Hiawatha (sculpture) Hiawatha (sculpture) Hiawath is a 19th century sculpture executed in marble by American sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens. The work, which depicts the Iroquois leader Hiawatha, is in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Augustus Saint-Gaudens sculpted his interpretation of the famed Iroquois leader between 1872 and 1874. He was inspired to create the work by "The Song of Hiawatha", an 1855 epic poem by poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Longfellow's poem was well received by American audiences, and the epic work resulted in a rekindling of interest in Hiawatha and the waxing days of the Iroquois Confederacy. The poem is
The Song of Hiawatha house, was also epic. The monumental quality survives into the 20th century in Frances Foy's "Hiawatha returning with Minnehaha" (1937), a mural sponsored during the Depression for the Gibson City Post Office, Illinois. Parodies of the "Song of Hiawatha" emerged immediately on its publication. "The New York Times" even reviewed one such parody four days before reviewing Longfellow's original poem. This was "Pocahontas: or the Gentle Savage", a comic extravaganza which included extracts from an imaginary Viking poem, "burlesquing the recent parodies, good, bad, and indifferent, on "The Song of Hiawatha."" The "Times" quoted: In 1856 there appeared a 94-page