Robert Ingersoll Aitken

Best known for creating the sculptural group in the west pediment of the United States Supreme Court Building, Robert Ingersoll Aitken (1878–1949) personified academic conservatism in the early twentieth century. During a time when modern artists were challenging the status quo, Aitken remained a staunch defender of classic forms, rigorous training, and traditional artistic institutions.

Aitken was born in San Francisco. He studied with Douglas Tilden at the Mark Hopkins Institute of Art, first taking up painting but then turning to sculpture. [1] At the age of eighteen, he staged his first exhibition, at the prestigious Bohemian Club in San Francisco, and opened his own studio. Commissions for sculptures began flowing in, especially after the young artist spent a few months in Paris. Two of the most significant from this period are the Naval Monument in Union Square and the sculpture of President William McKinley in Golden Gate Park, both in San Francisco. Between 1901 and 1904, Aitken taught at his alma mater.

The young artist spent the next three years in Paris, where he would have been exposed to the work of French sculptor Auguste Rodin. Aitken’s work, with its emphasis on emotion and complex figural groupings, certainly demonstrates the influence of the French master as exemplified in The Flame, 1908, collection of the National Academy of Design.

Returning to the United States, Aitken settled in New York and taught at the Art Students League. His work from this time includes both small-scale private commissions representing classical subjects, for example the bronze doors for the John W. Gates mausoleum in Woodlawn Cemetery in New York, and large-scale public monuments such as the Science and Great Rivers statues at the Missouri State Capitol.

Aitken exhibited several pieces at the 1915 Panama-Pacific Exposition in his native San Francisco. Held to celebrate the opening of the Panama Canal, the exhibition also marked San Francisco’s dramatic recovery from the 1906 earthquake. [2] The exposition planners transformed the swampy marina area into an elegant shrine to the fine arts. The colossal fountain Aitken designed to symbolize the elements of fire, water, earth, and air was one of the highlights of the exposition’s sculpture program. At the fair, Aitken also exhibited a bust of former president William Howard Taft. [3]

In 1920, Aitken stirred up some controversy when, during public remarks at the meeting of the American Federation of the Arts, he bemoaned the poor lighting to which public institutions subjected their sculptures. The flap gave him a reputation as an authority on the subject of sculpture exhibitions. [4]

Aitken became a full member of the National Academy of Design in 1914 and won the Academy’s Elizabeth N. Watrous medal, which he had designed, in 1921 for his monument to George Rogers Clark at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville. Between 1919 and 1933, he taught at the Academy, and, in 1929, was elected vice- president of the institution. Aitken was also president of the National Sculpture Society from 1920 to 1922 and vice-president of the National Institute of Arts and Letters from 1921 to 1924.

In 1927, Aitken testified in a well-publicized trial involving the Romanian sculptor Constantin Brancusi. Brancusi’s abstract sculptures were anathema to Aitken and his colleagues at the National Academy. When avant-garde photographer Edward Steichen purchased a Brancusi piece called Oiseau and attempted to ship it to the United States, customs officials refused to classify it as art and imposed a heavier duty on it. When Brancusi sued, Aitken was called in to testify during the trial. His exchange with Brancusi’s attorney demonstrated his firm stance on the subject of modernism:

Q: How many works of art of Mr. Brancusi’s have you seen?

Aitken: I haven’t seen any.

Q: You haven’t seen any works by Brancusi?

Aitken: You said “works of art.” I have not.

Q: Have you seen any of his works?

Aitken: I have seen works like that [pointing to Oiseau] but I haven’t seen any works of art.

Q. In other words, you do not regard them as works of art.

Aitken: I do not. [5]

Such a conservative point of view actually helped Aitken’s reputation when it came to official sculptural commissions, for the assignment to design the pediment group for the Supreme Court Building came shortly thereafter. Chief Justice William Howard Taft, the former president and subject of the bust Aitken had exhibited in San Francisco, commissioned architect Cass Gilbert to construct a permanent home for the court in 1929. The building was constructed between 1932 and 1935. Aitken’s pediment group, installed in the west pediment so that it is highly visible as people enter the building, represents Liberty Enthroned guarded by Order and Authority. They are flanked by figures representing Council and Research. The artist modeled them on people involved with the project, including architect Gilbert, former president Taft, Chief Justices Marshall and Hughes, and Aitken himself. [6]

One of Aitken’s last pieces was a medal entitled Amor Omnia Vincit—Love Conquers All—which depicts a couple embracing. In his clever design for the medal, the nude male figure is seen from the back on one side and the nude female figure is seen from the back on the other. [7] Designed toward the end of his life, this modest piece demonstrates a quieter, more private side of a very public artist. It is in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

Notes:

[1] Unless otherwise noted, biographical information is adapted from David B. Dearinger, ed., Paintings and Sculpture in the Collection of the National Academy of Design (Manchester, VT: Hudson Hills Press in association with the National Academy of Design, 2004), 10.

[2] William Lipsky, San Francisco’s Panama-Pacific International Exposition (San Francisco, CA: Arcadia Publishing, 2005), 7.

[3] Eugen Neuhaus, The Galleries of the Exposition (San Francisco: Paul Elder and Co., 1915), 86.

[4] “Criticises Museum Sculpture Settings,” New York Times May 21, 1920, 14.

[5] Stephen C. Pepper, The Sources of Value (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1970), 275.

[6] www.supremecourt.gov/about/westpediment.pdf

[7] http://americanart.si.edu/collections/search/artwork/?id=138