{{Short description|American sculptor, engraver, and medalist (1871–1924)}} {{Use American English|date=July 2022}} {{Use mdy dates|date=July 2022}} {{Infobox person | name = Victor David Brenner | honorific_suffix= | image = Victor David Brenner.jpg | caption = Brenner holding a plaster model of the large design for the Lincoln cent (1909) | birth_name = Avigdor David Brenner | birth_date = {{Birth date|1871|06|12}} | birth_place = Šiauliai, Russian Empire (now Lithuania) | death_date = {{Death date and age|1924|04|05|1871|06|11}} | death_place = | resting_place = Mount Judah Cemetery Ridgewood, Queens, U.S. | known_for = Designing the Lincoln cent | occupation = Sculptor, engraver, medalist }}
'''Victor David Brenner''' (born '''Avigdor David Brenner'''; June 12, 1871 – April 5, 1924) was a Lithuanian sculptor, engraver and medalist known primarily as the designer of the United States Lincoln cent.
==Biography== Brenner was born to Jewish parents in Shavel, Lithuania, Russian Empire. His name at birth was Avigdor David Brenner ("Avigdor ben Gershon," in Hebrew, as his gravestone attests), but he changed the name to Victor David Brenner.<ref name=Draugas>{{cite web | first=Edward W. |last=Baranauskas |date=March 15, 2000 |title= Profiles: Brenner of Baranauskas?: Unraveling the Mystery of the Name and Origin of the Designer of the Lincoln Penny |url=https://www.draugas.org/news/profiles-brenner-of-baranauskas-unraveling-the-mystery-of-the-name-and-origin-of-the-designer-of-the-lincoln-penny/ }}</ref>
Brenner emigrated to the United States in 1890, living mostly in the New York City area. He arrived with little more to fall back but the trade his father taught him — gem and seal engraving. This technical preparation included the tools of the sculptor's craft. He took night classes at Cooper Union and soon learned English as he had learned French.
Eight years later Brenner was in Paris, studying with the great French medalist Oscar Roty at the Académie Julian. There he exhibited his work and obtained awards at the Paris Exposition of 1900. He returned to the United States, where his career prospered.
Brenner died in 1924 and is buried at Mount Judah Cemetery, Ridgewood, Queens, New York.
== Lincoln cent == thumb|250px|left|The Lincoln Cent, showing placement of the initials of Victor David Brenner from 1918 onward Brenner is probably best known for his enduring Lincoln coin design, the obverse of which is the longest-running design in United States Mint history, and perhaps the most reproduced piece of art in world history. His design was picked by President Theodore Roosevelt, who had earlier posed for him in New York. Since immigrating 18 years earlier, he had become one of the nation's premier medalists. Roosevelt had learned of his talents in a settlement house on New York City's Lower East Side and was immediately impressed with a bas-relief that Brenner had made of Lincoln, based on the early Civil War era photographer, Mathew Brady's photograph.
Roosevelt, who considered Lincoln the savior of the Union and the greatest Republican president, and also considered himself Lincoln's political heir, ordered the new Lincoln penny to be based on Brenner's work and that it be produced to commemorate Lincoln's 100th birthday in 1909. The likeness of President Lincoln on the obverse of the coin is an adaptation of a plaque Brenner executed several years earlier and which had come to the attention of President Roosevelt in New York.<ref>{{cite news |author=DAVID MARGOLICK |title=Penny Foolish |date=February 11, 2007 |work=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/11/opinion/11margolick.html |access-date=August 8, 2008 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110215111119/https://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/11/opinion/11margolick.html |archive-date=2011-02-15 }}</ref> thumb|left|Lincoln portrait Bronze bas-reliefs dated 1907 and signed by Brenner have been identified and some sold in auctions for as much as $3,900.<ref name=art>{{cite web|title= Victor David Brenner|url= http://www.ragoarts.com/results/?p=search&q=victor+david+brenner|work= Fine Art September 2008, May 2007|publisher= Rago Arts and Auction Center|access-date= July 26, 2009|archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20110715151504/http://www.ragoarts.com/results/?p=search&q=victor+david+brenner|archive-date= July 15, 2011|url-status= dead}}</ref>
Charles Eliot Norton of Harvard, whom Brenner counted among his friends, gave the sculptor an unpublished portrait of Lincoln which served Brenner as a basis for Lincoln's features. He also examined other portraits.<ref name="teall">Gardner C. Teall, "The Lincoln Cent and its Maker," ''Harper's Weekly'', 1909, p. 24.</ref>
When Brenner forwarded the model of the Lincoln cent to the Director of the Mint, the design bore his whole name, after the fashion of the signatures on the coinage of other countries, notably on the gold coins which Oscar Roty designed for France. The director had the initials substituted for the name.<ref name="teall"/>
Following the precedent of James B. Longacre, whose initials "JBL" (or simply "L") graced a number of U.S. coin designs for much of the latter half of the 19th century, Brenner placed his initials "VDB" at the bottom of the reverse between the wheat ear stalks.
Widespread criticism of the initials' prominence resulted in their removal midway through 1909, the design's first year of issue. In 1918, they returned as small letters below Lincoln's shoulder, where they remain today. Incorporation of a designer's initials into a coin design is now commonplace in America.
thumb|1909 VDB penny on Mars, covered in Martian dust despite its vertical mounting position A 1909 VDB US cent is mounted on the calibration target on the Mars ''Curiosity'' rover. This is a nod to the rover's geologic mission and the common practice by geologists including a coin in photographs to document the size of objects.<ref>[http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA16131 Catalog Page for PIA16131<!-- Bot generated title -->]</ref>
=="Baranauskas"== Several sources claim that Brenner's original name was "Viktoras Baranauskas" (or "Barnauskas"). In a 2000 article in ''Draugas'', Lithuanian-American historical researcher Edward Baranauskas described this as a "fable" — one which Lithuanian numismatist Jonas K. Karys "spent many years exposing (...) as a fabrication". Baranauskas traced the claim to a 1929 speech given by Alexander M. Rackus, and noted that "(u)nfortunately, [Rackus] could not substantiate much of what he said."<ref name=Draugas/>
==Works== Some of Brenner's most noteworthy sculptural works include: # Rev. Dr Muhlenberg Medal (issued by the American Numismatic and Archaeological Society) # Portrait-plaquette of Fridtjof Nansen # Portrait medallion of J. Sanford Saltus # Portrait medallion of C. Delacour # Portrait-plaquette of Abraham Lincoln (used in the Lincoln cent design) # Portrait medallion of Theodore Roosevelt used on the Panama Canal Service Medal<ref>[https://www.czbrats.com/Builders/roosemedals.htm The Panama Canal Service Medal]</ref> # Portrait medallion of Prince Heinrich of Prussia (1902)<ref name="teall"/> # Portrait bas-relief of John Paul Jones<ref name="teall"/> # Portrait bas-relief of Carl Schurz<ref name="teall"/> # Bust of Charles Eliot Norton<ref name="teall"/> # Seal of the New York Public Library<ref name="teall"/> # Portrait of Spencer Trask.<ref name="teall"/> # ''A Song to Nature'' in Schenley Plaza at the University of Pittsburgh
== See also == * List of Saltus Award winners
==Gallery== <gallery> Image:Brenner New York Public Library Seal.jpg|Seal designed for the New York Public Library Image:Brenner Charles Eliot Norton.jpg|Bust of Charles Eliot Norton Image:Brenner Carl Schurz.jpg|Bas-relief of Carl Schurz Image:Brenner Prince Henry of Prussia 1902.jpg|Medallion designed for the visit of Prince Heinrich of Prussia in 1902 Image:Brenner John Paul Jones.jpg|Bas-relief of John Paul Jones File:SchenleyFountainAndCathedralLearning.jpg|''A Song to Nature'', part of the Mary Schenley Memorial Fountain located in Pittsburgh, was Brenner's first large sculpture in the round Image:US One Cent Obv.png|US One Cent Image:1909-S VDB Lincoln cent reverse.jpg|Reverse of a 1909-S VDB Lincoln Cent </gallery>
== References == {{Reflist}}
==External links== {{commons category|Victor David Brenner}} * {{Internet Archive author |sname=Victor David Brenner}} * [http://www.pcgs.com/articles/article_view.chtml?artid=2999 '''PCGS'''] The Professional Coin Grading Service's biography of Victor David Brenner * Leonard Forrer, ''Biographical Dictionary of Medallists'' (Vol 1, 1904) pp. 277–279
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Brenner, Victor David}} Category:1871 births Category:1924 deaths Category:People from Šiauliai Category:People from Shavelsky Uyezd Category:Jews from the Russian Empire Category:Jewish Lithuanian sculptors Category:Jewish American sculptors Category:Emigrants from the Russian Empire to the United States Category:American people of Lithuanian-Jewish descent Category:20th-century American sculptors Category:20th-century American male artists Category:19th-century American sculptors Category:19th-century American male artists Category:American male sculptors Category:Cooper Union alumni Category:American medallists Category:20th-century medallists Category:American currency designers Category:American coin designers Category:19th-century sculptors from the Russian Empire