Background
Brenner, Victor David was born on June 12, 1871 in Shavly, Russia. Son of George and Sarah (Margolis) Brenner.
Brenner, Victor David was born on June 12, 1871 in Shavly, Russia. Son of George and Sarah (Margolis) Brenner.
In 1890 he came to the United States and worked for several years as a die cutter, but felt the urge to do creative art in metals. He studied in Paris, beginning in 1898 under Louis Oscar Roty, and won prizes for exhibits at the Paris Exposition of 1900 and at the Salon of the same year, at the Pan-American Exposition at Buffalo in 1901, and at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition in St. Louis in 1904. Samples of Brenner's medals and sculpture are in the Metropolitan Museum of New York, the Paris Luxembourg, and the Munich Glyptothek. His portrait medals of Theodore Roosevelt, James Whistler, Carl Schurz, and W. M. Evarts are widely known. His best-known work, however, is his design for the United States Lincoln penny.