About our Saint Gaudens colophon
A publisher's trademark is called a colophon. Our Saint Gaudens
colophon is derived from the most famous work of our namesake, Augustus
Saint Gaudens. Augustus Saint Gaudens was the pre-eminent American sculptor
of the latter decades of the 19th century. In 1907, just before his death,
he accepted a commission from President Teddy Roosevelt to design a new
series of coins for the US Mint. Saint Gaudens designed several proofs
for various coins. His design for the penny lost out to the new design
we now know as the Lincoln Cent, but his designs for gold coins were recognized
for their beauty and accepted by Roosevelt and US Treasury officials. His
design for the $20 gold piece became known as the Saint Gaudens Double Eagle
(shown spinning below). That "Walking Liberty" design is still used
today by the US Mint for the Gold Eagle US bullion coin. Among the sample
versions designed for the coin which were not accepted were various designs
which included Miss Liberty wearing an Indian headdress and having angel's
wings. Our Saint Gaudens colophon is a unique variant with Liberty as a
triumphant winged angel, but with no feathered headdress. The variant of
Saint Gaudens' work depicted above and as used in our colophon is unique
to Saint Gaudens Press and its use is restricted as our trademark. |
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The Name - Saint Gaudens
Saint Gaudens is a beautiful little town in the
foothills
of the Pyrenees Mountains in the far south of France. From this region
of France, in 1847, Bernard Saint-Gaudens, a shoemaker, immigrated first
to Ireland, where he married Mary McGuinness and where Augustus
Saint-Gaudens was born to them on March 1, 1848. The Saint -Gaudens
family moved on to America when Augustus was six months old. After apprenticeships
and training in Paris and Italy, Augustus Saint-Gaudens developed a "heroic"
style of sculpture which brought him fame and recognition as the pre-eminent
American sculptor of his era. His statutes of
Lincoln, Farragut,
Adams and many others are
found throughout the US. His statue
of Sherman in New York's Central Park and his Shaw
Memorial (the Civil War officer portrayed in the motion picture Glory)
in Boston are considered the highlights of his work.He also worked on numerous
numismatic commissions and projects (see left column). Augustus Saint-Gaudens
died at his famous artists'
retreat in Cornish, New Hampshire on August 3, 1907.
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