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Victor David Brenner
From Wikipedia Victor
David Brenner (June 12, 1871 – April 5, 1924)
was an American sculptor, engraver, and medalist
known primarily as the designer of the United
States Lincoln Wheat Ears Cent.
Brenner was born to Jewish parents in Siauliai,
Lithuania. He emigrated to the United States in
1890, living mostly in the New York area. When
Brenner arrived in America, he had little more
to fall back upon than the muscle and brawn of
youth, his industry, and the well-learned trade
taught him by his father — gem and seal
engraving. This was an excellent technical
preparation for his present skill with the tools
of the sculptor's craft. He studied art at
Cooper Union in the night classes there. Brenner
soon mastered English as he had mastered French.
Eight years later Brenner was in Paris, studying
with the great French medalist, Oscar Roty at
the Académie Julian. There he exhibited his own
work and he obtained awards at the Paris
Exposition of 1900. Eventually, he returned to
the United States, and from that time on, his
career was a series of successes, and he
appeared to be on his way to the fulfilment of
the splendid predictions made for his future by
Rodin.
Brenner died in 1924 and is buried at Mount
Judah Cemetery, Ridgewood, Queens County, New
York.
Lincoln cent
The Lincoln Cent, showing placement of the
initials of Victor David Brenner from 1918
onward.
Brenner is probably best-known for his enduring
Lincoln coin design, the obverse of which is the
longest-running design in United States Mint
history. Brenner's design had been picked by
26th US President, Theodore Roosevelt, who had
earlier posed for him in New York. Since
arriving 19 years earlier in the United States,
Brenner had become one of the nation’s premier
medalists. Roosevelt had learned of Brenner's
talents in a settlement house on New York City's
Lower East Side and was immediately impressed
with a bas-relief that Brenner had made of
Lincoln, based on the early Civil War era
photographer, Mathew Brady's photograph.
Roosevelt, who considered Lincoln the savior of
the Union and the greatest Republican President
and who also considered himself Lincoln’s
political heir, ordered the new Lincoln penny to
be based on Brenner's work and that it go just
in time to commemorate Lincoln’s 100th birthday
in 1909. The likeness of President Lincoln on
the obverse of the coin is an adaptation of a
plaque Brenner executed several years earlier
and which had come to the attention of President
Roosevelt in New York.
Bronze bas-reliefs dated 1907 and signed by
Brenner have been identified and some sold in
auctions for as much as $3,900.
Charles Eliot Norton of Harvard, whom Brenner
counted among his friends, gave the sculptor an
unpublished portrait of Lincoln which served
Brenner as a basis for the study of Lincoln's
features. However, he examined every portrait to
which he was able to obtain access, in order to
draw those conclusions that, together with
conversations with those who had known Lincoln
himself, enabled him to evolve the portrait that
appears on the penny.
When Brenner forwarded the model of the Lincoln
cent to the Director of the Mint, the design
bore his whole name, after the fashion of the
signatures on the coinage of other countries,
notably on the gold coins which Oscar Roty
designed for France. The Director, however,
decided to have the initials substituted for the
name, and in so doing he was thoroughly aware
that in retaining either name or initials he
exercised the prerogative of his office, as the
law definitely gives him decision in such
matters.
So, following the precedent of James B. Longacre,
whose initials "JBL" (or simply "L") graced a
number of U.S. coin designs for much of the
latter half of the 19th century, Brenner placed
his initials "VDB" at the bottom of the reverse
between the wheat ear stalks. Brenner at first
refused to sign either his name or his initials,
and his subsequent decision to permit the latter
to appear was due entirely to his sense of
responsibility for his work.
Widespread criticism of the initials' prominence
resulted in their removal midway through 1909,
the design's first year of issue. In 1918,
Brenner's initials returned as small letters
below Lincoln's shoulder, where they remain
today. (The incorporation of the designer's
initials into a coin design is now commonplace
in the U.S.) |