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Message:: [QUOTE="leeg, post: 3467622, member: 17073"]I'm back: Cornelius Vermeule writes: “Chester Beach (1881-1956) was born in San Francisco, trained in Paris, and resided in New York City. Of his talents Charles R. Morey wrote, ‘Wholly modern if not yet entirely personal and consistent is the plastic vocabulary of Chester Beach. . . A versatile artist, known as a medalist as well as a worker in various stones, bronze and ivory, he displays in each field the power of making his medium expressive by its mere texture.’7 Beach designed the Monroe Doctrine Centennial half dollar coined early in 1923 (fig. 176). The piece is not attractive; but if it can be called ugly, it must also be termed imaginative. Jugate busts of Monroe and John Quincy Adams fill the obverse, while women personifying North and South America, ocean currents, and the scroll and quill pen of the document take up the reverse. The low, flat relief with an attempt at a feeling for modeling rather than carving makes the busts and the females poised to imitate the outline of the continents seem like mounted cut-outs. They can even be said to resemble daubs of clay on a board, or relief outlines in glass.   Adams, with his staring eye, is scarcely a portrait, and Monroe would not be recognized even by an expert. The triple-lined rim is unnecessary. The way the females are contorted to achieve their appearance of continents is a clever tour de force of calligraphic relief but an aesthetic monstrosity, a bad pun in art. North America holds an olive branch and South America half conceals a cornucopia in order to fill out their shorelines. Perhaps the crowing touch is that the northern continent’s right hand reaches down to form Central America. This coin was not the first use of the anthropomorphic Western hemisphere in the die cutter’s art.   In 1901 Ralph [sic] Beck had designed a similar obverse for a medal honoring the Pan-American Exposition at Buffalo, and complained bitterly of Beach’s adaptation of his design for the 1923 commemorative.8. . . 7Morey, 220.  8. Ralph [sic] Beck took credit for the motif, having been the designer of the Pan-American Exposition seal, but James E. Fraser was responsible for the idea of turning North and South America into draped females on the reverse of the Monroe Doctrine centennial half dollar. His suggestion to Chester Beach was recorded more than once in the correspondence of the Commission of fine Arts. See Taxay, Commemorative Coinage, 62-68. The Pan-American Exposition medal attributed to Beach is illustrated on page 49 of Slabaugh’s Commemorative Coinage, and the familiar Beach monogram seems to be visible to the right of the female embodying North America; in poses and details the ladies are more like those of the Ralph [sic] Beck seal than the Monroe Doctrine Centennial half dollar. As is often the case in th fine arts, by 1923, Beck, Fraser, and even Beach himself may have forgotten about the latter’s connections with the designs of 1901.   As a designer of commemorative half dollars, Chester Beach was to produce the Lexington-Concord Sesquicentennial coin of 1925, more conservative than the Monroe Doctrine Centennial half dollar but a sounder piece of numismatic art. Fuller consideration will demonstrate that the art as such is inherent in the design of the statue on the obverse and the view of the building on the reverse. The former was the creation of Daniel Chester French. The latter was the work of an anonymous colonial architect or village builder (fig. 180).”15 15 Numismatic Art in America; Aesthetics of the United States Coinage, 2nd edition, Cornelius Vermeule, Whitman Publishing, LLC, 2007, p. 154, 156. <img src="https://oi11.photobucket.com/albums/a195/leeg1957/Book%20Project%20Images/Monroe%20Doctrine/Chester%20Beach.png" class="bbCodeImage wysiwygImage" alt="" unselectable="on" />Chester Beach ca . 1910. “Chester Beach Bio:   Sculptor Chester Beach (1881-1956) was known for portrait busts, allegorical and mythological figures, coins and medallic art in the Beaux-Arts tradition. He lived and worked in New York City and Brewster, New York.   He was the son of Chilion Beach and Elizabeth Ferris Beach, was born in San Francisco on May 23, 1881. He initially studied at the California School of Mechanical Arts in 1899. He remained in San Francisco and between 1900 and 1902 continued his art training at the Mark Hopkins Institute of Art while working as a jewelry designer. To further his career and exposure to artistic trends, Beach moved to New York City in 1903. The following year, he went to Paris, enrolled at the École des Beaux Arts, and also studied with Raoul Verlet at the Académie Julian.  Upon his return to New York in 1907, Beach established a studio on Tenth Street. He won the National Academy of Design’s Barnett Prize for a sculpture in 1907 and the Academy elected him an Associate Artist the following year. His increased stature resulted in numerous portrait commissions and eventually lead to commissions for monuments and architectural sculpture. In 1910, Chester Beach married Eleanor Hollis Murdock, a painter he met when both were art students in Paris. The couple spent the next two years in Rome; for several years and after returning Beach continued to spend time in Italy and maintained a studio in Rome.   Solo exhibitions of Beach’s work were presented at Macbeth Gallery (1912), Pratt Institute (1913), Cincinnati Art Museum (1916), John Herron Art Institute (1916), and Memorial Art Gallery, Rochester (1917). In addition to frequent participation in annual exhibitions at the National Academy of Design and the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Beach was represented in the Panama-Pacific International Exposition (195), and in group shows at venues including: Art Institute of Chicago, Boston Art Club, California Palace of the Legion of Honor, and National Arts Club.   The gold medal presented by Académie Julian (1905), Beach’s first award, was followed by many other prizes, among them: American Numismatic Society prize for a medal commemorating the Peace of Versailles (1919) and its Saltus Medal for distinguished medallic art (1946); Architectural League of New York gold medal (1924); National Academy of Design Barnett Prize (1907) and the Watrous gold medal (1926); National Arts Club medal and prizes (1923, 1926, 1932); and the Panama-Pacific International Exposition silver medal (1915).   Beach was an Academician of the National Academy of Design, a member of the American Numismatic Society, Architectural League of New York, National Arts Club, National Institute of Arts and Letters, and the National Sculpture Society (President, 1927-1928).   For more than 40 years, Beach lived and worked at 207 East 17th Street. The brownstone, purchased in 1913, was large enough for the family’s home, his studio, and additional studios that were rented to other artists. Through barter, Beach acquired land in Brewster, NY, and in 1917 hired Italian stonemasons to build a studio. Later, they erected a summer house for the family. Many old stone walls on the site provided material for both buildings and Beach named the property Oldwalls.   After a long illness, Chester Beach died at Oldwalls on August 6, 1956. The funeral service was held at his Brewster, NY, studio and he is buried in Cold Spring Cemetery, Cold Spring, NY.”16 16 Archives of American Art. Congressional Authorization Act: [PUBLIC—NO. 391—67TH CONGRESS.] [S. 4096.] An Act to authorize the coinage of 50-cent pieces in commemoration of the one hundredth anniversary of the enunciation of the Monroe Doctrine. Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That  in commemoration of the one hundredth anniversary of the enunciation of the Monroe Doctrine there shall be coined at the mints of the United States silver 50-cent pieces to the number of not more than three hundred thousand, such 50-cent pieces to be of the standard troy weight, composition, diameter, device, and design as shall be fixed by the Director of the Mint, with the approval of the Secretary of the Treasury, which said 50-cent pieces shall be legal tender in any payment to the amount of their face value. SEC.2. That the coins herein authorized shall be issued only upon the request of the Los Angeles Clearing House and upon payment by such clearing house to the United States of the par value of such coins. SEC.3. That all laws now in force relating to the subsidiary silver coins of the United States and the coining or striking of the same, regulating and guarding the process of coinage, providing for the purchase of material and for the transportation, distribution, and redemption of the coins, for the prevention of debasement or counterfeiting, for security of the coin, or for any other purposes, whether said laws are penal or otherwise, shall, so far as applicable, apply to the coinage herein authorized:- Provided, That the United States shall not be subject to the expense of making the necessary dies and other preparations for this coinage. Approved, January 24, 1923. THE END. Hope some  enjoyed it.  Should I know write about the 1923 Monroe Celebration?[/QUOTE]

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