Background Information
During the antebellum period, many American female artists went to Italy to work and study. There were many advantages in moving to Italy for these women. High quality marble was readily available, many talented stone carvers where available to help complete sculptures, and examples of Greco-Roman sculptures where abundant, to name just a few. Also there was an attitude that Italy, especially Rome, was more open minded than America was in terms of its views on women. The number of American female artists in Rome was so large that, the author Henry James called them "The white marmorean flock." 6
Generally, American sculptors would create a small model in clay or plaster and then hire Italian stone carvers to help create larger versions of the small Marquette. This was advantageous to women because they could create large, monumental sculptures without having to physically do all of the manual labor. Many of these women worked in the Neoclassical style. This style, inspired by Greco-Roman culture and art, emphasized the idealization of figures. The sentimental style, which was popular in the US at this time, also idealized women, but utilized contemporary dress and avoided nudity. 7 In order to be successful, both professionally and financially, sculptors had to have multiples variations of any given sculpture. There would be plaster versions or small marble copies of the large pieces. Selling these smaller, relatively inexpensive copies created much of the income for the artist and enabled their name and work to reach a larger audience. For example, in order to help pay for her trip to Europe in 1865, Edmonia Lewis sold 100 plaster copies of the bust she had made of Col. Robert Gould Shaw. 8
Neoclassicism
Neoclassicism was the style of sculpture predominantly used during Edmonia's working career. It was reaching for the idealization of Greek sculpture, instead of the very decorative style of the Rococo. After the American Revolution, artists looked for ways to create an American identity. To do this, they looked to the ideals of Greece and Rome. Inspired, not only by democracy, but also by the classical forms of Greco-Roman art, American artists found that the neoclassical style suited them well. Neoclassicism was therefore found in Europe as well as America. It began during the American and the French Revolutions and continued during the Napoleonic wars. It provided an art form that used classical symmetry, idealized figures and depictions of values, something that was important during those chaotic times. In America, it enabled a sense of connectedness between the new, young country and the classic history and culture of Greece and Rome. Neoclassicism also served as a way to help unify the many different regions in America. 9 By having one style of art that was the predominant style, helped diminish the regional differences.
Often artists would create sculptures that would reference issues of the day but within the constraints of Neoclassical Since the style made work look superficially similar, the subject matter became an arena for showing the differences between artists. Edmonia Lewis chose to work in marble within this technically demanding style, selecting subjects that reflected her own personal identity.
Edmonia Lewis' context
The most recent book on Edmonia Lewis, Child of the Fire by Kirsten Pai Buick, focuses on challenging the previous work on Edmonia Lewis, one that maintained that her sculptures were reflections of her identity as a Native American and an African American. This book, which began as a dissertation, argues that her work is more a reflection of the time period than her personal identity. Despite this being the most recent published work, I am not going to focus on the author's point of view. While certainly Edmonia Lewis' art was reflective of the context in which she was working, one cannot discount the impact her personal identity had on her subject choice and her work. I will discuss how her own life impacted some of the choices she made in her career. With the students, I will focus on how Edmonia Lewis' work is unique and ultimately different than the rest of the "the white marmorean flock."
Edmonia Lewis (ca. 1844-1907)
Edmonia Lewis' biographical facts are difficult to pin down. In interviews, she would often give simple answers or say something that has been later shown not to be true. Like all of us, I think she edited her story for her purpose, which was to be a successful artist. Thus, she used her story to best effect. I will share the most commonly accepted facts of her life with the students. Edmonia Lewis was born somewhere between 1843 and 1845 near Albany, New York. The Smithsonian American Art Museum states that she was born in 1844, although other scholars given other dates. She said, in an interview, that her father was an African American and her mother a Chippewa Indian, implying her mother was full blooded. Her mother was probably mixed race, part African American and part Native American. Since Edmonia was orphaned when she was four, she was raised, until she was twelve, by her mother's tribe. 10 Specifically, she was raised by two of her aunts, her mother's sisters, living near Niagara Falls. They made and sold souvenirs to the tourists visiting the Falls, e.g. baskets, moccasins and snowshoes. But for the most part, the tribe hunted and fished in the area. 11 One can understand that she identified her mother as Native American and did not bother to explain the specific details of her mother's racial background. She described her childhood as being spent fishing and making baskets and moccasins. Her older brother, made well off by the California Gold Rush, paid for her to go to school when she was twelve and, in 1859, for her to attend Oberlin College, a major abolitionist center, Oberlin, in Ohio, had accepted women since 1832 and African Americans since 1835. It was here that she changed her name from her Indian one, "Wildfire" to Mary Edmonia Lewis, although she rarely used Mary. 12
Despite the desire for the campus to be racially harmonious, it, and the town, was not. She boarded in the house of the Reverend John "Father" Keep, who as a trustee of Oberlin had cast the deciding vote to allow women and African American to attend the college. Since she was young, probably under fifteen, and an orphan, Mrs. Keep gave her a second floor room to use by herself, which may have created some issue with the other girls. She was the only African American girl out of twelve girls boarding at the Keeps' house. 13 In January 1862, two white girls, who were students and boarded with Edmonia, accused of her of trying to poison them. Needless to say, there was a scandal and a great deal of publicity and the case eventually went to trial. During this time, she was severely beaten by vigilantes. In court, she was defended by John Mercer Langston, an African American lawyer, who went on to be the first dean of law at Howard University. She ultimately was acquitted because of insufficient evidence. Despite these events, she stayed in school. Yet in February 1863, she was accused of stealing art supplies from the college. Again she was acquitted, but was not allowed to graduate. 14 The woman in charge of the female students at Oberlin decided to simply not accept Edmonia's registration for her final term. Thus Edmonia was never considered for expulsion, and just ceased to be a student. 15 Edmonia, not surprisingly, never mentioned these events. 16
Shortly after Edmonia had started at Oberlin, John Brown was arrested for his raid on Harper's Ferry. Brown's father had been a founder of the college and two of the men who were with Brown were African Americans from Oberlin. One was killed and one arrested. Needless to say, Oberlin was very involved with the trial and many on the campus were distraught at the outcome. The college rang the chapel bell for an hour when Brown was hanged. Surely this made an impact on Edmonia and later she made a medallion of John Brown and several busts of him, however none have been located. 17
After what must have been a very challenging time she moved to Boston with her brother's support and a letter of introduction to William Lloyd Garrison. Through him she meet both abolitionists and artists in Boston. She found a studio space in the same building as Edward Mitchell Bannister. Beginning her art career by creating medallions in clay and plaster, she focused on northern Civil War heroes such as Col. Robert Gould Shaw and abolitionists such as John Brown. She discovered, while in Boston, that the fact that she was "considered triply disadvantaged as a black Indian woman, Lewis offered a tempting opportunity to those eager to demonstrate their support of human rights." 18 She met Lydia Maria Child, a famous abolitionist, who befriended Edmonia. Lydia was interested in this young mixed race girl who wanted to become a sculptor. Child later wrote that Edmonia told her "I don't want you…to praise me for I know praise is not good for me. Some praise me because I am a colored girl, and I don't want that kind of praise. I had rather you would point out my defects for that will teach me something." 19 Child was very encouraging of Edmonia receiving instruction, being aware of the years of training that other successful female artists of the time had such as Harriet Hosmer, but Edmonia did not follow Child's repeated encouragements. She went directly into sculpting and doing what she needed to do to be successful. She was determined and not at all deterred by people's opinions of her, her work, or struggles with money. As Bearden said, "A skilled survivor, she knew how to win sympathetic support and shrewdly made pieces that would fit any pocket book, not just those of the rich-a tactic she learned from selling Chippewa souvenirs." 20
On May 28, 1863, Edmonia watched the fanfare for Col Robert Gould Shaw, the son of a wealthy, abolitionist family in Boston, and his 54 th Massachusetts Regiment, all African Americans, as they set off to fight in the Civil War. Despite advice suggesting that Edmonia not try to depict the heroic Shaw because of her lack of experience, she did so anyway and the bust was well received. His parents felt it was enough of a likeness that they gave permission for copies to be sold. A friend and supporter of Edmonia, Anna Quincy Waterson wrote a poem about Edmonia bust of Shaw.
"EDMONIA LEWIS.
[The young colored woman who has successfully modelled
the bust of Col. Shaw.]
She hath wrought well with her unpractised hand,
The mirror of her thought reflected clear
This youthful hero-martyr of our land.
With touch harmonious she has moulded here
A memory and a prophecy—both dear:
The memory of one who was so pure
That God gave him (what only can belong
To an unsullied soul) the right to be
A leader for all time in Freedom's chivalry;
The prophecy of that wide, wholesome cure
For foul distrust and bitter, cruel wrong,
Which he did give his life up to secure.
'Tis fitting that a daughter of the race
Whose chains are breaking should receive a gift
So rare as genius. Neither power nor place,
Fashion or wealth, pride, custom, caste, nor hue
Can arrogantly claim what God doth lift
Above these chances, and bestows on few.
A. Q. W." 21
Having sold a sufficient number of copies of the bust she created of Shaw and medallions and busts of John Brown, Edmonia was able to pay to go to Rome to study and work in marble, considered the highest form of sculpture. During the winter of 1865-66, when she was around the age of twenty, Edmonia set up a studio in Rome, near the Piazza Barberini. There in Rome she began to carve marble. Despite her lack of formal training and experience in sculpting, she was willing to try full figures in the round and sculptures with multiple figures. In some of her work, her inexperience with proportions is evident but she clearly improved. While most sculptors used workmen to undertake the carving, Edmonia did much of the work herself. Only later in her career did she hire help. Cushman also paid to have one of Edmonia's clay sculptures turned into a marble sculpture. Her reluctance to use assistants might help explain her limited out put: it may result from concern over expenses or wanting to make sure that she was credited for the work. Harriet Hosmer had been accused of not making her own sculptures and Edmonia would have known about this controversy. 22 In response to this accusation, Hosmer wrote "The Process of Sculpture", published in Atlantic Monthly. She explains the step-by-step process of sculpting, hoping to refute the accusations that she did not create her own work. 23 Also, unlike many sculptors of the time period, Edmonia would make marble sculptures before she had a commission. She would then sometimes send these uncommissioned works back to Boston patrons who were asked to help sell them in order to raise money for materials and to pay for the shipping, which was expensive. 24 In Rome, Edmonia found people who took her under their wing such as Harriet Hosmer and Charlotte Cushman. She was able to sent up her studio in an old studio of Harriet Hosmer that previously had been Antonio Canova's and had historical significance. Cushman sent all of her acquaintances to Edmonia's studio helping make it a popular stop for people visiting Rome. She was written about in papers in both London and America. She was under a microscope and was considered a strange, exotic creature. She alternated from playing into the myth of being a naïve, child-like Indian to being rude when asked questions. 25 Edmonia was most popular in the late 1860s and 1870s during which time her studio was a popular stop for Americans on the Grand Tour in Rome.
Despite being warned not to carve marble unless she had a buyer or a commission, Edmonia was single minded in her resolve to continue working in marble. Borrowing money, she created a two-figure sculpture, which has become perhaps her most famous piece, Forever Free, (1867-1868) which celebrated the Emancipation Proclamation. She proceeded to ship it to Samuel E Sewell, with the bills for the marble and shipping. Samuel E. Sewell was a wealthy abolitionist, who needless to say was surprised. Immediately, he had to pay $200 to keep it from being auctioned off by the custom agents. Sewell eventually raised the funds to pay the balance of $800. Unfortunately, this act did little to endear her to several people who had been her supporters. They felt it was presumptuous for this young girl to not only make it against advice but then to send it overseas with the bills to someone who had no idea what was coming. Her career was a dichotomy of success and struggle, of being a "wonder" because of her identity and being dismissed because of the same. She went on to have a relatively successful career, given that she was woman of mixed race, working in the post bellum era. The Centennial (1876) marks the end of the Neoclassical period and the beginning of Romanticism, led by Auguste Rodin. Rome was replaced by Paris as the center of sculpture and many Americans left Rome and returned home. Edmonia did not. 26
The Civil Rights Act of 1875 was declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in 1883 and there would have been severe challenges for Edmonia if she had returned to the U.S. There had been a marked increase in racism after Reconstruction. Despite her style of sculpture going out of vogue, her religious sculptures had an audience and continued to sell. But she did continue to include images related to her identity. For instance, a lost altarpiece, done for a church in Baltimore, depicted the three wise men, one being white, one being African and one being Asian, with the African wise man having the greatest prominence. 27 But by 1900 Edmonia had basically been forgotten. When and where did Edmonia Lewis died has been a long time mystery. It was only solved in 2010. I will share this with my students because I want them to know there are mysteries that can be solved…not all of the research is done. Marilyn Richardson, a cultural historian, was able to find that Edmonia had died in the Hammersmith area of London, leaving a small financial estate. Richardson had spent several years and had gone to many countries looking for proof of her death. 28
Despite her popularity during her early career, it wasn't until the civil rights and feminist movements of the 1960s that people began to look at the young mixed-race girl who managed to become a successful sculptor immediately after the Civil War. A great deal of Edmonia's energies went into just being accepted by her fellow artists. As Romare Bearden states, "Within that framework, she struggled to honor in her work those whom she felt represented the best in American life-Colonel Shaw, John Brown, Lincoln, Sumner, Longfellow and Harriot Hunt. She also honored her own dual heritage in such works as The Old Indian Arrowmaker and His Daughter and the Hiawatha series and Forever Free. In Cleopatra she dared to break away from sterile conventionality. Hers was a daring life." 29
Ultimately her artwork became less allegorical and more naturalistic than that of other sculptors' working in the Neoclassical style. Her work connected in a different and deeper way with the issues of the day.
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