An ongoing illustrative history study
This piece originally posted 8/19/2020
Prelude | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34 | Email |
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"I was practically driven to Rome in order to obtain the opportunities for art culture and to find a social atmosphere where I was not constantly reminded of my color. The land of liberty had no room for a colored sculptor."
Sculptor Edmonia "Wildfire" Lewis found herself in the unenviable position of being a phenomenally popular artist at a time when her sex AND her race were all anyone could see about her, and that sort of celebrity status never permits a truly clean and objective evaluation of one's artistic work. Educated at Oberlin (there's that school, again), Lewis ultimately did most of her work living in Rome, where less attention was focused on her race and sex.
I'm likely being a bit hypocritical in that respect, then, by drawing a portrait of the artist herself, rather than calling attention to her actual work. Therefore, your homework assignment will be a little more involved than usual: Go look up three of Lewis's pieces and read a critical analysis of each. Some search terms to get you started:
| The Old Arrow Maker | Forever Free | Robert Guld Shaw |
| Ulysses Grant | Hiawatha | Hagar |
| John Brown | The Death of Cleopatra |
(No kidding; the story of that last piece alone merits its own separate entry).
Additional reading: "Overlooked No More," a belated New York Times obituary at
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/25/obituaries/overlooked-edmonia-lewis-sculptor.html
Next page - Lesson 31: Ron Dellums