Augusta Saint-Gaudens

Black and white photograph of Augusta Homer Saint-Gaudens in her early thirties

George C. Cox

Quick Facts

Place of Birth:

Roxbury, MA

Date of Birth:

April 26, 1848

Place of Death:

Cornish, NH

Date of Death:

July 7, 1926

Place of Burial:

Cornish, NH

Cemetery Name:

The Temple, Saint-Gaudens National Historical Park

This self-trained artist was born in Roxbury, Massachusetts where her upper-class family retained deep roots. Augusta Homer Saint-Gaudens went on to cross the world with independence and root the artwork of an innovative sculptor in the American consciousness.

Augusta Homer traveled to Rome in 1872 to complete her education and took private painting lessons. She progressed from an amateur copyist of Old Masters to an assured artist who captured the likenesses of friends and of the Italian peasants who worked as models. A smaller number of works are landscapes painted with a looser, softer stroke mostly of the places she visited. She was stylistically conservative, seemingly not interested in pushing her artistic expression beyond conventional taste.

In 1873, she met the artist Augustus Saint-Gaudens who would play an inescapable part of her life and shift the course of what had been expected for her. Augustus Saint-Gaudens belonged to the artisan class, but his cosmopolitan character—with an Irish birth and a French last name—made their courtship seem acceptable. He proposed to Augusta Homer two months after meeting and they were finally married in 1877. From the start, Augusta Saint-Gaudens was an active partner in her husband’s growing career. She advised him on business and helped usher him into the upper-class social circles that would provide commissions for his art.

The couple lived demanding lives in the years following the birth of their son, Homer Schiff Saint-Gaudens, in 1880. Her own artistic aspirations were subsumed by marriage, motherhood, and supporting her husband’s ambitions as his career exploded. In the early 1890s, the routine of work and family took a dramatic turn when she learned of her husband’s intimate relationship with one of his models, Davida Johnson Clark.

For most of her life, Augusta Saint-Gaudens experienced hearing loss that worsened over time. She traveled at first to find a cure to the constant ringing of Tinnitus. Unsuccessful, she continued to embark on new tours. Now, she increasingly left the comfort of Europe and the East Coast to explore the wider world from the frozen edge of the Arctic Circle to the searing sands of the Sahara. The married couple still maintained their New York townhouse, and would meet there and in Cornish, New Hampshire, where they spent summers from 1885 to 1897 among fellow artists. At a time when unaccompanied women could rarely venture far, she pushed against the strict social conventions of her upbringing.

When her husband was diagnosed with cancer in 1900, Augusta Saint-Gaudens assumed the role of caregiver. As his life ebbed away, she shielded him from pain and difficulty as much she could. The two lived together in New Hampshire until his eventual death in 1907.

Even after a tumultuous marriage, Augusta Homer Saint-Gaudens’ devotion to shaping and preserving her husband’s legacy contributed largely to our knowledge of his art today. She assured the completion of unfinished works, found new employment for the studio assistants, and settled into a successful business producing bronze reductions of her late husband’s principal sculptures. She eventually conceived the idea of creating a living memorial to him and helped establish the Saint-Gaudens Memorial in 1919. 

Augusta Saint-Gaudens continued summering in New Hampshire and spent winters at her substantial home in Coconut Grove, Florida. Upon her death in 1926, the Saint-Gaudens Memorial retained her New Hampshire estate and began exhibiting the artwork of Augustus Saint-Gaudens. In 1965, this private foundation transferred ownership of the property and collection to the National Park Service. Saint-Gaudens National Historical Park continues to preserve the property, display the artwork, and interpret the life of Augusta Saint-Gaudens.