AUGUSTUS SAINT-GAUDENS

1848-1907

Born on June 13, 1889, in Guelph, Canada, and into an artistic family, Rolph Scarlett spent his teenage years as an apprentice in his uncle’s jewelry firm and briefly studied at the Art Students League, New York. While working in the jewelry industry, Scarlett found time to paint and design theatrical sets in his free time, including one for the 1928 world premiere of Eugene O’Neill’s drama Lazarus Laughed (1926).

In 1923, while on a business trip to Switzerland, Scarlett had met the artist Paul Klee and soon after abandoned his figurative painting style in favor of an abstract language that suggested more universal, cosmic truths..

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