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Sto caricando le informazioni... The Indomitable Spirit of Edmonia Lewis. A Narrative Biography.di Harry Henderson
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Based primarily on decades of research by Harry Henderson (co-author of A History of African American Artists from 1792 to the Present), this fresh look at the facts of Edmonia Lewis's life and art discusses how she helped shape today's world. Edmonia Lewis was the first famous "colored sculptor" and the first to idealize her African and American Indian heritages in stone. She flourished from 1864 through 1878, and, as an artist, was a rare instrument for social change in the aftermath of the Civil War. She pressed her case for equality from her studio in Rome, Italy, and with annual tours of the United States. Her biography is based on private letters, public documents, essays, hundreds of news items, reviews of her work, museum collections, and more than two dozen published interviews. It reveals how a world biased against her color, class, gender and religion received her. Of special interest to African-American and American-Indian studies, as well as art, women's, and American history, the narrative opens an abundance of previously unrecognized sources, reinterprets important relationships, names missing works, and corrects the identification of an important portrait. Students of the nineteenth century will find it a cool counterpoint to the bitter rage of Civil War and Reconstruction. Readers familiar with her legendary icons of race may be surprised by her many portraits and her untold moves to Paris and London. They will also find answers to long-standing questions: Where, when, and how did she die? Why did her encounter with a bronze Ben Franklin leave her reeling? Why did she idealize a woman with African features only once in her career? Why did she never cite the now-famous Forever Free after her first interviews in Rome? Why did she have to stalk Henry Wadsworth Longfellow through the streets to make his portrait? Where was her studio? How often did she tour America? How did she enter her work in the 1876 Centennial expo, which had barred colored people absolutely? What were her relationships with fans, mentors, and fellow sculptors? Who were her rivals, her best friends, and her worst enemies? Fresh evidence, never before collected and collated, argues a novel motive for her erotic masterwork, the Death of Cleopatra, which sits apart in her oeuvre like a hussy in a small town church. Newly realized sources also change our view of her childhood and provide ample support to refute distortions of her personal character, sexuality, and appearance. Non sono state trovate descrizioni di biblioteche |
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Google Books — Sto caricando le informazioni... GeneriSistema Decimale Melvil (DDC)730.92The arts Sculpture and related arts Sculpture History, geographic treatment, biography BiographyClassificazione LCVotoMedia:
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While the details of Lewis’s life are scant, her story is still worth telling. She attended one of the first racially and gender integrated colleges in the US (Oberlin). While there, though, she was subjected to a brutal beating after she weas suspected of poisoning two other students. In spite of this, she became a sculptor’s apprentice and sold her first piece for $8 (a decent windfall in those days). From there, went to study in Rome and was brought up in the Neoclassical tradition. In the decade following the Exposition, however, the world’s interest in Neoclassic design waned and she faded into obscurity, dying in London in 1907.
This book is based primarily on Harry Henderson’s research, conducted since the 1970s. His son Albert finished the text after his Harry’s death in 2003. This one is a purely electronic text, with hyperlinked footnotes and a vast index of works. The narrative quality, I feel, immerses the reader in the story more than a regular scholarly biography would. The Hendersons integrate information from news stories and letters to make it more like a novel than a history text. Lewis’s story is all at once interesting and sad. Her life, while forgotten for a while is now making a come back among art historians and this immense work helps to secure her artistic legacy. A daunting but illuminating read. ( )