Goddess of the Hunt

after augustus saint-gaudens' diana 

In 1893 the American sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens created his iconic ‘Diana’. Placed atop the Madison Square Garden on 26th Street in New York City this 13’ tall gilded sculpture crowned the Stanford White designed building. This ‘Diana’, now in the collection of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, most exquisitely captures an immediacy in the penultimate moment of the hunt. It was that immediacy that brought about this exploration of Diana as Goddess of the Hunt: her day; her responsibilities; her accepted ease and sureness of herself.

 The backplates for these images are aerial photographs taken from a single engine Cessna while flying over the Adirondack Mountains in upstate New York. In the course of two flights above the High Peaks I was able to capture the expanse and grandeur that would be our Diana’s home. Each model chose where she found herself in the mountains and what part of the story she would tell. 

Saint-Gaudens’ Diana was intended to be seen at a distance and from the streets below. Mythologically, however, this Roman Deity dwelled on mountaintops. Rather than view her as one of her prey from below, this series invites the viewer to accompany her and observe her in the hunt. Stalking. Climbing. Always attuned to her purpose as she traverses the High Peaks. Poised. Sure. Ready to assume the pose that exemplifies that penultimate moment of the successful hunt.