Woman-Made: 10 Sculptors You Might Not Know

A highly successful sculptor, Whitney rose to distinction for her portrayals of figures dedicated to or personifying social justice, particularly in the name of the abolitionist and suffragist movements. Whitney was primarily self-taught and studied human anatomy with a doctor. She, like other sculptors of her time, spent a few years living and working in Rome. Whitney’s sculptures sometimes proved too controversial—for example, Roma (1869), a realistic depiction of the city of Rome as an impoverished old beggar woman, which with its irreverence caused a sensation when it was exhibited. In 1875 Whitney won a national commission to portray abolitionist Charles Sumner, but, when it was discovered that the designs were by a woman, her submission was rejected.

An expatriate working in the Neoclassical style in Rome in the 19th century, Hosmer was one of the most-successful women sculptors of her time and earned herself complete financial independence through her art. She lived and worked among the English and American ex-pat writers and artists, including Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Browning and fellow sculptors Edmonia Lewis and William Wetmore Story. Her greatest success came in 1855 with a small marble sculpture of Puck, the impish literary character in Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. She was commissioned to produce some 30 to 50 replicas of it, including one for the prince of Wales.

Lewis’s life has the makings of a great novel. Orphaned by her African American father and Native American mother, Lewis managed to attend Oberlin College for a few years in the 1860s before being accused of theft and of poisoning classmates, for which a mob severely beat her. Brought to trial and acquitted, she pursued sculpting in Boston. Her first celebrated work was a medallion bearing the head of abolitionist John Brown. Her success took her to Rome, where she flourished and produced sculptures inspired by the Emancipation Proclamation, Native American culture, and biblical stories. Until the early 21st century, her date of death and last whereabouts were unknown.

Ream is the sculptor of an iconic marble Abraham Lincoln that stands in the Rotunda of the U.S. Capitol (unveiled 1871). She was only 18 years old when she earned that commission and at that time had only served as an apprentice to a sculptor for a year or two. In 1875, up against better-known male sculptors, Ream again won a major commission from the U.S. government, this time for a bronze of Civil War hero Admiral David G. Farragut. She went on to create portrait busts of other military and political figures of that era. Two later sculptures—Samuel Kirkwood (1906) and Sequoyah (1912-14)—are displayed in the U.S. Capitol’s National Statuary Hall.

Born Netta Deweze Frazee Scudder, she adopted the much simpler name Janet when she went to art school in Cincinnati in the 1880s. When she arrived in Chicago in 1891, she became an assistant to sculptor Lorado Taft (along with Bessie Potter Vonnoh) and helped him with his commissions for the World’s Columbian Exposition. She received her own commissions for the fair as well. She settled in New York City and established a reputation for medallions and later for urban and garden fountains, especially Frog Fountain (1901).

At age 14 Vonnoh enrolled at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago to learn how to draw and paint. She had the forethought to branch out into sculpture and took a class with Lorado Taft, who made her one of his studio assistants in preparation for his major sculpture installation for the World’s Columbian Exposition in 1893. Her next smart move was a trip to Paris in 1895, where she visited the studio of Auguste Rodin, whose works in bronze inspired Vonnoh to try her hand in that medium back in the U.S. She quickly made a name for herself as the leading (and award-winning) sculptor of intimate tabletop pieces, particularly those of mothers and children. Some of her best-known works, however, are to be seen in parks around the country, such as the Frances Hodgson Burnett Memorial Fountain (1926–37) in New York City’s Central Park.

Mears began her sculpting career during childhood. After an early success at the age of nine, she set up a studio at her family’s home in rural Wisconsin. At the age of 20 she moved to Chicago and began studying at the School of the Art Institute, and soon she earned a commission to produce a sculpture for the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in that city. She moved on to New York City and studied with famed sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens. In her short life she created several important pieces, including a life-size sculpture of suffragist Frances Willard that resides in the U.S. Capitol, in Washington, D.C.

Bearing the surnames of two notable families, Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney could certainly have gotten by as a socialite, but she became a highly influential art patron (cofounding the Whitney Museum of American Art in 1930) and pursued sculpture, finding that she had a natural talent for it. Whitney created numerous dramatic memorials throughout the country and the world. Some of her better-known works include The Titanic Memorial (1914–31; in Washington, D.C.), The Scout (1923–24; in Cody, Wyoming), and the Peter Stuyvesant Monument (1936–39; in New York City).

This award-winning sculptor lived to be nearly 100, making art until the year before she died. She did not attend art school aside from studying briefly at the Art Students League in New York City. Huntington was a self-made success with a natural talent for modeling detailed sculptures of animals and enormous equestrian sculptures portraying the likes of Joan of Arc (New York City), El Cid (New York City and Seville, Spain), and Andrew Jackson (Lancaster, South Carolina). She married a railroad tycoon, and the two established an expansive sculpture park and nature preserve in South Carolina, where many of her wildlife sculptures were put on permanent display.

An African American woman who married for the first time at age 15, had her first child at 16, and then managed to become a renowned sculptor makes for an unusual and inspiring story, particularly because it took place in the early part of the 20th century. Savage made her way to Cooper Union in New York City, where she astounded her teachers and graduated from the four-year program in just three years. Hard-earned fellowships got her to Paris, and extraordinary skill and perseverance accelerated her career and reputation. In the 1930s she opened her own art school in Harlem, became the first director of the Harlem Community Art Center, and was the first African American elected to the National Association of Women Painters and Sculptors. She is best known for her sculpture Gamin (1929), the portrait bust of a young African American boy wearing a rumpled shirt and cap.