Borglum, (John) Gutzon (de la Mothe) (1867-1941)

Mount Rushmore National Memorial in the Black Hills National Forest, South Dakota, USA. The sculptor Gutzon Borglum worked on the giant heads during the last 14 years of his life (1927-41); the work was completed by his son Lincoln.

US sculptor. He created a six-tonne marble head of Abraham Lincoln in Washington, DC, and in 1930 began the group of giant heads of presidents Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, and Theodore Roosevelt carved on a rock face in South Dakota (see Rushmore, Mount).

Borglum was born in Idaho. He studied at the San Francisco Art Association and in France at the Académie Julian, Paris, strongly influenced by Auguste Rodin. Another large commission was the civic memorial The Wars of America 1926 in Newark, New Jersey.

His brother Solon Hannibal Borglum (1868-1922) was a sculptor of Wild West subjects.