Robert Merrell Gage

Gutzom Borglum, the man who carved the famous figures on Mount Rushmore, called Robert Merrell Gage "that steady-eyed young sculptor," and from those steady eyes came a vision of art that spoke of strong values, American values, Kansan values. An alumni of the most sophisticated art schools, Robert Merrell Gage turned for subject matter to the basics of American history, the stories of the western struggle and the lives of heroes of the American soul.

Gage was a native Topekan, born in 1892, and educated in the Topeka public schools and at Washburn College. He left Kansas after graduation to study sculpture in both New York and France with Borglum and Robert Henri, two exponents of the "American Theme" in art. Returning to Topeka in 1916, the young sculptor set up shop in a barn behind his house on Fillmore Street and began his first public commission, the magnificent statue of Lincoln that rests on the Kansas State Capitol grounds. After a stint in the armed services during World War I, Gage began a teaching career at Washburn and at the Kansas City Art Institute. In 1924, Gage left the Midwest for a position at the University of Southern California, a post he held until his retirement in 1958.

The winner of many awards and honors, Robert Merrell Gage left behind a large and excellent body of work when he died in 1981. His interests were many and they were reflected in the materials he worked with-stone, wood, metal, and clay-as well as his format, which ranged from portraiture to architectural sculpture. But his subjects consistently expressed major American themes. Among his better known works are his "Pioneer Mother Memorial" situated a short distance from his Lincoln statue at the Kansas State Capitol, his busts of Walt Whitman and John Brown at the Mulvane Art Museum, his "Police Memorial" and "Veterans' Fountain" in Kansas City, and his "History of California" frieze in Beverly Hills.

Deeply impressed by the writings of Walt Whitman and the example of Abraham Lincoln, Gage portrayed and interpreted the freedom and dignity of the American experience through the medium of his art. Some have called him, and, indeed he was, "the American sculptor."