Born in San Francisco, California, Robert Aitken became a noted sculptor who spent most of his career teaching at the National Academy of Design in New York City. He has done numerous portraits, full size and bust, of well known figures.
For his early study he was a painting pupil of Arthur Mathews and Douglas Tilden at the Mark Hopkins Institute, San Francisco, and by the time he was age 18 he had his own studio. In 1897, he studied briefly in Paris, where influences turned him to sculpture.
Robert Ingersoll Aitken - Mother Cradling an Infant
He taught at the Mark Hopkins Institute of Art, University of California, from 1901 though 1904, and was awarded some of the premier sculpture commissions including monuments to the Navy and to President McKinley in Golden Gate Park. In 1904, he returned to Paris for three more years, and then settled in New York City where he was an instructor at the National Academy of Schools Sculpture Class, and at the Art Students League.
Aitken’s held memberships in many important art societies, including the Allied Artists of American, the Associate National Academy of Design, the National Academy of Design, the National Arts Club, the National Institute of Arts and Letters, the National Sculpture Society, and the New York Architectural League.
Aitken’s many awards include a Phelan gold medal for sculpture; a Helen Foster Barnett Prize, an award from the National Academy of Design, 1908; an award for the G. R. Clark monument, University of Virginia, Richmond, VA; a gold medal of honor for sculpture from the New York Architectural League, 1915; and an Elizabeth N. Watrous gold medal from the National Academy of Design, 1921.
Aitken’s work includes several monuments in San Francisco; a memorial in New Britain, Connecticut; doors for Greenhut and John W. Gates Mausoleums, Woodlawn cemetery, New York; and design of a fifty dollar gold piece and a half-dollar for the Missouri Centennial, 1921. His work is in many collections and museums including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; the National Academy of Design Museum, New York; and the National Portrait Gallery, Washington.
