Lilian Louisa "Lily" Swann Saarinen (April 17, 1912 – May 22, 1995) was an American sculptor, artist, and writer. She was the first wife of
Finnish-American
Finnish Americans ( fi, amerikansuomalaiset, ) comprise Americans with ancestral roots from Finland or Finnish people who immigrated to and reside in the United States. The Finnish-American population numbers a little bit more than 650,000. Man ...
architect and industrial designer
Eero Saarinen
Eero Saarinen (, ; August 20, 1910 – September 1, 1961) was a Finnish-American architect and industrial designer noted for his wide-ranging array of designs for buildings and monuments. Saarinen is best known for designing the General Motors ...
, with whom she sometimes collaborated.
Early life
She was born in New York City to Dr. Arthur Wharton Swann and his wife Susan Ridley Sedgwick. Her father unexpectedly died in 1914, when Lily was aged two and her sister Lucy was four.
She attended
Miss Chapin's School
Chapin School is an all-girls independent day school in New York City's Upper East Side neighborhood in Manhattan.
History
Maria Bowen Chapin opened "Miss Chapin's School for Girls and Kindergarten for Boys and Girls" in 1901. The school origin ...
in Manhattan, and spent her summers studying sculpture in
Connecticut
Connecticut () is the southernmost state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, New York to the west, and Long Island Sound to the south. Its cap ...
.
She first seriously studied art at the
Art Students League of New York
The Art Students League of New York is an art school at 215 West 57th Street in Manhattan, New York City, New York. The League has historically been known for its broad appeal to both amateurs and professional artists.
Although artists may stu ...
with
Alexander Archipenko
Alexander Porfyrovych Archipenko (also referred to as Olexandr, Oleksandr, or Aleksandr; uk, Олександр Порфирович Архипенко, Romanized: Olexandr Porfyrovych Arkhypenko; February 25, 1964) was a Ukrainian and American ...
, and later with
Albert Stewart,
Heinz Warneke
Heinz Warneke (June 30, 1895 – 1983) was an American sculptor best remembered as an animalier; his role in the direct carving movement "assured him a place in the annals of 20th-century American sculpture". In 1935 Heinz received the Widener Go ...
, and
Brenda Putnam
Brenda Putnam (June 3, 1890 – October 18, 1975) was an American sculptor, teacher and author.
Biography
She was the daughter of Librarian of Congress Herbert Putnam and his wife Charlotte Elizabeth Munroe. Her older sister Shirley and sh ...
.
She moved to
Michigan
Michigan () is a state in the Great Lakes region of the upper Midwestern United States. With a population of nearly 10.12 million and an area of nearly , Michigan is the 10th-largest state by population, the 11th-largest by area, and the ...
where she studied under
Carl Milles
Carl Milles (; 23 June 1875 – 19 September 1955) was a Swedish sculptor. He was married to artist Olga Milles (née Granner) and brother to Ruth Milles and half-brother to the architect Evert Milles. Carl Milles sculpted the Gustaf Vasa statu ...
at the
Cranbrook Academy of Art
The Cranbrook Educational Community is an education, research, and public museum complex in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan. This National Historic Landmark was founded in the early 20th century by newspaper mogul George Gough Booth. It consists of Cr ...
.
During her teenage years, she spent her winters learning to ski with Otto Fürer in St. Anton am Arlberg in Austria. She was an alternate on the first U.S. Women's alpine ski team at the
1936 Winter Olympics
The 1936 Winter Olympics, officially known as the IV Olympic Winter Games (german: IV. Olympische Winterspiele) and commonly known as Garmisch-Partenkirchen 1936 ( bar, Garmasch-Partakurch 1936), were a winter multi-sport event held from 6 to 16 ...
.
Marriage
She met Eero Saarinen at Cranbrook Academy, where his father, architect
Eliel Saarinen
Gottlieb Eliel Saarinen (, ; August 20, 1873 – July 1, 1950) was a Finnish-American Architecture, architect known for his work with art nouveau buildings in the early years of the 20th century. He was also the father of famed architect Eero ...
, was a faculty member. She married Eero on June 10, 1939, and they had two children:
Eric Saarinen
Eric Saarinen (born 26 June 1942) is a Finnish Americans, Finnish American cinematographer and film director. His parents were the architect Eero Saarinen and his first wife, the sculptor Lilian Swann Saarinen.
Saarinen has photographed sev ...
, born 1942, and Susan Saarinen, born 1945. They divorced in 1954, and she moved to
Cambridge, Massachusetts
Cambridge ( ) is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. As part of the Boston metropolitan area, the cities population of the 2020 U.S. census was 118,403, making it the fourth most populous city in the state, behind Boston, ...
.
Career
She contributed illustrations to magazines such as ''Child Life'', ''Interiors'', and ''Portfolio: An Intercontinental Quarterly''. In 1935 she illustrated a children's book for the
Bronx Zoo
The Bronx Zoo (also historically the Bronx Zoological Park and the Bronx Zoological Gardens) is a zoo within Bronx Park in the Bronx, New York. It is one of the largest zoos in the United States by area and is the largest metropolitan zoo in ...
, ''Picture Book Zoo''. In 1946 she wrote and illustrated the children's book ''Who Am I?''
Saarinen's early sculpture commissions included: 23 glazed terra cotta reliefs (most of animals) at the
Crow Island School
Crow Island School in Winnetka, Illinois, is an elementary school operated by Winnetka Public Schools. It is significant for its progressive philosophy and its International Style architecture. The design of its building was a collaboration betwe ...
in
Winnetka, Illinois
Winnetka () is a village in Cook County, Illinois, United States, located north of downtown Chicago. The population was 12,316 as of 2019. The village is one of the wealthiest places in the nation in terms of household income. It was the second- ...
, 1938, Eliel Saarinen, architect; reliefs at the U.S. post office in
Carlisle, Kentucky
Carlisle is a home rule-class city in Nicholas County, Kentucky, United States. The population was 2,010 at the 2010 census. It is the county seat of Nicholas County. It is located at the junction of Kentucky Route 32 and Kentucky Route 36, a ...
; and a terra cotta relief, ''Waiting for the Mail'' (1941), at the U.S. post office in
Bloomfield, Indiana
Bloomfield is a town within Richland Township and the county seat of Greene County, Indiana, United States. The population was 2,405 at the 2010 census.
Bloomfield is part of the Bloomington, Indiana Metropolitan Statistical Area.
History
T ...
(Missing as of 2016). She frequently supplied "ceramic embellishments" for her husband's architectural projects.
She exhibited the sculpture ''Night'' (now called ''
Bagheera
Bagheera ( hi, बघीरा / ''Baghīrā'') is a fictional character in Rudyard Kipling's Mowgli stories in ''The Jungle Book'' (coll. 1894) and ''The Second Jungle Book'' (coll. 1895). He is a black panther ( melanistic Indian leopard) who ...
'') at the
1939 World's Fair
The 1939–40 New York World's Fair was a world's fair held at Flushing Meadows–Corona Park in Queens, New York, United States. It was the second-most expensive American world's fair of all time, exceeded only by St. Louis's Louisiana Purcha ...
. It illustrates a scene from
Rudyard Kipling
Joseph Rudyard Kipling ( ; 30 December 1865 – 18 January 1936)''The Times'', (London) 18 January 1936, p. 12. was an English novelist, short-story writer, poet, and journalist. He was born in British India, which inspired much of his work.
...
's ''
The Jungle Book
''The Jungle Book'' (1894) is a collection of stories by the English author Rudyard Kipling. Most of the characters are animals such as Shere Khan the tiger and Baloo the bear, though a principal character is the boy or "man-cub" Mowgli, ...
''—the
panther
Panther may refer to:
Large cats
*Pantherinae, the cat subfamily that contains the genera ''Panthera'' and ''Neofelis''
**''Panthera'', the cat genus that contains tigers, lions, jaguars and leopards.
***Jaguar (''Panthera onca''), found in Sout ...
Bagheera hunting an owl by night. Placed in the
Boston Public Garden
The Public Garden, also known as Boston Public Garden, is a large park in the Downtown Boston, heart of Boston, Massachusetts, adjacent to Boston Common. It is a part of the Emerald Necklace system of parks, and is bounded by Charles Street (Bosto ...
in 1986, it is a feature of the
Boston Women's Heritage Trail
The Boston Women's Heritage Trail is a series of walking tours in Boston, Massachusetts, leading past sites important to Boston women's history. The tours wind through several neighborhoods, including the Back Bay and Beacon Hill, commemorating w ...
.
She was part of her husband's design team that won the 1947 national competition to design the
Gateway Arch
The Gateway Arch is a monument in St. Louis, Missouri, United States. Clad in stainless steel and built in the form of a weighted catenary arch, it is the world's tallest arch and Missouri's tallest accessible building. Some sources conside ...
in
St. Louis, Missouri
St. Louis () is the second-largest city in Missouri, United States. It sits near the confluence of the Mississippi River, Mississippi and the Missouri Rivers. In 2020, the city proper had a population of 301,578, while the Greater St. Louis, ...
at the
Gateway Arch National Park
Gateway Arch National Park is an American national park located in St. Louis, Missouri, near the starting point of the Lewis and Clark Expedition.
The memorial was established to commemorate:
*the Louisiana Purchase and subsequent westward mov ...
. Her bas-relief panels of the Mississippi River were eliminated from the final design.
She specialized in animal portraits. Among these were the
Royal Dutch Airlines
KLM Royal Dutch Airlines, legally ''Koninklijke Luchtvaart Maatschappij N.V.'' (literal translation: Royal Aviation Company Plc.), is the flag carrier airline of the Netherlands. KLM is headquartered in Amstelveen, with its hub at nearby Amste ...
sculpture at
John F. Kennedy Airport
John F. Kennedy International Airport (colloquially referred to as JFK Airport, Kennedy Airport, New York-JFK, or simply JFK) is the main international airport serving New York City. The airport is the busiest of the seven airports in the New ...
in New York City; and ''Screaming Eagle'' (1951) at the
Federal Reserve Bank Building Annex in Detroit, Michigan. The latter piece, designed at the request of architect
Minoru Yamasaki
was an American architect, best known for designing the original World Trade Center in New York City and several other large-scale projects. Yamasaki was one of the most prominent architects of the 20th century. He and fellow architect Edward D ...
, is an abstract American
bald eagle
The bald eagle (''Haliaeetus leucocephalus'') is a bird of prey found in North America. A sea eagle, it has two known subspecies and forms a species pair with the white-tailed eagle (''Haliaeetus albicilla''), which occupies the same niche as ...
constructed of welded brass rods. She created the ''Fountain of Noah'' (1954) at the
Northland Center
Northland Center was a shopping mall on an approximately site located near the intersection of M-10 (the John C. Lodge Freeway) and Greenfield Road in Southfield, Michigan, an inner-ring suburb of Detroit, Michigan, United States. Construction ...
, a shopping mall in
Southfield, Michigan
Southfield is a city in Oakland County, Michigan, Oakland County in the U.S. state of Michigan. As of the 2010 United States Census, 2010 census, the city had a population of 76,618.
As a northern suburb of Detroit, Southfield shares part of its ...
; interior sculpture at the Toffenetti Restaurant in Chicago, Illinois; and a mural of Boston Harbor with glazed terra cotta reliefs of sea creatures (1960s) at the Harbor National Bank on Franklin Street in Boston, Massachusetts.
In later years, she modeled a number of portrait heads, among them that of her friend Gardner Cox (1967).
In 1945, as part of the Red Cross Arts and Skills Unit rehabilitation program, she taught returning soldiers to model and fire ceramic sculpture. Later she taught at the
Pratt Institute
Pratt Institute is a private university with its main campus in Brooklyn, New York (state), New York. It has a satellite campus in Manhattan and an extension campus in Utica, New York at the Munson-Williams-Proctor Arts Institute. The school was ...
in
Brooklyn
Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...
, New York City; the
Museum of Fine Arts School in Boston; and the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the ...
in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Her cousin, socialite and actress
Edie Sedgwick
Edith Minturn Sedgwick Post (April 20, 1943 – November 16, 1971) was an American actress and fashion model, known for being one of Andy Warhol's superstars.Watson, Steven (2003), "Factory Made: Warhol and the Sixties" Pantheon Books, pp. 210& ...
, was one of her private students.
She exhibited at the
Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts
The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (PAFA) is a museum and private art school in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.[Cohasset, Massachusetts
Cohasset is a town in Norfolk County, Massachusetts, United States. As of the 2020 census the population was 8,381.
History
Cohasset was inhabited for thousands of years by Native Americans prior to European colonization, from whom English c ...](_blank)
at the age of 83. She is survived by son Eric Saarinen, daughter Susan Saarinen, and grandchildren Erik and Mark Wilkinson, Evan Sedgwick Saarinen, Eliot Eames Saarinen and Katrina Bergman Field.
Notes
{{DEFAULTSORT:Saarinen, Lilian Swann
1912 births
1995 deaths
20th-century American sculptors
20th-century American women artists
20th-century American women writers
Alpine skiers at the 1936 Winter Olympics
American female alpine skiers
American magazine illustrators
American women children's writers
American children's writers
American women illustrators
American women sculptors
Art Students League of New York alumni
Artists from Cambridge, Massachusetts
Artists from New York City
Chapin School (Manhattan) alumni
Cranbrook Academy of Art alumni
MIT School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences faculty
Olympic alpine skiers of the United States
Pratt Institute faculty
Sedgwick family
Sculptors from New York (state)
Sculptors from Massachusetts