SCHOOL ART LEAGUE SAINT GAUDENS MEDAL

  

A dear friend, Mrs. Carole Sofronas Paquette, mentioned to me that she had graduated in June 1957 from Flushing High School south of our hometown, College Point in Queens, NY. In addition to her diploma, she was awarded the Saint-Gaudens Medal. Knowing nothing of the award, I did some research and learned that the Saint-Gaudens Medal was endowed in perpetuity by Helen Foster Barnett (1852-1920) in honor of American sculptor, Augustus Saint-Gaudens. It was to be awarded by the School Art League to a senior in each New York City high school who completed an art program with excellence in fine draughtsmanship and art.

The medal designed by sculptor Chester Beach was cast in bronze by the Medallic Art Company and its first recipient was Helen Q. Hurley, a graduate of Girls High School in Brooklyn, class of 1917. In 1921 she earned an art degree from the Pratt Institute, became a New York City art teacher in 1923 and died in 1934. Eight medals were awarded in 1918, seven to Brooklyn high school graduates; one to a graduate of Jamaica high school in Queens. Over the decades to come many more young men and women would be awarded the medal and become teachers.

Carole kept the medal on her desk through four years at New Hampshire University from which she graduated with a degree in Fine Arts. While she did not pursue a teaching career, in her post-college career, Paquette worked often in oils, but mostly in watercolor and pen and inks, and was fortunate to sell many of her works in New York-area galleries. The medal is still awarded today, but the image is not that of the one awarded in 1957. It is still in her possession, exact location as yet unknown.

Helen Foster Barnett, 1852-1920, was the widow of James Parker Barnett, a Brooklyn physician who died in 1886. They had three children, one of them landscape painter Leroy Barnett. In the early 1900s she took on the role of patron of the arts and in 1908 awarded Robert Aitken the first ever $100.00 prize for the best piece of sculpture by an American artist under age thirty. This was followed in 1907 with the award going to Chester Beach. She awarded monetary prizes, of $50.00 and $100.00 frequently until her death in 1920, two months after that of her artist son Leroy. From the turn of the century on she supported the National Academy of Design, the National Association of Women Painter and Sculptors, the Brooklyn Zoo, the Brooklyn Museum of Art and the Brooklyn Society of Etchers along with numerous other Brooklyn institutions and endeavors. Shortly before her passing, she became a member of the American Numismatic Society.

  

For more on the School Art League Student Medals, see:
School Art League Student Medals (https://schoolartleague.org/student-medals-for-artistic-achievement)

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