French was the son of Anne Richardson (1811–1856), daughter of
William Merchant Richardson (1774–1838), chief justice of New Hampshire; and of
Henry Flagg French (1813–1885). His siblings were Henriette Van Mater French Hollis (1839–1911), Sarah Flagg French Bartlett (1846–1883), and
William M.R. French (1843–1914). He was the uncle of Senator
Henry F. Hollis.
In 1917, French and a colleague,
Henry Augustus Lukeman, designed the
Pulitzer Prize gold medal presented to laureates. French designed the side of the prize with Benjamin Franklin on it, while Lukeman created the iconic design of the printing press and the wording on the award: "For disinterested and meritorious public service rendered by an American newspaper during the year….".[8] In collaboration with
Edward Clark Potter he modeled the
George Washington statue, commissioned by a group that called itself "The Association of American Women for the Erection of a Statue of Washington in Paris" and unveiled in the Place d'Iena in Paris, France, in 1900; the
General Grant statue in
Fairmount Park, Philadelphia, commissioned by the
Association for Public Art (formerly the Fairmount Park Art Association);[9] and the
equestrian statue of Joseph Hooker in Boston.
French was one of many sculptors who frequently employed
Audrey Munson as a model; another frequent sitter was
Hettie Anderson. Together with
Walter Leighton Clark and others, he was also one of the founders of the Berkshire Playhouse,[10] which later became the
Berkshire Theatre Festival. French's daughter, Margaret, also occasionally modeled for him, including for some of his rare portrait paintings, and became famous in her own right as a sculptor under the name
Margaret French Cresson.
In 1917,
Harvard's citation in conferring an honorary
Master of Arts referred to his statue of
Emerson[clarification needed][11] when it called him "a sculptor, whose skillful hand, unlike that of the friend whom he portrayed, has not been stopped but spared to adorn our land by the creation of his art".[12][13] French also taught; among his pupils was the sculptor
Edith Howland.[14]
Greek Epic; Lyric Poetry, and Religion. Sculptures for the 1908 Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences building on Eastern Parkway in
Brooklyn, New York.
Power and Wisdom. Sculpture for the 1919 First World War Memorial. Since destroyed.
And the Sons of God saw the Daughters of Men That They Were Fair…, For French, this was an unusually erotic sculpture depicting the verse from Genesis whereby a fallen angel seduces a mortal woman thus producing the mythical
Nephilim,
Corcoran Gallery of Art; Washington DC, signed and dated 1923.
Miscellaneous pieces
The Chicago Incendiary: edition of a small bisque statuette depicting the cow alleged to have started the
Great Chicago Fire of 1871
^Luebke, Thomas E., ed., Civic Art: A Centennial History of the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Commission of Fine Arts, 2013): Appendix B, p. 544.
^Homren, Wayne (April 11, 2004).
"Pulitzer Secrets Revealed". The E-Sylum. 7 (15, art. 5). Retrieved July 1, 2007.
^Bach, Penny (1992). Public Art in Philadelphia. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press. p. 208.
ISBN0-87722-822-1.
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 into Fame: The Life of Daniel Chester French, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, 1947
Dearinger, David, Daniel Chester French: The Female Form Revealed, Boston Athenaeum, 2016
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 DC, 1976
Taft, Lorado, The History of American Sculpture, MacMillan Co., New York, NY 1925
Tolles, Thayer.
"Daniel Chester French (1850–1931)". In Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000–. (June 2010)
Wilson, Susan, Garden of Memorials: A Guide to Historic Forest Hills, Forest Hills Educational Trust