9 Sacagawea and Jean Baptiste

SOLD
Winning Bid Undisclosed
This item SOLD at 2017 Apr 06 @ 17:43UTC-7 : PDT/MST
Category Art
Auction Currency USD
Start Price NA
Estimated at 90,000.00 - 120,000.00 USD
Sacagawea and Jean Baptiste
Artist: Glenna, Goodacre
Date of Birth: b. 1939
Medium: Bronze, cast number 5/15
Dimensions: 83 inches high
Signed: Signed and dated 2001
Verso:

In 1998 Glenna read in USA Today about a new golden-colored dollar coin to be produced by the U.S. Mint to replace the failed Susan B. Anthony Dollar. The coin was going to portray Sacagawea, in honor of the 1804-1806 Lewis and Clark expedition. In an unusual move, the Mint was going to hold a competition and choose a design among private artists and Mint engravers. Glenna asked the Mint to be considered for the project. Having created an unusually large body of medallions and bas reliefs since the early 1970’s, Glenna was a natural for this subject. Unlike most American sculptors, she continued to make bas reliefs throughout her career, some of them very large-scale. She received her entry packet from the Mint on September 9, 1998, and by October 23 had produced 7 different designs. There were 123 entries. Six final designs were chosen, and 5 of them were Goodacre’s. She was named the winner of the competition with an obverse (heads) design of the young Shoshone mother and her infant son Jean Baptiste. A rare three-quarter portrait for a coin and first time an infant had appeared on U.S. currency. After struggling with the coin relief process, Glenna finally produced a pattern accepted after the tedious coin relief process, Glenna was itching to create a sculpture that conveyed the feelings she’d gathered in her research on the young Shoshone interpreter for Lewis and Clark. She made Shoshone Mother portraying Sacagawea in a buffalo robe with the infant in a wrap. She looks up, perhaps contemplating the next mountain pass on her remarkable journey. The bronze was wildly popular and sold out quickly. In 2001, Goodacre then created the towering monumental interpretation called Sacagawea and Jean Baptiste. Twelve of the edition of 15 were cast and it has been collected by two museums, two universities at each end of the Lewis and Clark trail, and by private collectors.