EDMONIA LEWIS  

  First Internationally Acclaimed African American Sculptor

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Edmonia Lewis's carte de visite is one of the displays of the Smithsonian Institution's traveling exhibit, Let Your Motto Be Resistance: African American Portraits now at the Castle Museum, Saginaw MI.

For Black History Month, the Washington Post highlights the Death of Cleopatra at the Smithsonian American Art Museum.

The newly opened Crystal Bridges Museum in Bentonville, Arkansas, includes a copy of The Old Arrow Maker. Plan your visit and reserve tickets here.

Cleveland Museum of Art acquires a masterpiece last seen at auction: Three American Indians in Battle a/k/a  Indians Wrestling or Indian Combat  (No title is inscribed.) sold at Gabriel's, Nov. 2010.  It is an ambitious 30 inch. high  marble group, signed and dated 1868 -- a year of great frustration for the artist.   Two years earlier, Edmonia had great success modeling Indian groups based on Longfellow's The Song of Hiawatha.  In 1868, she expanded the line with busts of the fictional lovers. Here, the scene is war. The three figures appear to be engaged in mortal combat with sharp instruments and are dressed, unlike carved wrestlers of ancient Greece and Rome. The Indians' lack of affect is an authentic portrayal of their custom rather than a neoclassical feature. The spiral composition seems to draw from an earlier style. 

Newly released, detailed photographs by Christopher Busta-Peck of Indian Combat at the Cleveland Museum of Art.

Newly released photographs by Christopher Busta-Peck of Rebekah, 1880, or Rebecca at the Well  (private collection).  SIRIS describes a similar Rebecca at the Well dated 1871. 

Recently discovered antique photo of the lost Adoration of the Magi (1883) and a contemporary description.

Savannah College of Art and Design Museum of Art will provide a permanent home for the Walter O. Evans Center for African American Studies, including works by Edmonia Lewis.  [Click on "Evans Gallery" and scroll to image 6: The Wooing of Hiawatha.] 

Stark Museum of Art, Orange, TX, shows a copy of Hiawatha's Marriage carved in 1874.

High Museum of Art, Atlanta, Ga., received a gift of Columbus, a rare carving depicting an explorer and a young Native American woman, attributed to Edmonia Lewis. The pose follows Forever Free.

Smithsonian American Art Museum panorama including The Death of Cleopatra, Moses, Hagar in the Wilderness, The Old Arrowmaker and His Daughter (The Wooing of Hiawatha), Poor Cupid, and a photo portrait of the artist.

Luce Foundation Center for American Art, Edmonia Lewis in Italy (video).

Bust of a Woman in peasant dress (contadina) at N'Namdi Gallery.

Denise Ward Brown, "Mary Edmonia Lewis -- Female Sculptor. (video). 

Doreen Bolger presents Baltimore Museum of Art's African American Artist Collection (video).

Bust of Colonel Robert Gould Shaw at Beacon Hill's Museum of African American History in Boston MA, a marble copy of Edmonia's first celebrated portrait.  On exhibit Oct-Dec. 2011.

Bust of Dioclesian Lewis Walters Art Museum (Search: Edmonia Lewis), Baltimore, MD.

Marriage of Hiawatha at the Kalamazoo Institute of Arts; The Marriage of Hiawatha Walker O. Evans Collection. 

The Wooing of Hiawatha at Savannah College of Art and Design Museum.

Forever Free at Howard University, Lewis's most iconic work.

MODELED 1868

Three American Indians in Battle a/k/a  Indians Wrestling or Indian Combat (No title is inscribed). It is an ambitious 30 inch. high  marble group, signed and dated 1868.  

Minnehaha and Hiawatha busts at Howard University.

Minnehaha bust at the Detroit Institute of Arts.

Minnehaha and Hiawatha busts at the Newark Museum, Newark, NJ. 

MODELED 1869-73

Bust of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow at Harvard University Art Museums.

Bust of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow at Walker Gallery, British National Museums, Liverpool.

San Jose Library, San Jose CA, reminders of Lewis's 1873 visit to the West Coast.

Rebekah, 1880, newly released photograph by Christopher Busta-Peck (private collection).

Cowan's Auctions of Cincinnati: 'Veiled' Bride of Spring.  Cowan's Auctions of Cincinnati: 'Veiled' Bride of Spring.