Maud Daggett (1885-1941)

Born: Kansas City, Kansas 1883 Died: Pasadena, California 1941

Maud Daggett came to California with her family as a child. Shortly after the turn of the century, she studied at the Pasadena’s Throop Institute, now the California Institute of Technology, then went to the Art Institute of Chicago and studied with Lorado Taft from 1903 to 1906. She returned to the Throop Institute to teach art for one year before traveling to Rome, Italy, and Paris, France, for three years of further study. While in Rome she modeled her “Golden Girl” Fountain which exhibited at the Spring Salon in Paris in 1910. She also exhibited in the spring salons at Artists Francais in 1911. Upon her return to Pasadena, California in 1911, she executed many commissions in Southern California including several garden figures of children. Her “golden Girl” statue was the first statue cast in terra cotta in Southern California. Several terra cotta reproductions of “Golden Girl” were purchased by patrons throughout Pasadena and Beverly Hills for placement in gardens, including the La Vina Sanitarium in the hills above Pasadena.

She was a charter member of the Pasadena Society of Artists. She was also a member of the California Art Club. Her work was exhibited at the Paris Salon 1910; Alaska-Yukon Exposition, Seattle,Washington, 1909; California-Panama Exposition, San Diego, California, 1915; PPIE, 1915. Her commissions are found throughout Southern California. They include the Hotel Raymond Fountain, Pasadena; Castelar Street Creche Building, Medallion of infant child and Fountain,Los Angeles: Pasadena Public Library, Frieze, Peter Pan, the stone lintel of the fireplace in the Children’s room ; Occidental College Fountain and Bronze Sundial, Los Angeles; and the “Mer-Baby” Bronze Fountain at the Scripts Home for the Aged. She died in Pasadena in 1941. Miss Daggett’s philosophy was, “To joyfully work as life presents the opportunity, one’s real competitor is one’s own self”. [Information excerpted from “The Western Woman”, Volume IX, Number 6, 1938, Los Angeles; Los Angeles Times, September 26, 1941; Pasadena Star News, May 11, 1929 and October 26, 1931.]

Studied at the AIC and then in Paris and Rome before returning to Pasadena to fulfill sculpture commissions.

Pasadena Society of Artists
2002 PSA 75th Annual Diamond Jubilee Exhibition, Pasadena Historical Museum, Pasadena CA
1925 April 4: 1st Annual Exhibition, Pasadena Art Institute @ Carmelita Gardens House, Pasadena, CA

California Art Club
Exh. with the CAC 1914-16, 1919, 1922, 1925-26, 1928, 1933, s-1917 (H) (M)