biographie de Hezekiah AUGUR (1791-1858)

Birth place: New Haven, CT

Death place: New Haven

Addresses: New Haven , CT, entire career

Profession: Sculptor, wood carver

Studied: with Samuel F.B. Morse, c. 1825

Exhibited: NAD,1827-28; PAFA , 1831 (bust of Apollo"); Boston Athenaeum, 1832"

Member: NAD

Work: Yale University Art Gallery; U.S. Supreme Court at the Capitol (Chief Justice Oliver Ellsworth)

Comments: One of the earliest professional American sculptors. He began as a wood carver and with the encouragement of Samuel F.B. Morse turned to marble carving in the mid-1820s, producing some ideal pieces. His marble Jephthah and his Daughter" (Yale Univ., c.1828-30), brought him popular recognition and was exhibited in New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington. During the early part of his career, when working as a wood carver of ornamental parts and furniture legs, he invented a machine that made piano legs.

Sources: G&W; DAB; 7 Census (1850), Conn., VIII, 273 (gives Ireland as his birthplace); Fairman, Art and Artists of the Capitol, 75; Cowdrey, NAD; Rutledge, PA; Swan, BA; French, Art and Artists in Conn; Baigell, Dictionary; Craven, Sculpture in America, 92-94."