Solon H. Borglum

Solon Borglum was born in Utah and spent most of his childhood on the Nebraska prairie where his father practiced medicine. He started out as a cowboy-rancher, but his older brother Gutzon, who sculpted Mount Rushmore, persuaded him to pursue art. He took painting lessons in Omaha, shared a studio with his brother in California, and trained at the Cincinnati Art Academy, where he exhibited seventeen horse sculptures. Borglum went to Paris to study at the Académie Julian, where the French students gave him the title “sculptor of the prairie.” On his return, he set up a studio in New York City, had his first major show in 1903, and started the School of American Sculpture in 1920, where he taught until his death.

Text © Smithsonian American Art Museum