Horatio Greenough

Horatio Greenough ( born September 6, 1805 in Boston, Massachusetts, † December 18, 1852 in Somerville, Massachusetts ) was an American sculptor.

Life and work

Horatio Greenough was the son of the real estate speculators David Greenough (1774-1836) and Elizabeth Bender (1776-1866) was born. He studied from 1821 to 1825 at Harvard University in Cambridge (Massachusetts), was then recovered by Washington Allston and Richard Henry Dana for art and devoted himself to her in his native city under Bissons line. From 1825 to 1827 Greenough lived in Italy to study the art of the Renaissance and antiquity there. In Rome he met the Danish sculptor Bertel Thorvaldsen and his master pupil Pietro Tenerani know. In May 1827 Greenough undertook a voyage back to Boston. In 1828 he became professor of sculpture at the National Academy of Design in New York. In October 1837 Greenough married a native of Boston merchant's daughter Louisa Gore ( 1812-1891 ). Together with her, he had three daughters.

In particular, the resultant in the middle of the 19th century essay collection Form and Function: Remarks on Art, Design and Architecture documented Greenough's theoretical work, with which he give important impetus to the debate about the relationship between form and function ( cf. Louis Sullivan ) could. With his early theories on art, architecture and design Greenough is considered a pioneer of functionalism (design).

After three long stays in Florence Greenough returned in 1851 returned to the U.S. to take up an on behalf of the U.S. Congress made ​​certain for the Capitol Group, The Rescue, a colonist family and an Indian set up. On December 4, 1852, he was admitted to the mental hospital McLean Mental Hospital in Somerville (Massachusetts ), and died there of a nervous fever on 18 December 1852. On 21 December 1852 he was on the Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge, a suburb of his hometown Boston, buried.

Greenough is considered the " first American sculptor ." He created, among others, an equestrian statue of Washington (1843, now in the Capitol of the United States).

George Washington, 1832-1840

The Rescue, 1837-1850