Eugene Francis Savage

Eugene Francis Savage, painter and sculptor, was born in 1883, and lived till 1978. Ninety-five years, and he had the good luck to enjoy the delights of the Century for fifty-six of them. He was elected in 1922.

Gene went about his education, as he did about many things, deliberately, exhaustively, taking all the time needed to perfect himself as a sound performer in all the branches of the art, with special emphasis on figure drawing. His training began at the Corcoran Art School in Washington, and continued at the Chicago Art Institute. There, in addition to the usual courses, he had the benefit of an unusual system, involving visiting professors, which exposed him to such different influences as Joaquin Sorolla and Kenyon Cox. In the intervals he was able to make trips to Europe, and fit in, somewhere, a term of study in Munich.

This ample foundation he capped, in 1912, by winning in nationwide competition a fellowship of the American Academy in Rome, which then provided three years’ residence in its new building on the Janiculum, with sufficient surplus funds for travel in Europe.

In 1915, married, age thirty-two, he came back to America, well-prepared to undertake any work in painting or sculpture that might be offered. In spite of war and hard times he did not have to wait very long. Mural painting commissions, many important in location and large in scale, started coming in almost at once. By the 1920s he was executing a staggering amount of work for public buildings, and being awarded prizes at exhibitions in proportion. He was professor of painting at Yale, 1923 to 1958, where he was given honorary degrees, including that of Doctor of Fine Arts. He had the unique distinction of twice being awarded the Medal of Honor of the Architectural League. A national Academician, he was twice appointed to the Federal Art Commission.

Gene was a loyal Centurion, though not a constant attendant at the 43d Street rites. He was always surrounded by friends when he came, but as a Connecticut resident, engaged in one great mural project after another (including at least one piece of monumental sculpture), it would have been impossible to become a Century “regular.” With his quiet, rather austere manners, his company was always enjoyed, but one could not, in any sense, call him “one of the familiar faces.”

A biographer of a more famous Centurion, Augustus Saint-Gaudens, complained that her subject had led a dull life, lacking in colorful incidents, which, she said, made her job harder. Perhaps she did not realize that the combination of emotional excitement and hard work needed to make a great and prolific sculptor kept him too busy for picturesque adventures. One could say that Gene Savage had the same variety of artist character, too busy for experiments in mere living.

He lived quietly, with his wife and daughter, in Connecticut. His work was done thoroughly, with integrity. An accomplished draftsman, meticulous, accurate, no vague corners were left. Everything was clear, bounded by a firm outline. When he worked in mosaic, his conscience would not let him leave the setting of the tesserae to the usual craftsmen; he set them himself. It is reported that, later in life, he felt himself bound to go into manufacturing the colored glass rods from which the tesserae are cut, to be sure the colors were exactly right.

Integrity is the word for Gene Savage. Uncompromising, but lightened by his invention of original and quaint conceits, a strain of fancy all through his own character and his work, bordering on humor, almost “metaphysical” in the seventeenth-century sense. He led a long, productive, successful life. He was fortunate in being amply recognized and rewarded in his time.

Allyn Cox
1980 Century Association Yearbook