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George Thomas Brewster was a sculptor known for his portraits and war memorials. He was born in Kingston, MA on February 24, 1862 to Altheus Brewster and Mary S. Cushman. He could trace his lineage back to William Brewster, leader of the Mayflower expedition. We know nothing about his childhood or early education. From 1877-1881, he attended the Massachusetts State Normal Art School in Boston. He next traveled to Europe and studied with Augustine Dumont and Atonin Mercie at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, in Paris from 1881-1884. At the Ecole des Beaux-Ats he won first prize, a distinction received by no other American student.  He returned to the U. S. in 1884 and in the following year, married Addie Lina Margueritte De Courtney who was born in Passy near Paris. Brewster was the founder of the modeling course at the Art Students’ League in New York in 1886, and he was instructor in art at the Rhode Island School of Design from 1892-1893. After his divorce from Addie Linna, he married Lina Totten, daughter of Irving Totten of Tottenville, Staten Island. The couple had three children, Thomas, Eleanor and George. Brewster received commissions for public memorial sculptures, so many, in fact, that the web sites providing this information are listed below. Among more famous commissions were the State Soldiers’ and Sailors’ monument at Indianapolis, IN, the Soldiers’ monument in Malden, MA, the Cuyahoga County Soldiers’ and Sailors’ monument in Cleveland, OH, and the “Independent Man” atop the Rhode Island State House in Providence.  He sculpted 23 statues for the Vicksburg National Military Park. He lived in Tottenville, New York. His last known address was in Cos Cobb, Connecticut in 1933. He died in 1943. He worked from October 1936 to July 1937 for the Federal Art Project in Connecticut. He completed five sculptures in Plastina and as part of the FAP, was an instructor in modeling at Burdick Jr. High School and at Stamford Community College.

Sources: WPA Artist’s Work Card; Ask/Art; Who’s Who in American Art (1985), p. 76; Glenn B. Opitz, ed., Mantle Fielding’s Dictionary of American painters, Sculptors & Engravers Second Edition (1987), pp. 100-101; George Brewster (Sculpture),” Wikipedia [This source should be consulted skeptically.] at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Brewster_(sculptor) ;  [Plaque of Colonel Alpheus Skidmore Harris, Commander of the 43rd Georgia at the Vicksburg National Military Park], 43rd /Georgia Images – People; “George T. Brewster,” Vicksburg National Military Park at http://www.nps.gov/vick/historyculture/george-t-brewster.htm ; “Pleasant Plains Plaza,” New York City Department of Parks and Recreation, at http://www.nycgovparks.org/parks/R002/highlights/12270 ; “Augustine Saint-Gaudens, 1904 by George T. Brewster,” Saint- Gaudens National Historic Site; Thomas R. Evans, “The Independent Man,”; “Pleasant Plains Memorial,” Permanent Art and Monuments, New York City Department of Parks & Recreation at http://www.nycgovparks.org/sub_your_park/monuments/monument_info.php?monld=1187 ; “History of the Victory Sculpture,” Indiana Department of Administration at https://www.in.gov/idoa/state-property-and-facilities/public-works/victory-repairrestoration/history-of-the-victory-sculpture/ ; Leslie E. Owen.