"Mary Edmonia Lewis"(July 4,1844-September 17,1907)

A Was an American sculptor of mixed race(African Ojibwe and Haitian) who worked for most of

her career in Rome.She was the first African American and Native American woman to gain fame and recognition as a sculptor in the international fine arts world.She was born in Greenbush,New York,which is now the city of Rensselaer.Her father was Haitian of African descent,while her mother was of Mississauga Ojibwe and African descent.Mary was known as an excellent weaver and craftswoman.Her family family background inspired Mary in her later work.When she was around nine years old,both of her parents died with in a year of each other.Mary and her older brother,Samuel were taken in and lived with their mother's  sisters for the next three years.Mary and her aunts sold Ojibwe baskets and other crafts to tourists visiting Niagara Falls,Toronto,and Buffalo.Becoming a successful businessman and gold prospector,Samuel paid for her tuition to the New York Central College.Mary was rebellious and did not learn English well,so Samuel suggested she transfer to Oberlin College,outside  Cleveland Ohio.At the time,Oberlin College was one of the first higher learning institutions in the United States to admit women and people of differing ethnicities. Mary decision to attend Oberlin was one that would significantly change her life,as that is where she began her art studies.During the winter season of 1862,several months after the start of the Civil War,Mary attended Oberlin College,an incident involved her and two classmates,Maria Miles and Christina Ernes.The three women,who boarded in the home of Oberlin trustee John Keep planned to go sleigh riding with some young men later that day.Before the sleighing,Mary served her friends a drink of spiced wine.Shortly after,Maria and Christina fell severely ill.Doctors examined them and concluded that the two women had some sort of poison in their system,apparently cantharides,a reputed aphrodisiac.For a time it was not certain that they would survive.Days later,it became apparent that the two women would recover from the incident,and would recover from the incident,and because of their recovery,the authorities initially took no action.Townspeople attacked Mary.While she was walking home alone one night,she was dragged into an open field by unknown assailants and badly beaten.Those responsible for her injuries were never found.Due to the attack,local authorities arrested Mary,charging her with poisoning her friends.The college defended their student throughout the trial.John Mercer Langston an Oberlin College alumnus,and the only practicing African-American lawyer in Oberlin,represented Mary during her trial.Most witnesses spoke against her and she did not testify,the jury acquitted her of the charges.After college,Mary moved to Boston late in 1863.She began to study under a well-known sculptor,Edward Augustus Brackett.Under his tutelage,she crafted her own sculpting tools and sold her first piece,a sculpture of a woman's hand,for $8.She opened for studio to the public in her first solo exhibit in 1864.Mary was inspired by the lives of abolitionist and civil rights heroes.She met Union Colonel Robert Gould Shaw,the commander of an African American Civil War regiment from Massachusetts.She was inspired to create a bust of his likeness,which impressed the Shaw Family,who purchased her homage.The poet Anna Quincy Waterston was inspired to write a poem about Mary& Robert.Early works that proved highly popular medallion portraits of the abolitionist John Brown and William Lloyd Garrison.Mary drew inspiration from Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and his work,particularly his epic poem,The Song of Hiawatha.She made several busts of its leading characters,for which he drew from Ojibwe legend.Mary was determined to study in Rome and sailed there in 1865.On her 1865 passport is written,"M.Edmonia Lewis is a Black girl sent by subscription to Italy having displayed great talents as a sculptor.The established sculptor Hiram Powers gave Lewis space to work in his studio.She entered a circle of expatriate artist and established her own space within the former studio of 18th Italian sculptor Antonio Canova.Rome was where Mary spent most of her adult career.Her studies there contributed to her neoclassical techniques and subject matter.The surroundings of the classical world greatly inspired Mary and influenced her work.Mary recreated the classical art style in her own work.For instance,she presented people in her as draped in robes rather than in contemporary clothing.Her work sold for large sum of money.In 1873 and article in the New Orleans Picayune stated,"Edmonia had snared two 50,000 dollar commissions."Her new-found popularity the queen in the thrones of death.Of the piece,J.S. Ingraham  wrote that Cleopatra was "the most remarkable piece of sculpture in the American section"of the Exposition.Much of the viewing public was shocked by Mary' frank portrayal of death,but the statue drew thousands of viewers.After being placed in storage,the statue was lost.After 120 years,it was discovered in a Sotheby's auction.It was authenticated and donated to the Smithsonian American Art Museum.A testament to Mary renown as an artist came in 1877,when former US President Ulysses S. Grant commissioned her to do this portrait.He sat for her as a model and was pleased with her finished piece.In the late 1880s,the neoclassical genre became less popular,and Mary popularity also declined.She continued to work in marble,increasingly creating altarpieces and other works in Roman Catholic patrons.In the art world,she became eclipsed by history and lost fame.The events of her later years are not known.For years,the year of Mary death was speculated to be in 1911 in Rome.An alternative view held that she died in Marin County California and was buried in an unmarked grave in San Francisco.Recent scholars has found that she lived in Hammersmith area of London,England before her death on September 17,1907 in the Hammersmith Borough Infirmary.