 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Edmonia Lewis, Sculptor |
|
|
|
Born in Albany, New York to a black father and a part Ojibwa mother between 1840 and 1845, Edmonia Lewis spent the first part of her life with her mother's people where she was called Wildfire and her brother Sunrise. She was placed in an orphanage and adopted by a white abolitionist family. |
|
|
|
 |
|
|
|
|
Lewis entered the Young Ladies Preparatory Department of Oberlin College, the first college in the country to admit women and African-Americans, about 1865 and replaced the name Wildfire with Mary. There she learned to draw and develop the skills of sculpting. She was accused of poisoning two white classmates, was abducted by a white mob and brutally beaten. The charges against Lewis were dismissed for insufficient evidence thanks to the work of her defense attorney, John Mercer Langston, Langston was an alumni of Oberlin and later a Howard University professor, U.S. Minister to Haiti, first African American elected to Congress from VIrginia and great uncle to Langston Hughes. |
|
|
|
|
|
Leaving Oberlin without graduating, Lewis moved to Boston. In her studio on Tremont Street, she created clay and plaster medallions of abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison, John Brown and other antislavery stalwarts. Although proud of her heritage, Lewis said she wanted her work to be accepted on its own merits, not "because I am a colored girl." Her most popular work was a portrait bust of Col. Robert Gould Shaw, white commanding officer of the all-black 54th Massachusetts Regiment. With proceeds from sales of plaster copies of the Shaw bust, Lewis sailed for Rome to pursue her career . |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Mary Edmonia Wildfire Lewis |
|
|
|
|
|
Rome was a gathering place for American writers and also a mecca for expatriate American sculptors in the mid 19th century. There was also a contingent of women sculptors which Henry James referred to as "that strange sisterhood of American 'lady sculptors' who at one time settled upon the seven hills [of Rome] in a white, marmorean flock"; (Smithsonian, February 1992). With Lewis' entrance to the circle noted, James commented "One of the sisterhood was a negress, whose colour, picturesquely contrasting with that of her plaster material, was the pleading agent of her fame. . . ." These women helped establish a place for women in the field of sculpture. Lewis at first carved her own marble, not only to save money but to avoid the accusation leveled at other women that their work was really the creation of Italian male stonecutters. |
|
|
|
 |
|
|
|
|
To develop her skills, Lewis copied classical sculptures from public collections around Rome. Inspired by Longfellow's immensely popular poem The Song of Hiawatha. Lewis created six pieces with complete figures and group works on the theme. She also created The Old Indian Arrowmaker and His Daughter which depicts the dignity and pride of Native Americans instead of the stereotypes being created in artworks that depicted them as being savages. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Marriage of Hiawatha |
|
|
|
|
One of Lewis' early Italian works, Forever Free (1867), portrays a man and woman of African Descent celebrating hearing the news of emancipation. She also sculpted several versions of Hagar, maidservant of the biblical Sarah who was cast out into the wilderness. This sculpture symbolized the plight of 19th century African-Americans. Lewis continued to portray elements of her own mixed heritage in her art as a way of getting the world to see people of color for who they were as opposed to common stereotypes. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
|
|
|
|
At the height of Lewis' popularity in the late 1860s and throughout the 1870s, her studio was frequented by visitors intrigued by her masculine clothes, rakish red cap, charming personality, forthrightness and was sometimes spoken of as being east Indian. There seemed to be resistance to accepting that a woman of African and Native American Descent was capable of doing the works she created., would dress or act the way that she did. |
|
|
|
|
|
A highlight of Lewis' career came in 1876 when she, along with other expatriates in Rome, sent works to the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia. Lewis sculpted Cleopatra, a popular subject at the time. But the Cleopatra Lewis created was a fundamentally different image; she portrayed the queen at the point of death. Her Cleopatra caused a sensation. The People's Advocate, an Alexandria, Virginia African-American weekly, reported on visitors' reactions. "Except for a sculpture by an artist named Guannerio,, said the paper, "The Death of Cleopatra excites more admiration and gathers larger crowds around it than any other work of art in the vast collection of Memorial Hall". |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Old Indian Arrowmaker and His Daughter |
|
|
|
|
|
 |
|
|
|
|
Following the Philadelphia Exposition, Cleopatra was exhibited in Chicago in 1878, where it was again a major attraction. Afterward, apparently unable to sell her two-ton work and perhaps deciding it was too large to ship back to Rome, Lewis put the sculpture in storage. |
|
|
|
|
|
Lewis traveled between America and Rome with many believing she returned to America at the end of her life. Among the visitors to her studio in the 1880s were Frederick Douglass and his wife, Helen. The neo classic vogue had passed and Edmonia Lewis seems to have faded from sight. It is known that she lived in Rome until at least 1909. But her later years are shrouded in mystery, including where and when she died. Estimates based on her works and appearances place her death somewhere around 1911. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
The Death of Cleopatra |
|
|
|
|
|
For more biographies and information on Filling in the Gaps in American History (F.I.G.A.H) and people of African Descent who don't usually appear in history texts, contact us at [email protected]. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|