Brookgreen Gardens’ 90th anniversary celebration continues with an exhibition dedicated to the work of its founder Anna Hyatt Huntington (1876-1973). Even the most serious art devotees are forgiven for being unaware of the considerable significance of the garden, the first public sculpture garden in the country, or of Huntingdon, one of the most successful sculptors in America–regardless of gender–in the early 20th century.
The Gardens’ location in Murrell’s Inlet, S.C., 20 miles south of Myrtle Beach and well off the interstate, makes it the kind of place visitors don’t bump into. Too bad. The 9,100-acre property features an exceptional botanical garden and accredited zoo along with the largest and most comprehensive collection of American figurative sculpture in the country. Its collection contains over 2,000 works by 430 artists.
Including Huntington.
Anna Hyatt Huntington
Anna and her husband, Archer Huntington, purchased Brookgreen for a winter home in 1930. The couple, who lived in New York, were seeking an escape while Anna recovered from tuberculosis. Archer was one of the wealthiest men in America at the time, heir to a railroad fortune.
Anna had long established herself as a leading sculptor of the day. By 1912, she was earning more than $50,000 a year from her work. She had also established herself as an ardent champion of her own career.
“Women sculptors who were married often gave up their careers as they juggled the demands of matrimony and motherhood,” Brookgreen Gardens’ Vice President of Art and Historical Collections and Curator of Sculpture Robin Salmon told Forbes.com. “Anna Hyatt Huntington recognized this because she turned down Archer Huntington’s marriage proposals twice before accepting on the third proposal after he assured her that marriage to him would not negate her career.”
Women sculptors in American were not uncommon throughout the 20th century. Their relative lack of visibility stems from not being fully recognized for their work, often being unable to find work, and having the work they did produce be unfairly marginalized on the basis of gender by collectors and institutions.
Anna Hyatt Huntington overcame these obstacles through an unrelenting drive, a disciplined art practice and a dogged commitment to achieving professional success, success she enabled through a shrewd marketing tactic.
“Early in her career, she was smart in placing her small sculptures in two excellent retail locations where wealthy people had ready access to her work: Shreve, Crump & Low in Boston and The Gorham Company Galleries in New York City,” Salmon explains. “This move brought her art before important collectors who purchased her work and remembered her name when they decided to commission a sculpture. Of course, none of this would have happened without her significant talent as an artist.”
Brookgreen Gardens
It didn’t take the Huntington’s long to recognize the otherworldly beauty of the Lowcountry paradise they had purchased. Eighteen months after acquiring the property, it was incorporated as a private, not-for-profit corporation entitled "Brookgreen Gardens, A Society for Southeastern Flora and Fauna."
At the same time, Anna began selecting works to create the sculpture collection.
“Although Archer Huntington wrote the checks, it was Anna who selected the foundation sculptures of the Brookgreen collection through the 1930s, using her collector’s eye to establish the standard that has been followed ever since,” Salmon said. “In addition to the many awards and honors she received in her lifetime, in 1992, her accomplishments in this realm were recognized when Brookgreen Gardens was designated a National Historic Landmark because of the significance of Huntington as an artist and patron and for the number of women sculptors represented in the Brookgreen collection, making it an important site for women’s history in America.”
The Huntingtons were in residence for long stretches of time between 1930 and 1933 while their winter home, Atalaya, was under construction and Brookgreen Gardens was created. Through the remainder of the decade, they wintered in South Carolina, arriving around Thanksgiving and departing in late March.
During World War II, they were not in residence and visited only twice in the 1940s after the war. By the end of the 1940s, Archer Huntington’s health prohibited him from travel. After his death in 1955, Anna returned to visit twice, but did not stay in Atalaya. In 1960, she agreed to lease 2,500 acres of Brookgreen’s oceanside property, including Atalaya, for use as Huntington Beach State Park where the public could enjoy the land and the range of plants and animals found there.
Joan of Arc
Huntington’s most famous artwork remains prominently displayed far from South Carolina in New York’s Riverside Park. At 93rd Street and Riverside Drive, an over life-size bronze statue of Joan of Arc sculpted by Huntingdon has been on view since 1915.
“She was the first woman to sculpt a female subject on horseback in New York when her monumental Joan of Arc was created,” Salmon said. “She was also the first sculptor to depict Joan in the proper period arms and armor and period tack for the horse.”
The Joan of Arc commission came through an American committee planning a monument to commemorate the 500th anniversary of her birth. Committee members were impressed by a life-size plaster equestrian statue of Huntington’s they saw exhibited at the Paris Salon in 1910.
“Her animal sculptures were not only accurate anatomically, but she was able to capture the characteristics and personality of the subject,” Salmon explains.
Horses were always a particular favorite. Huntington possessed a keen eye for animals developed through childhood field trips with her father, a prominent 19th century paleontologist, zoologist, and marine biologist, and familiarity with domestic animals on the family farm.
“She learned the power of scientific observation from him–how to remember a glimpse of an animal in motion and keep that split-second memory fresh while she translated it into sculpture,” Salmon said.
In 1915, Huntington was presented the Légion d’Honneur by a French ambassador during a dedication ceremony for the monument honoring that country’s national heroine. The sculpture became the first New York City park monument dedicated to a nonfictional woman.
American Animalier
Huntington’s animal sculptures take center stage during Brookgreen Gardens’ exhibition of “American Animalier: The Life and Art of Anna Hyatt Huntington.” The presentation includes over 70 objects from sculptures, portrait paintings, historic material and photographic enlargements of outdoor sculptures spanning the scope of her prolific career throughout the 20th century.
A bronze reduction of Joan of Arc and a silver Joan of Arc commemorative cup created by Tiffany & Co. are among the notable objects on display in the exhibition on view through April 24.
