Facing racial and gender discrimination, Edmonia Lewis overcame several barriers to achieve international recognition and acclaim as a sculptor.1While her unique background often attracted as much interest as her works of art, Lewis managed to carve out her own identity as an artist. Her success paved the way for artists of color and proved that artistic genius did not belong exclusively to the White race.
While many accounts of Lewis’s early life exist, specific details remain inconsistent. Believed to have been born in 1844 to an African American father and Chippewa mother, she grew up in Greenbush, New York.2Both parents died early in her life, leaving her to live with her aunts. With financial aid from her brother, Lewis left New York to pursue a higher education. In 1859, she arrived at Oberlin College, a school known for its liberal and abolitionist views. There, she studied art until serious allegations threatened her life.3Accused of poisoning two schoolmates, a mob attacked her and left her badly beaten. Lewis’s lawyer, John Mercer Langston, convinced authorities to drop the charges against her due to a lack of evidence. Yet she continued to face hostility. Lewis had little choice but to leave the school after being denied the opportunity to register for a final term.4
Lewis then moved to Boston to pursue a career in art.5The abolitionist community offered her support and encouragement. Notable women including Lydia Maria Child, Maria Weston Chapman and Elizabeth Peabody commissioned her work and gave her career advice. As her skills progressed, Lewis created likenesses of notable leaders including John Brown and William Lloyd Garrison.6Her Bust of Robert Gould Shaw received praise from the Shaw family and established her as a well-known artist.7
Despite the support from the abolitionist community, Lewis did not want to receive praise for being “a colored girl” and felt her race limited her in the United States.8Arriving in Rome, fellow American expatriate artists welcomed Lewis and offered her guidance. Lewis developed close relationships with this community of women including Charlotte Cushman, Anne Whitney, and Harriet Hosmer.9Her career thrived in Rome and her studio became a fashionable stop for prominent tourists such as Frederick Douglass.10Over the years, Lewis continued to sculpt leaders of the anti-slavery movement, religious figures, and subjects that her own dual heritage inspired. Lewis lived in Europe for the rest of her life, occasionally traveling back to the United States to showcase her art.
Little information remains about the later years of Lewis’s life. In 2012, an investigation led by historian Marilyn Richardson uncovered the burial site of Lewis in London. Initially buried in an unmarked grave, Lewis rests in St. Mary’s Roman Catholic Cemetery.11
Footnotes
Samella S. Lewis, African American Art and Artists (University of California Press, 1990), 40.
- The History Project, Improper Bostonians: Lesbian and Gay History from the Puritans to Playland (Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 1998), 62. Kirsten Pai Buick, Child of the Fire: Mary Edmonia Lewis and the Problem of Art History's Black and Indian Subject (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2010), 4.
- Melissa Dabakis, Sisterhood of Sculptors: American Artists in Nineteenth-Century Rome (University Park, PA: Penn State Univ Press, 2015), 150.
- Romare Bearden and Harry Henderson, “A History of African-American Artists: from 1792 to the Present,” in A History of African-American Artists: from 1792 to the Present (New York, NY: Pantheon Books, 1993), 60.
- Buick, 11.
- The History Project, 62.
- Dabakis, 156.
- The Liberator(Boston, Massachusetts), February 19, 1864.
- Dabakis, 167.
- Bearden and Henderson, 76.
- Talia Lavin, “The Life and Death of Edmonia Lewis, Spinster and Sculptor,” The Toast, November 2, 2015, https://the-toast.net/2015/11/02/the-life-and-death-of-edmonia-lewis/.
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FAQs
During her time at Oberlin, Lewis was accused of attempting to poison her fellow classmate and roommate. While she was declared innocent after a trial, the abuse continued. A mob of white men kidnapped, beat, and left her to die in a field in the winter of 1862 because of the poisoning charge.
Why is Edmonia Lewis important to Americans? ›
Edmonia Lewis was the first sculptor of African American and Native American (Mississauga) descent to achieve international recognition. Her father was Black, and her mother was Chippewa (Ojibwa) Indian.
Why did Edmonia Lewis make the death of Cleopatra? ›
In this sculpture there is an undoubted sense that Cleopatra, as a strong African woman, had a mastery over her own fate, and Edmonia Lewis, who is also known to have claimed her own biography, was in a position to show her doing so.
Did Edmonia Lewis live with her brother? ›
By the time Lewis reached the age of nine, both of her parents had died; Samuel Lewis died in 1847 and Robert Benjamin Lewis in 1853. Her two maternal aunts adopted her and her older half-brother Samuel.
What challenges did Edmonia Lewis face? ›
Edmonia, one of a handful of students of color, regularly faced racism at Oberlin. In 1862, two white students accused her of trying to poison them. The university investigated and ruled that Edmonia was innocent. Shortly after, a group of white men kidnapped her and almost beat her to death.
Who is Edmonia Lewis on the postage stamp? ›
Edmonia Lewis, here in an An undated photo, was the first Black and Native sculptor to gain international fame. Many of her sculptures dealt with themes involving her Native American and Black heritage in the years after the Civil War and the end of slavery.
Why did Edmonia Lewis move to Rome? ›
Edmonia spent most of her adult career in Rome, where Italy's less pronounced racism allowed increased opportunity to a black artist; She enjoyed more social, spiritual and artistic freedom than what she had had in the United States Because she was a Catholic, her experience in Rome also allowed for both spiritual and ...
Did Edmonia Lewis create sculptures of abolitionists? ›
Upon Lewis' return to Rome, she received even more sculpture commissions. Between 1872 and 1879, she created more busts of abolitionists.
What sculptures were highlighted and created by Edmonia Lewis? ›
Lewis quickly achieved success as a sculptor. Inspired by the Emancipation Proclamation, she carved The Freed Woman and Her Child (1866) and Forever Free (1867). She subsequently turned to Native American themes and created The Marriage of Hiawatha (about 1868) and The Old Arrow Maker and His Daughter (1872).
What did Cleopatra look like? ›
Plutarch wrote that “she was not a striking beauty”. Cleopatra, like most women in her family, had rolls of fat under her neck, plump sides, and a hooked nose; however, being of Greek descent, her large and curvy figure was desirable, unlike the willowy, thin ideal figure of Egyptian women.
Cleopatra then arranges for a poisonous snake, an asp, to be smuggled to her in a basket of figs. She then commits suicide by allowing the asp to bite her on her chest. She arranged for her and Mark Antony to be buried together.
Who died in Cleopatra's arms? ›
By the end of July in 30 B.C., Octavian's forces had reached Alexandria, and Cleopatra retreated to her mausoleum. Hearing a report that she had died, Antony stabbed himself with his own sword. His men carried him to Cleopatra, and he died in her arms.
What are some interesting facts about Edmonia Lewis? ›
Eight facts about the life of Edmonia Lewis
- She was born in what's now Rensselaer. ...
- Her early childhood was in Native American communities. ...
- She attended Oberlin. ...
- She was connected with many famous abolitionists. ...
- Her career took off in Rome. ...
- She was part of a feminist circle of artists. ...
- She and her work were famous.
Lewis is believed to have been a part of a few notable, possibly romantic and sexual incidents with other females. An early “peculiar episode” is described in “African American Art and Artist” as taking place at Oberlin College on the morning of Jan. 27, 1862.
What tribe was Edmonia Lewis in? ›
Lewis was the daughter of an African American man and a woman of African and Ojibwa (Chippewa) descent. She was orphaned at a young age and afterward reportedly lived with her maternal aunts among the Ojibwa, who called her Wildfire.
What did Edmonia Lewis study in college? ›
She was enrolled at McGrawville in 1856, during a turbulent time politically as the United States approached the Civil War. In 1859, Lewis, again with the financial support of her brother, enrolled at Oberlin College in Ohio to study art.
