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Daniel Chester French (April 20, 1850, Exeter, New Hampshire – October 7, 1931, Concord, Massachusetts) was an American sculptor.

He was the son of Henry Flagg French, a lawyer, who for a time was Assistant Secretary of the United States Department of the Treasury. He was a neighbor and friend of Ralph Waldo Emerson, and the Alcott family. His decision to pursue sculpting was influenced by Louisa May Alcott's sister May Alcott.

After a year at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, French worked on his father's farm. While visiting relatives in Brooklyn, New York City, he spent a month in the studio of John Quincy Adams Ward, then began to work on commissions, and at the age of twenty-three received from the town of Concord, Massachusetts, an order for his well-known statue The Minute Man, which was unveiled April 19, 1875 on the centenary of the Battle of Lexington and Concord.

Previously French had gone to Florence in Italy, where he spent a year working with sculptor Thomas Ball.

French's best-known work is the sculpture of a seated Abraham Lincoln at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C.

In collaboration with Edward Clark Potter he modelled the George Washington, presented to France by the Daughters of the American Revolution; the General Grant in Fairmount Park, Philadelphia, and the General Joseph Hooker in Boston.

In 1893 French was a founding member of the National Sculpture Society, and he became a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. French also became a member of the National Academy of Design (1901), the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the National Sculpture Society, the Architectural League, and the Accademia di San Luca, of Rome. French was one of many sculptors who frequently employed Audrey Munson as a model.

In 1940, French was selected as one of five artists to be honored in a series of postage stamps dedicated to great Americans.

French is buried in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, Concord, Massachusetts following his death at age 81 in 1931.

Chesterwood, French's summer home, studio, (designed by his architect friend and frequent collaborator Henry Bacon) and garden is now a museum.

Contents 1 Notable public monuments 2 Architectural Sculpture 3 Cemetery monuments 4 Selected museum pieces 5 References 6 External links

• Concord Minute Man, Old North Bridge in Concord, Massachusetts, (1874)
• The John Harvard Monument, Harvard Yard in Cambridge, Massachusetts, (1884)
• Lewis Cass, National Statuary Hall, Washington D.C., (1889)
• Thomas Starr King monument San Francisco, California, (1891)
• Republic, the colossal centerpiece of the World's Columbian Exposition, Chicago, 1893. His 24-foot gilt-bronze reduced version made in 1918 survives in Chicago [1].
• John Boyle O'Reilly Memorial, intersection of Boylston Street and Westland Avenue in Boston, Massachusetts, (1897)
• Rufus Choate memorial, Old Suffolk County Court House, Boston, Massachusetts, (1898)
• Richard Morris Hunt Memorial, on the perimeter wall of Central Park, opposite the Frick Collection, in New York City, (1900)
• Alma Mater, campus of Columbia University in New York City (1903)
• Casting Bread Upon the Waters - George Robert White Memorial, Public Garden in Boston, Massachusetts
• Samuel Spencer, 1st president of Southern Railway, located at Hardy Ivy Park in Atlanta, Georgia, (1909).
• Standing Lincoln at the Nebraska State Capitol, Lincoln, Nebraska, (1912)
• Brooklyn and Manhattan, seated figures from the Manhattan Bridge; Brooklyn Museum in Brooklyn, New York, (1915)
• Samuel Francis du Pont Memorial Fountain, Wilmington, Delaware (1921).
• Abraham Lincoln in the Lincoln Memorial (1922)
• Beneficence, Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana. (1930)
• Death and the Wounded Soldier aka Death and Youth, The Chapel of Saint Peter and Saint Paul, St. Paul's School, Concord, New Hampshire

• America at War and Peace, US Customs House & Post Office, St. Louis, Missouri, Alfred B. Mullett architect (1876-1882)
• Pediment, New Hampshire Historic Society Building, Concord, New Hampshire, Guy Lowell, architect (1909-1911)
• Bronze doors, Boston Public Library, Boston, Massachusetts, McKim, Mead & White architects, (1884-1904)
• Justice, Power, and Study, US Appellate Court House, NYC, James Lord architect (1900)
• Four Continents, Alexander Hamilton U.S. Custom House , NYC, Cass Gilbert architect, (1904)
• Progress of the State, quadriga, Six statues on entablature, Minnesota State Capitol, St. Paul, Minnesota, Cass Gilbert architect (1907)
• Jurisprudence and Commerce, Federal Building, Cleveland, Ohio, Arnold Brunner architect (1910)
• John Hampden, and Edward I, two attic figures, Cuyahoga County Building, Cleveland, Ohio, Lehman & Schmidt architects (1908, 1911)
• Attic Figures, Pediment, Brooklyn Museum, NYC, McKim, Mead & White architects (1912)
• Wisconsin, figure surmounting the dome, Wisconsin State Capitol, Madison, Wisconsin, George Post architect (1914)
• Abraham Lincoln, Lincoln Memorial, Washington D.C., Henry Bacon architect (1923)

• Death Staying the Hand of the Sculptor, a memorial for the tomb of the sculptor Martin Milmore, in the Forest Hills cemetery, Boston; this received a medal of honor at Paris, in 1900. (1893)
• Clark Memorial, Forest Hills Cemetery, Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts, (1894)
• Chapman Memorial, Forest Home Cemetery, Milwaukee, Wisconson, (1897)
• Angel of Peace - George Robert White, Forest Hills Cemetery, Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts, (1898)
• The Ruth Anne Dodge Memorial, Council Bluffs, Iowa. Often referred to as the "Black Angel". (1918)
• Memory, the Marshall Field Memorial, Graceland Cemetery, Chicago, Henry Bacon, architect

• Slocum Memorial, Forest Hills Cemetery in Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts

• The Angel of Death and the Sculptor, Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City
• Memory, Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City
• Mourning Victory, Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City
• And the Sons of God saw the Daughters of Men That They Were Fair…, For French, an unusually erotic sculpture depicting the verse from Genesis whereby a fallen angel seduces a mortal woman Nephilim, Corcoran Gallery of Art; Washington, D.C., signed and dated 1923.

• Buck, Diane M. and Virginia A. Palmer, Outdoor Sculpture in Milwaukee: A Cultural and Historical Guidebook, The State Historical Society of Wisconsin, Madison, 1995
• Caffin, Charles H., American Masters of Sculpture, Doubleday, Page & Company, New York 1913
• Caffin, in International Studio, volumes xx (1903), lx (1910), and lxvi (1912)
• Carlock, Marty, A Guide to Public Art in Greater Boston from Newburyport to Plymouth, The Harvard Common Press, Boston Massachusetts, 1988
• Chesterwood Archives, Geographical List of Works: DRAFT, unpublished manuscript, April 14, 1993
• Coughlan, in Magazine of Art (1901)
• Craven, Wayne, Sculpture in America, Thomas Y. Crowell Co, NY, NY 1968
• Cresson, Margaret French, Journey in Fame: The Life of Daniel Chaster French, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, 1947
• Hucke, Matt and Ursela Bielski, Graveyards of Chicago: the People, History, Art and Lore of Cook County Cemeteries, Lake Claremont Press, Chicago, 1999
• Kvaran, Einar Einarsson, Architectural Sculpture in America
• Lanctot, Barbara, A Walk Through Graceland Cemetery, Chicago Architectural Foundation, Chicago, Illinois, 1988
• Richman, Michael, Daniel Chester French: An American Sculptor, The Preservation Press, Washington D.C., 1976
• Taft, Lorado, The History of American Sculpture, MacMillan Co., New York, NY 1925
• Wilson, Susan, Garden of Memorias: A Guide to Historic Forest Hills, Forest Hills Educational Trust

• Daniel Chester French: Sculpture In Situ
• Chesterwood Estate and Museum • Summer home, studio, and garden of sculptor Daniel Chester French
• Daniel Chester French