Victor David Brenner born as Viktoras Barnauskas (June 12, 1871 – April 5, 1924) was an Lithuanian-American sculptor, engraver, and medalist known primarily as the designer of the United States Lincoln Cent.

Biography

Brenner was born to Jewish parents in Šiauliai

Šiauliai

Šiauliai , is the fourth largest city in Lithuania, with a population of 133,900. It is the capital of Šiauliai County. Unofficially, the city is the capital of Northern Lithuania.-Names:...

, Lithuania

Lithuania

Lithuania , officially the Republic of Lithuania is a country in Northern Europe, the biggest of the three Baltic states. It is situated along the southeastern shore of the Baltic Sea, whereby to the west lie Sweden and Denmark...

. His Lithuanian name at birth was Viktoras Barnauskas, but he changed the name to Victor David Brenner, because it was easier to get the American citizenship.
He emigrated to the United States in 1890, living mostly in the New York City area. When Brenner arrived in America, he had little more to fall back upon than the muscle and brawn of youth, his industry, and the well-learned trade taught him by his father — gem and seal engraving. This was an excellent technical preparation for his present skill with the tools of the sculptor's craft. He studied art at Cooper Union

Cooper Union

The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art, commonly referred to simply as Cooper Union, is a privately funded college in the East Village neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City, United States, located at Cooper Square and Astor Place...

 in the night classes there. Brenner soon mastered English as he had mastered French.

Eight years later Brenner was in Paris, studying with the great French medalist, Oscar Roty at the Académie Julian

Académie Julian

The Académie Julian was an art school in Paris, France.Rodolphe Julian established the Académie Julian in 1868 at the Passage des Panoramas, as a private studio school for art students. The Académie Julian not only prepared students to the exams at the prestigious École des Beaux-Arts, but offered...

. There he exhibited his own work and he obtained awards at the Paris Exposition of 1900. Eventually, he returned to the United States, and from that time on, his career was a series of successes, and he appeared to be on his way to the fulfillment of the splendid predictions made for his future by Rodin

Auguste Rodin

François-Auguste-René Rodin , known as Auguste Rodin , was a French sculptor. Although Rodin is generally considered the progenitor of modern sculpture, he did not set out to rebel against the past...

.

Brenner died in 1924 and is buried at Mount Judah Cemetery, Ridgewood

Ridgewood, Queens

Ridgewood is a neighborhood in the New York City borough of Queens. It borders the neighborhoods of Maspeth, Middle Village and Glendale, as well as the Brooklyn neighborhood of Bushwick. Historically, the neighborhood straddled the Queens-Brooklyn boundary. The neighborhood is part of Queens...

, Queens County, New York.

Lincoln cent

Brenner is probably best-known for his enduring Lincoln coin design, the obverse of which is the longest-running design in United States Mint

United States Mint

The United States Mint primarily produces circulating coinage for the United States to conduct its trade and commerce. The Mint was created by Congress with the Coinage Act of 1792, and placed within the Department of State...

 history. Brenner's design had been picked by 26th US President, Theodore Roosevelt

Theodore Roosevelt

Theodore "Teddy" Roosevelt was the 26th President of the United States . He is noted for his exuberant personality, range of interests and achievements, and his leadership of the Progressive Movement, as well as his "cowboy" persona and robust masculinity...

, who had earlier posed for him in New York. Since arriving 19 years earlier in the United States, Brenner had become one of the nation's premier medalists. Roosevelt had learned of Brenner's talents in a settlement house on New York City's Lower East Side

Lower East Side

The Lower East Side, LES, is a neighborhood in the southeastern part of the New York City borough of Manhattan. It is roughly bounded by Allen Street, East Houston Street, Essex Street, Canal Street, Eldridge Street, East Broadway, and Grand Street....

 and was immediately impressed with a bas-relief that Brenner had made of Lincoln, based on the early Civil War

American Civil War

The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...

 era photographer, Mathew Brady

Mathew Brady

Mathew B. Brady was one of the most celebrated 19th century American photographers, best known for his portraits of celebrities and his documentation of the American Civil War...

's photograph.

Roosevelt, who considered Lincoln the savior of the Union, 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. Bronze bas-reliefs dated 1907 and signed by Brenner have been identified and some sold in auctions for as much as $3,900.

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 the study of Lincoln's features. However, he examined every portrait to which he was able to obtain access, in order to draw those conclusions that, together with conversations with those who had known Lincoln himself, enabled him to evolve the portrait that appears on the penny.

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, however, decided to have the initials substituted for the name, and in so doing he was thoroughly aware that in retaining either name or initials he exercised the prerogative of his office, as the law definitely gives him decision in such matters.

So, 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.
Brenner at first refused to sign either his name or his initials, and his subsequent decision to permit the latter to appear was due entirely to his sense of responsibility for his work.

Widespread criticism of the initials' prominence resulted in their removal midway through 1909, the design's first year of issue. In 1918, Brenner's initials returned as small letters below Lincoln's shoulder, where they remain today. (The incorporation of the designer's initials into a coin design is now commonplace in the U.S.)

Works

Some of Brenner's most noteworthy sculptural works include:

1. Rev. Dr Muhlenberg Medal (issued by the American Numismatic and Archaeological Society
   American Numismatic Society
   The American Numismatic Society is a New York City-based organization dedicated to the study of coins and medals.-Introduction:...
   
   )
2. Portrait-plaquette of Fridtjof Nansen
   Fridtjof Nansen
   Fridtjof Wedel-Jarlsberg Nansen was a Norwegian explorer, scientist, diplomat, humanitarian and Nobel Peace Prize laureate. In his youth a champion skier and ice skater, he led the team that made the first crossing of the Greenland interior in 1888, and won international fame after reaching a...
   
   
3. Portrait medallion of J. Sanford Saltus
4. Portrait medallion of C. Delacour
5. Portrait-plaquette of Abraham Lincoln
   Abraham Lincoln
   Abraham Lincoln was the 16th President of the United States, serving from March 1861 until his assassination in April 1865. He successfully led his country through a great constitutional, military and moral crisis – the American Civil War – preserving the Union, while ending slavery, and...
   
    (the same plaquette that was used in the design of the Lincoln cent)
6. Portrait medallion of Prince Heinrich of Prussia
   Prince Heinrich of Prussia
   Prince Henry of Prussia was a younger brother of German Emperor William II and a Prince of Prussia...
   
    (1902)
7. Portrait bas-relief of John Paul Jones
   John Paul Jones
   John Paul Jones was a Scottish sailor and the United States' first well-known naval fighter in the American Revolutionary War. Although he made enemies among America's political elites, his actions in British waters during the Revolution earned him an international reputation which persists to...
   
   
8. Portrait bas-relief of Carl Schurz
   Carl Schurz
   Carl Christian Schurz was a German revolutionary, American statesman and reformer, and Union Army General in the American Civil War. He was also an accomplished journalist, newspaper editor and orator, who in 1869 became the first German-born American elected to the United States Senate.His wife,...
   
   
9. Bust of Charles Eliot Norton
   Charles Eliot Norton
   Charles Eliot Norton, was a leading American author, social critic, and professor of art. He was a militant idealist, a progressive social reformer, and a liberal activist whom many of his contemporaries considered the most cultivated man in the United States.-Biography:Norton was born at...
   
   
10. Seal of the New York Public Library
    New York Public Library
    The New York Public Library is the largest public library in North America and is one of the United States' most significant research libraries...
    
    
11. Portrait of Spencer Trask
    Spencer Trask
    Spencer Trask was an American financier, philanthropist, and venture capitalist. Beginning in the 1870s, Trask began investing and supporting entrepreneurs, including Thomas Edison's invention of the electric light bulb and his electricity network...
    
    .
12. A Song to Nature
    Mary Schenley Memorial Fountain
    The Mary Schenley Memorial Fountain, also known as A Song to Nature, is a 1918 landmark public sculpture in bronze and granite by Victor David Brenner. It sits in Schenley Plaza at the entrance to Schenley Park and directly in front of the University of Pittsburgh's Frick Fine Arts Building in...
    
    in Schenley Plaza at the University of Pittsburgh

External links

• PCGS The Professional Coin Grading Service's biography of Victor David Brenner
• L. Forrer, Biographical Dictionary of Medalists (Vol 1, 1904) pp. 277–279