The Life and Art by Edmonia Lewis (1844-1907)

Video (40:19): Sarah Burris talks about the life and art of Edmonia “Wildfire” Lewis (1844 – 1907), the first African-American sculptor to receive international fame.

[The copyright of the video above remains with the original holder and it is used here for the purpose of education, comparison and criticism only.]

Edmonia Lewis (1843-1911)

Mary Edmonia Lewis (1843-1911) studied art at the Oberlin Collegiate Institute, until she was forced to leave the college prematurely. Edmonia Lewis said later that she was subject to daily racism and discrimination at school. After college she moved to Boston in early 1864, where she began to pursue her career as a sculptor. She was also an activist working for the abolist cause and black women’s activism in Civil War Boston. She made and sold a set of works festuring plaster medalions and busts to abolisionist patrons and as a result she was able to move to Italy and further her career. Lewis spent most of her adult career as a neoclassical sculptor in Rome, where Italy’s less pronounced racism allowed increased opportunity to a black artist. She would ship her marble sculptures back to the US where she would sell or exhibit them. She lived and worked in Rome there until 1895. From 1896 to 1901 Lewis lived in Paris, France. She then relocated to the Hammersmith area of London, England, where she died on September 17, 1907.

Scholars suspect Edmonia Lewis was a lesbian largely because of her friendship with Harriet Hosmer, who was as open about her sexuality as one could be in the 1860s. At the very least, Edmonia was an enthusiastic part of a very queer social circle of women in Rome, among others sculptor Emma Strebbins, sculptor Harriet Hosmer and her lover actor Charlotte Cushman.