Of course, to our eye, they can be rather jolting when we look at them carefully. And we notice that certainly the depictions of Africa and Asia are, well, they're racist. And so what to do with public art of this type is the question that many, many communities are grappling with. And there are a number of different approaches to it. So it's good that you would convene to think and listen and talk about these things. I just want to say how pleased we are to be a tenant in the Alexander Hamilton Custom House and how pleased we are to be a partner and a co-tenant, a neighbor of the National Archives here in New York City. So thank you very much for attending. And I look forward very much to hearing what's said. Thank you. Hello, I'm David Ferriero, Archivist of the United States. It's my pleasure to welcome you to our program on the Four Continents, a commission of Daniel Chester French. The National Archives is home to the records of the United States Custom Service, the oldest federal agency established by the Fifth Act of Congress on July 31st, 1789, to regulate the collection of the duties imposed by law on the tonnage of ships, vessels, and on goods, wares, and merchandise imported into the United States. On August 5th, 1789, the first ship to usher in the era under the new customs regulations entered the port of New York from Italy. The Brigitine Pursus carried various goods consigned to William Seaton, a successful importer who also served as cashier of the Bank of New York under Alexander Hamilton. Seaton paid a duty of $774.41, the first collected by the United States. From that start in 1789 until 1913, when the 16th Amendment established the collection of a federal income tax, the duties collected by the U.S. Custom Service was the government's central source of revenue. While the Custom Service had offices across the country, New York was the busiest port for many decades. The U.S. Custom Service records housed at the National Archives at New York City document that rich maritime history. The records are vast. They document trade, industry, and manufacturing, ship activity, enforcement of maritime law, and of course, the collection of duties. Records include cargo manifests, entrance and clearance registers, impulse books, shipping articles, and crew lists, all of which provide excellent primary source material for the study of our nation's maritime history. The records list founders of our country, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, James Monroe, Henry Clay, John Tyler, Martin Van Buren, Alexander Hamilton, and Timothy Pickering. The Custom Service was at one time the largest federal employer and its employee registers list notable staff who were appointed by the president, including future president Chester A. Arthur, author Herman Melville, and even clerks such as Arctic explorer Matthew Henson. The Grand U.S. Custom Office at One Bowling Green in New York City was designed by architect Cass Gilbert to reflect the agency's significance. Records in the National Archives tell the building story from government acquisition of the land to the commissioning of artist Reginald Marsh to paint murals in the Rotunda for the Treasury Relief Art Project during the New Deal. Along the way you'll find Cass Gilbert's blueprint drawings as well as records documenting the commissions of Rafael Guastavino, architect of the Rotunda Dome, and the Tiffany Studio panels inside the collector's office. The Custom Service remained in the building until 1973 when it moved offices to the World Trade Center. In 2003 the agency became part of the now Department of Homeland Security. In 1990 Congress renamed the building for Alexander Hamilton and eventually it became home to a number of federal agencies including the National Archives at New York City, the Smithsonian's Museum of the American Indian, and the U.S. Bankruptcy Court. Today's program will provide you with the historical context around the four continent statues which flanked the entry of the landmark building. Historian Harold Holzer will discuss Daniel Chester French's design as representative of early 20th century America, his work with the Pickeringly sculptors, and the influence of Cass Gilbert on the statues. Afterwards Dr. Chris Barron of Columbia University will moderate a question and answer session. The National Archives encourages the public to use their records to study the past and learn from it and examine our history both good and bad. This program is presented in partnership with the current stewards of the building, the General Services Administration, and tenants of the building, the Smithsonian's National Museum with the American Indian, and the National Archives at New York City, as well as Chester Wood, the Summer State and Studio of American Sculptor Daniel Chester French, and a National Trust for Historic Preservation Site. Please join me in welcoming Harold Holzer and Dr. Chris Barron. Thank you David Ferriero. Archivist of the United States for that introduction. Good evening. I am Christine Barron, assistant professor of social studies and education at Teachers College Columbia University. I am pleased to serve as moderator for tonight's important program. For Continents, a commission of Daniel Chester French, a discussion with historian Harold Holzer. I want to remind the public watching that this is a live broadcast, so if you have questions or want to tell us from where you are watching, please enter that into the YouTube chat box. I will open up our Q&A to the public near the end of the session, and if we don't get a chance to answer all of your questions, we will share those responses afterwards via our program, our Twitter handle. This conversation comes at a moment in our national history when we are reckoning with the ways in which monuments hold public space and the ideas and ideologies and values that they bring with them into those spaces. This conversation is part of a larger effort on behalf of the National Archives to open a dialogue about these problematic works and the properties within the federal government holdings. This is the first part of a two-part series about the four continent statues. On Monday, December 7th at 6 p.m., we will continue this conversation with a panel discussion with Brent Leggs, the executive director of the African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund, and Michelle Cohen, the architect of the U.S. Capitol, focusing on how the four continents interact with today's public lens and how to engage those statues with an eye towards greater equity and inclusion in our public spaces. Our guest speaker tonight is Harold Holzer, one of the country's leading authorities on Abraham Lincoln and the political culture of the Civil War era. He is a prolific writer, lecturer, and frequent guest on television. His book, Monument Man, the Life and Art of Daniel Chester French is the definitive biography of Daniel Chester French, the artist who created the statue for the Lincoln Memorial, John Harvard in Harvard Yard, and the four continent sculptures outside the U.S. Customs House. French, who lived from 1850 to 1931, is America's best-known sculptor of public monuments. Holzer's biography combines rich personal details from French's life with a nuanced study of his artistic evolution and the beautiful archival photographs of his life and work. As part of our current conversation around public sculptures, monuments, and memorials, historian Harold Holzer will discuss the context as well as the development of the sculpting of these statues, as well as Daniel Chester French is designed as a representative of a 20th-century art, American art. His work with the peaturelli sculptors and the influence of Cass Gilbert, the building's architect with these statues. Welcome, Harold. Thank you. Thank you, Dr. Barron and Commissioner Gelber, Director Bover, and of course my friend David Ferriero, the Archivist of the United States. It's an honor to be with you and a great opportunity to talk about the creation of the Four Continents. For the record, Daniel Chester French was actually working uptown at Columbia University at the Low Library, installing his bronze alma mater when the Custom House began rising on the site that Dr. Gelber mentioned was the very spot where colonists allegedly paid $24 to mark the first great Manhattan real estate deal, I suppose, if you're looking at it from a white colonist point of view. In size and grandeur, of course, the new Cass Gilbert Beaux-Arts sculpture structure was destined to dwarf anything ever built there, including the old Dutch fort that had one stood on that site as well. And it was perhaps the most coveted government building contract of the early days of the 20th century. But Daniel Chester French actually knew from painful experience that government projects usually got assigned to government sculptors. Early in his own career, he'd taken a number of commissions for sculpture adorning post offices and treasury buildings, and he took them at humiliating per diem wages. And got them only, and there is a good shot of friendship around the time we're talking about, got them only because his father was an assistant secretary of the treasury who actually gave out the contracts. Well, now it was time for Cass Gilbert to assume the role of influencer, and it was he who had the power in this commission. In a nod to the America Beautiful Movement, which encouraged architecture to unite with the fine arts to create, I guess, ideal public spaces, Gilbert's own contract for the building stipulated that the modeling and carving of sculpted figures would be, and I quote, done by sculptors of known skill and ability, whom he, Gilbert, would have total authority to select. Gilbert budgeted a very handsome $13,500 for each of these what he calls symbolic sculptural groups that he had in mind for the steps outside. And he decided it would be a quartet of statues representing the four great continents, as he put it, from which taxable import duties were flowing. The statues, by the way, and not unimportantly in terms of our discussion and the discussion that you will be having next week, would face the very spot where an equestrian statue of George III had once stood until the colonists first heard the words of the Declaration of Independence, read aloud there, and reacted by tearing down the statue of the king and breaking it to bits. I'm not suggesting to get any ideas from that, but it is part of the cultural history of Bowling Green. So who was best suited to produce this visual statement demonstrating America's power and riches? Actually, Casgill, but was unable to choose between the two most obvious candidates. So he reached a kind of Solomon-esque decision. He would assign one pair each to America's greatest monument man, Augustus St. Gordon, and Daniel Chester French. French, for his part, called the invitation a tremendous proposition, and I think he thought so even more after St. Gordon's already battling a cancer that would later kill him, ominously replied by saying that his own time was insufficient to permit his participation. So Gilbert, who had already worked pretty amicably with French on another project, the Minnesota State Capitol, invited DCF to fashion all four statues, allegorical groups, according to the assignment, to symbolize Asia, America, Europe, and Africa. So French started the work in around 1903 at precisely the time he assumed another mantle of power as a trustee of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. He was given three years to complete the work, but as he told Gilbert, he was really enthusiastic, because as he put it, this project interests me more than anything almost I ever had to do, and I am willing to make great sacrifices in order to be permitted to execute. Keep in mind, as I go through his artistic process here, that French was always at work on several things at once. He did not just do the continents or all the modern or the Lincoln statue at Lincoln, Nebraska. He worked on everything, every commission in different stages. Well, he was inspired because in only three months he had conceived and created clay studies, then plaster enlargements of all four of the continents. And his conception was four female figures, each ornamented with an array of emblems to showcase, and I think kind of show off, is historical research, is bravura talent, and what the sculptor's daughter and biographer called his love of symbolism and ancient meaning. And by the way, we're not totally sure who modeled for these female figures. French had a rotating band of well-known and probably expensive models, including an early model named Violet Conrad, who was quite a fashion figure of her day, as was Audrey Munson. That main name may be vanished in our consciousness today, but I guess she was America's first supermodel. She was also the first woman to appear nude in a motion picture, 1915. She's the model for the municipal building statue way up on top of our municipal building and spirit of the waters in Saratoga. French may have also used his own niece as a model for at least one of the statues. Everyone lay claim to America, of course, because that was perhaps the star of the quartet. French's niece was, incidentally, the first woman believed to hold a driver's license in the United States as early as 1900. But more than reflecting a view of the great beauties of the day, let's say, French's work reflected a distinct point of view shared by many of his gilded age contemporaries about America's place in the world and the other continent's place in the world. I think they also reflected the views of the sculptor's political hero, Theodore Roosevelt, progressive, as they told themselves, but also kind of undisguisably imperialistic. And where racial and ethnic sensitivity was concerned, not what we today would call woke, I would suggest, but in his own time considered or they consider themselves advanced. After glimpsing the preliminary models in 1903 in May, Gilbert called him satisfactory, telling the sculptor he was highly pleased and he was paying, so French proceeded. Now, French never liked talking about his preliminary work, much less explaining it, and he seldom did. But in a first, he invited a journalist to examine these little maquettes set out on a marble table at his 11th Street studio in Manhattan just eight months later, and he provided great and rare insights into his thought process. The reporter admitted that when he saw these little models, an untrained eye might pass them by as pieces of street bric-a-brac, but then he realized that each one is exceedingly precious in the eyes of the sculptor, I'm quoting him now, for it holds captive in material form many labored thought and inspiration. So we have glimpses of French's thought process from this interview. And as French talks, the reporter said he was glancing now and then from his clay to his little plaster sketch as he was working on it, as a composer might, from the keys of his instrument to some scribbled notes. French enlarged all sketches into quarter-sized and half-sized models. A search began for just the right Tennessee marble for the work. And French worked not only in Manhattan, but at Chesterwood, his wonderful summer residence in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, shipping the models to and from each headquarters as the seasons changed and transporting his assistants along with the models. They helped him continue the work without pause. When living in the country, French had the advantage of working not only in his little studio, but outdoors because his studio featured a railroad track with a detachable floor and one could push a work in progress out into the beautiful Berkshire sunlight. And then French could scamper down the hill to get just the right perspective of how work would look on a pedestal. In fact, the 1905 photo shows him sort of the America looking up almost at the Berkshire treetops. Inside all was disorder and confusion, a studio assistant noted, with sections of lions and tigers and Indians and sphinxes and high-bred ladies scattered among white footprints in the plaster on the floor. That kind of chaos always made St. Gaudens as nervous as a primadonna, someone once noted. But French loved this kind of demolishment, as a visitor called it, and he had a certain amuse for barrens toward the mess. Making order out of all the tummelt was the job of a man named Adolf Weinmann, a goateed 34-year-old German-born sculptor who served as French's principal assistant on the project. In French's view, in his generous view, Weinmann would contribute so much to the project that he would have the young man's name inscribed right below his own on each finished statue. And then in the spring of 2006, French turned the marble carving over to six brothers from the Bronx by way of Carrara in Tuscany, the Pitcherilli brothers, Attilio, Ferruccio, Furio, Massiniello, Orazio, and Gettuiu. They had already carved a Greek goddess from French for the Brooklyn Museum. At their massive one-block square workshop near what would soon become, well within 20 years, would become Yankee Stadium. French, who would use them for many years, including for the statues of Manhattan and Brooklyn on the Brooklyn side of the Williamsburg Bridge, and ultimately for the Lincoln Memorial, stopped almost every day in the Bronx. And I don't think he made a mistake here. He would go every day at around noon because that's when one of the brothers would make steaming spaghetti or appetizing ravioli according to a magazine profile. The brothers would prepare it, and as each brother left the chiseling, the carving work, they would hand off the chisel to another brother who would be able to identify their extraordinary shared talent and experience, just continue the work as if in one continuous motion. After one visit to the Bronx, French told Cass, they're coming out splendidly in the marvel. I'm delighted with the manner in which the Pichirilli brothers are executing them. They consider it a great opportunity to show what they can do, and they're doing the very best. French did something else for which he's rather remarkable. He was really publicity savvy, so he began promoting the works in advance. He shipped the early plaster models to Philadelphia and had them exhibited at the Academy of Fine Arts to drum up enthusiasm, then to Indiana for display at the Indianapolis Art Museum. Mere photos of the models were enough to constitute what was called the most important feature of the 1906 show at the New York Architectural League, hinting at what one critic called French's superb technique. The only anxiety that I detected from French about his work was that he was a little bit anxious about hoisting the finished marbles into place before Gilbert gave his final approval, also because they were uninsured, but they went ahead and did it. The continents were set on their four rectangular pedestals in March 1907, with Asia and Africa occupying the outer edges, Europe and America flanking the central staircase. By the way, one of the works, America remained rather obviously unfinished, and French began working on site to complete its features, working on a ladder, as he often did. People have asked me how French worked, and I always emphasize he was not Michelangelo, he didn't get a block of marble and then worked for 20 years to create a statue of David. He worked on models, he worked on plaster enlargements, he worked in clay and plaster, and then handed off to an extraordinary assembly line of gifted people who enlarge further, who cast in bronze or who worked in marble. And then French was always present to do finishing work, to do alterations at the Pietruilli's or on site, as he did here. So, as I've said, I say in my book, and I say often, French hated explaining his work, he liked to let it speak for itself, but he left this remarkable and unique body of information about exactly what he wanted to say about the continents, both in letters to Cas Gilbert and in the New York Tribune interview, and they provide insight into his creative work, but also his grasp of visual allegory and his views on history, race, and culture, and it's worth exploring all of these. We don't have to guess at what French's symbols and his corollary sculptures were meant to suggest, because he left the verbal and written evidence to guide us. So let's go to the next slide and look at the, well let's look at the work in situ, I should have queued that earlier. In the next slide, there we go, there they are as they're set at the custom house on the four pedestals, and then let's go to the next to look at the early model of Asia, and he said he wanted to portray stolidity and self-contentment in the form of a bejeweled Indian woman, her voluptuousness kind of reminiscent of a Shiva figure, her throne resting on skulls to evoke reincarnation, and let's look at the next slide to see the finished work, which shows this a little more clearly, you see the skulls peeking out from the figure's hem at the bottom. There's a Buddha in her lap to portray religious reverence while hinting at an insularity that stultifies progress and access. I think Cass Gilbert probably liked this emphasis because he firmly believed that Eastern religions encouraged what he called false worship, and he believed that only Christianity, evangelical Christianity, could propel Asia fully into the modern world. There's a tiger to Asia's right, symbolizing the vast jungles, French said, maybe more territory to be westernized, we can't be sure, and on the left we see an emaciated man sort of crouching, personifying what French rather insensitively described as the hordes of India and the hopelessness of the life of so many of the inhabitants. In stark contrast, his next work, if we look at the next slide, America in its original model suggests raw power still in its youth, ready to discard impediments to progress, a window into French's own patriotic and political beliefs. In the next slide, we see finished America, and we can clearly see an American Indian cowering behind the central figure's shoulder, symbolizing what French seemed to be arguing was the unlamented retreat of Native peoples, not only from Manhattan, from this spot in Manhattan, but from America. While, as you see, a muscular white man ready for action, nearby grasps what you see at the bottom right of the picture is a wheel of progress. Husks of corn in America's lap signify French said America's idea of plenty, while the torch in her hand reiterates a familiar motif, as we know from our harbor, that of American liberty enlightening the world. But French wanted his new world figure to express more than prosperity. As he put it, and these are his words, he meant to celebrate the triumph of mind over material things, a young civilization grown powerful through the development of its natural resources, in contrast to the ancient culture of Europe whose might has been increased by foreign conquest and colonization. So, French is here decrying imperialism at the same time he's gotten celebrated. He wanted observers to recognize that the nation was both progressive and aggressive, which is certainly a conscious endorsement of the robust nationalism of Theodore Roosevelt, who French admired. Now, let's look at the next sketch of Europe, in which French intended to present a regal but haughty goddess, just so you can see it in the slight tilt of the head in this very rough sketch. Behind her throne, a hooded figure symbolizing ancient history sits concealed among the crowns of her dead kings. You'll see it more vividly in the next slide, the final. There you see the haughty tilt of head here. And as French pointed out, Europe holds her head high as one law accustomed to command. Her left arm rests on the globe, signifying her control of global commerce. The book she holds at least concedes Europe's learning and intellectual achievement. But French wanted Europe and America to contrast each other. As he put it, and listen to these words, the way stagnant pools compared to rushing waters clearly meant to claim that America had surpassed the older continent. And finally, as you see in the next sketch, there was Africa, perhaps the most original, but also the most problematic of the statues. First, we ought to know that it owed an artistic debt to a sculptor called Knight, a Michelangelo masterpiece that French had studied decades earlier in Florence. Let's look at the final. And we see that Africa comes to light as a half naked, certainly a cliched approach to tribal people, shown as a dozing giantess, head cradled on her chest, and nearby sphinx, as you see on the left of the picture, alludes to the mystery of Africa, a silent tribute as well, I think, to a dead sculptor named Martin Milmore, whom French had sculpted in a fantastic piece called Death Stays the Hand of the Sculptor, which is in Massachusetts and also a copy of the Metropolitan Museum. The lion at right, you see nestling under Africa's arm, excuse me, is supposed to suggest the untapped might, but also the, quote, primitive jungle might of Africa. So the visiting journalist recorded French's insights, and he remembered the sculptor calling Africa clearly the slumbering continent, the sphinx he said, arousing a figure of power, alert and alive, typifying the spirit of Western civilization, which has begun to conquer Africa. Yes, he admitted this particular statue was meant not to justify Africa awakening on its own, but Africa awakening to Western conquest. Aside from endorsing colonialism, French made a truly curious decision, presenting Africa as kind of an idealized European type, much the same way that Renaissance artists had portrayed Jesus as a European type. French quickly found he had some explaining to do about this decision, and his defense proved awkward. No, he insisted he was not trying to portray Africa as an Egyptian, kind of the easy stock answer, but yes, he had consciously rejected what he called quote, Negro features, although he never explained why. It was, I think, one of French's missteps, one that surely reflected the intractable racial insensitivity nationwide. To be sure was a lost opportunity to encourage diversity, as French had done admirably just 10 years before in a work, a respectful work called the Teamster, a statue for the Chicago World's Columbian Exposition. And so we have the entire suite, as we look again in the next slide at the front of the building, truly French's greatest achievement in architectural sculpture. And I will point out that it earned immediate and lavish praise from contemporaries. To be sure I'm talking about white art critics, but they all hailed the work as much for their symbolism as for their sculptural qualities. Let's consider the age in which these pieces were dedicated. The Century Magazine rave, Mr. French has moved forward to a new feeling, an original method in dealing with abstract ideas in sculpture. Congratulations are due to the genius and profound skill which have combined to produce such results. Art writer Adeline Pond Adams concurred, she said, in every one of the four, we see a master sculptor's intellect at work and play. And the journal Monumental News reported that the commission had provoked the joy and terror of every imaginative and creative artist, but that French had avoided all the pitfalls with great judgment. Yet another publication wrote the works excited not only French's fellow sculptors, but laymen. They called this prodigious effort French's best work, not only his best work, but among the most remarkable sculpture of modern times. No less impressed was the architect of this extraordinary building, Cass Gilbert. He wrote that through sincere straightforward technique and the ideal of pure beauty, Daniel Chester French had created works unrivaled and unsurpassed by any other artist of his time. Let's be clear, French earned much more than praise. He took in $54,000 for the continents, a lot of money in 1906, out of which he paid $14,500 to the Pichirile brothers. It turned out to be one of the best paying projects of his entire career, as well as one of the most enduring. But while the original tiny maquettes still reside safely at Chesterwood and are really worth visiting to see how French progresses from these sketches onto these finished works, and of course the marble statues are intact and well worth visiting at Custom House, the half-sized plaster models met a sadder fate. I would love for them to have survived as well so we could understand the artistic process, the middle ground. But French presented them to the Institute of Art at Indiana University in 1906. The staff there erroneously registered them as reproductions, not models. They later lent them, they believed they were worthless copies to an Indianapolis high school and in the late 1930s the high school destroyed them. Not that unusual at the time, French's other plaster models went to the Art Institute of Chicago where he thought they would be safe because his own brother was the first director of the Art Institute of Chicago that they too wound up in the dustbin. French didn't live to learn and lament that loss, but he did come to regret, I want to end by saying this, that along the way to unveiling these finished statues in confided maybe too many insights about the project. For years admirers who knew about this New York Tribune interview were still writing to him to inquire about all the symbols lurking within the Custom House compositions and he did these little tricks in many of his sculptures. There's an owl of wisdom in all the modern supposedly if you go by and touch it, you graduate. There are other symbols in his other sculptures where you stand under it like mistletoe when you get engaged, so French loved these tricks but didn't like talking about them. One correspondent wondered about 10 years after the dedication why there was a hooded figure crouched behind the spinks in the Africa group, which by the way is still a mystery to this day. French finally decided he was done explaining. He cut off the conjecture. Instead he said and I quote, sculpture is the language that the sculptor speaks in and often the introduction of a motif is what a feeling rather than a kind of literary expression. The fact that several writers seem to have felt that this figure represented mystery well that seems to prove that I expressed exactly the feeling that I had in mind. Kind of an elaborate fantasy act the way of saying no more comment, I'm done. Well the statue still mystifies us. I understand that it concerns some of us too because these magnificent works are products of genius by a product of his own time. Still worth seeing I believe, I firmly believe, still worth admiring as art but certainly overdue for contextualization as well, which I think they will easily survive and perhaps be better understood when they are. In this era of overdue conversation about public art, I think Daniel Chester French would have welcomed the dialogue not to mention the attention. So thank you very much for the opportunity to talk about my friend Dan French and the Four Continents. Excellent. Thank you so much for that wonderful presentation. We actually do have a question from our audience which I will ask you now. Did French reference any prior iconographic traditions about the Four Continents and in turn was he then quoted by other sculptors? So is this the beginning of a series in the middle or is it sort of the terminus of? You know he didn't precisely reference other works. I discussed a kind of a reflection of the Michelangelo in Florence but seated figures were all the rage. I mean he had done John Harvard for Harvard. He had done Alma Mater. He would of course famously do the Lincoln Memorial. But you know there was a wonderful piece of the new criterion by my friend Eric Gibson, one of the arts editors of The Wall Street Journal, who speculated that the Horatio Greenow sculpture of Georgie in his bath as it became known, George Washington, a half-naked George Washington perhaps influenced French for the Lincoln Memorial. I might argue with Eric about that but perhaps they influence the continents more than anything else. So he was always referencing other works but striving for a kind of originality and always combining allegorical art and naturalistic art. He loved both forms and he tried often to combine them as well. So in comparing the statues one to another you've got the grandeur and the active motion of the America statue and that's obviously designed to express superiority over the other continents and Daniel Chester French himself carved that statue, the face of that statue. Yet Africa looks much different. The edges aren't as refined. She's much more muscular and contrast to the other. Do we know why the faces were so different and why Daniel Chester French himself did not carve the faces of those statues? So he seldom carved faces in the final works. He relied on his models which we don't have. So we don't know what state the half model was in as a model for the Pichirilles. If you look at how they worked on the Lincoln Memorial they worked from you know a full-size model of Lincoln's head and miraculously I mean transformed into marble. You must understand I wrote this with just total awe and mystification at how any sculptor can do any of this. How does he do this clay? How does a marble carver transfer it almost precisely? I mean it's the same kind of thing that Vermeer did and we don't exactly know how he did it. We can just sit back and be and be awestruck. So my guess with Africa is that he purposely left it kind of unformed to suggest that the continent had yet to develop fully. Don't forget you know it's got the it's the Rooseveltian view of Africa which is a place to go hunting and maybe to prevent further imperialistic encroachments by the French and the British and the Belgians. So it's you know it's a 19 early 1900s view but I think the unformed thing was a was a reference to the lack of formation of an identity at least one that you know America would be comfortable with. So in mentioning Teddy Roosevelt across town you know they're dealing with the statue the Teddy Roosevelt statue at the American Museum of Natural History and they're contending with similarly you know issues that have long been problematic about this time period. Cass Gilbert himself you know he was active in the eugenics movement and other you know the Half Moon Club and other really you know what we would consider deeply offensive ideas. So how do we you know when they were first when and they were designed to demonstrate degrees of superiority around whiteness in particular. When they were first unveiled what was the public reaction particularly in the New York immigrant communities and you know were they received allegorically or were they received as pure text with a message to those individuals. I think the history of the last two that were received and I have no evidence about whether they are in language or you know Anglo or hyphenated American press that's a fascinating avenue for further research whether they attested to or remarked at all on the sculptures but they were received in the New York community looking at the New York reviews with first admiration for the artistic you know the showing off the bravura artistry of the pieces. This is Daniel Chester French saying I can do anything I can do drape figures I can do nude figures I can do beautiful women I can do sleeping women I can do all sorts of symbols I will have you sitting and studying at the feet of these sculptures for weeks and months and I'll bet you don't ever get everything that I was trying to to impart. So I think they were received as artistic triumphs without much reference except you know there was a general sensibility there was a general sense that America this was the beginning of America's century that Europe was used up and had was resting on its laurels and was still snobbish about its power but really was declining in power which is what sculpture suggests that Africa was not yet awake to its own potential and maybe America would be fighting Europe for control over it and that and that Asia was filled with riches and mysterious traditions I mean it's a rich white folks view of the world but there's also a sense of welcoming the commerce from the world there is an acknowledgement primarily by Gilbert who did the assignment that these are the outposts old world new world from which America's richness will come and there's no income tax it's all flowing through this building it's the biggest revenue generator in the United States this building and in a way it's a tribute to the four continents rather than a criticism although America ultimately sits tallest and is the most active and the most coiled ready for greatness so let's say the thing about the Half Moon Club because I do want to acknowledge that French was a member of the Half Moon Club as well and he was a club guy he went to you know he liked clubs he liked societies he quickly got on the boards of many of them and of course the Metropolitan Museum of Art is his that's the Naples Ultra that's where all of the the society folks the philanthropists and artists because at that time the net board had artists and he took an American sculptor seat out of the board and then worked to define the American sculpture collection to collect St. Don's and to actually he was almost the acting curator of American sculpture I don't know how much time he had for the Half Moon Club it was a way to have cigars and drinks with other rich people I have to say about I don't know if it meant he endorsed eugenics the way Gilbert did in his writings did French believe in America's American superiority and white superiority I'm sure he absolutely did is that all wealthy men but I think French is going about club and other clubs was a very simple there's a very simple reason that's where the jobs work all these other rich people who are coming to these to these dinners are his future patrons or his current patrons and that's where he's going to get his commissions and his work so it's very calculating in a way almost more than and social because I think at French had his French as happy as days were spent at Chesterwood just you know gardening he didn't love hanging out at clubs but again he was a businessman and a really brilliant businessman as well so I have here we're already almost out of time so I have our last question okay so in any one historical space particularly these public spaces there's never one time period that we are dealing with outside the origins of that space which is hundreds of thousands of years ago but rather the layers of time and people that have shaped that space and that the space in front of the customs house in particular it's deeply layered from the Dutch purchase of Manhattan from the Lenape to the most recent political protests so in its original iteration and citing of the statues in front of the customs house obviously these statues were intended to convey a message about the rising economic power of the United States at the turn of the last century in all of them we find you know racism imperialism capitalism your centrism and so on and while the aesthetic beauty of these statues remains unchanged the context in which they now exist both in terms of the physical space itself but also who occupies the building those of those have changed dramatically so given those layers of history and the contradictions of the in that public space how do we develop meaningful understandings of these statues in their current contexts and begin to address the challenges that they pose to viewers and to our civic conversations so that is an extraordinarily stated question and I have been on a kind of a personal journey of my own regarding Confederate statues when I spoke at Gettysburg three years ago the day that I got this flag you see behind me it flew over the soldier cemetery the day I talked about statues I I kind of pleaded for contextualization rather than destruction or removal but this year with the Black Lives Matter movement I changed as I think we're all entitled to evolve and I wrote an op-ed piece saying that statues that pay tribute to to people who are basically traders to America should not hold a public square in America people who thought for the institution of of enslaved people and perpetuated their suffering through four years of the bloodiest war in American history should not be honored so I've become a supporter of the of the removal of the Richmond statues and certainly bad art as well the Richmond some of the Richmond ones are rather beautiful and perhaps they can be preserved elsewhere but they should not be in the public square I'm conflicted about sculptures like the Emancipation Group near the U.S. Capitol not too far from the National Archives headquarters in Washington because it was commissioned by it was paid for by African American Freedmen dedicated by Frederick Douglass it's imperfect it's ambiguous it offends many people in Washington I know people of color I think that's a valuable contextualization effort to to be considered and yet I look at how Europe has been able to preserve statues that offend some the Arch of Titus is all about raiding the temple in Jerusalem there's never been a great effort to remove it because it's offensive the the Russians kept the equestrian of St. Peter in St. Petersburg through the revolution and protected it during the siege by the Nazis and it became a symbol of of the city of Leningrad as opposed to a relic of Tsarist rule I think we have an opportunity to contextualize these works to describe them for visitors to say these are a moment in time these reflect a moment in time from which we have advanced culturally and philosophically but which also represent an artistic an American artistic moment and triumphed by a great sculptor whose work should continue to be seen and understood through the lens that he viewed American through and the world I think that's the I think that would be the ideal and I know that now I can contextualize and make those statues make sense we don't want to go the way of the Bamiyan Buddhas I think which are now which were destroyed by the Taliban and now are being rebuilt and flexiblized so they're there you know they're I think we've seen too much evidence of overreaction as well I hope these statues survive and are explained and so we actually do have one more question from our audience how do we answer to critics who say that the racist elements mean that the four continents should be removed well I would offer a plea for appreciating the art for art's sake and and understanding them in their time and providing kiosks or literature maybe kiosks with with text that that position them in their time and place when they were universally applauded again I acknowledge by all white critics all male well there was one woman I quoted so we we have a societal choice to make an artistic choice to make I'll certainly be listening to the panel which the architect of the capital and my friend Brent legs opine further on this there are works in the capital that call out call call call up questions as well but I think they've done a they've done a good job for example in noting that the freedom statue by Crawford at the top of the dome was um much of what was crafted by slave labor and we have acknowledged that the irony of a statue of freedom um being created by forced labor so it's complicated worth discussing and we will continue the discussion uh on Monday December 7th uh at 6 p.m. we hope that you will join us as well for this continuing discussion on the four continents uh at that point we will consider it an open dialogue and so join me as I moderated discussion with Brent legs the executive director of the African American Cultural Heritage Fund and Michelle Cohen the curator of for the architect of the U.S. capital I would like to thank Harold Holzer the general services administration and the Smithsonian Museum of the American Indian and the U.S. National Archives for this wonderful program this evening thank you so much thank you