After a year at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, French worked on his father's farm. While visiting relatives in Brooklyn, New York, he spent a month in the studio of John Q. A. Ward , then began to work on commissions, and at the age of twenty-three received from the town of Concord, Massachusetts, an order for his well-known statue The Minute Man, which was unveiled April 19, 1875 on the centennial anniversary of the Battle of Lexington and Concord.
Previously French had gone to Florence in Italy, where he spent a year working with sculptor Thomas Ball.
In collaboration with Edward Clark Potter he modelled the George Washington, presented to France by the Daughters of the American Revolution; the General Grant in Fairmount Park, Philadelphia, and the General Joseph Hooker in Boston.
French became a member of the National Academy of Design (1901), the National Sculpture Society , the Architectural League , and the Accademia di San Luca , of Rome. French was one of many sculptors who frequently employed Audrey Munson as a model.
Daniel Chester French
In 1940, French was selected as one of five artists to be honored in a series of postage stamps dedicated to great Americans.
Republic the colossal centerpiece of the World Columbian Exposition, Chicago, 1893. His 24-foot gilt-bronze reduced version made in 1918 survives in Chicago [1].
Death Staying the Hand of the Sculptor, a memorial for the tomb of the sculptor Martin Milmore , in the Forest Hills cemetery, Boston; this received a medal of honor at Paris, in 1900.
