Edmonia Lewis # 1498
$ 10.00
Caption from poster__
Edmonia Lewis
a rich lady, too came to me and said ‘Miss Lewis, that is a very beautiful statue, but don’t you think it would have beenmore proper to drape it Clothing is necessary to Christian art." " I responded, 'Madame, that is not modesty in you. That is worse than mock modesty. You see and think only of evil not intended. Your mind, Madame, is not as pure, I fear, as my statue."
Edmonia Lewis early life are uncertain. Her father was a African American
and her mother an Ojibwa Indian who named her Wildfire. Lewis changed
and her mother an Ojibwa Indian who named her Wildfire. Lewis changed
her name to Mary Edmonia while studying at Oberlin College. At the school,
Lewis was accused of theft and of trying to poison two classmates. Although
she was acquitted of both charges, she was not allowed to graduate. In
1863, Lewis moved to Boston and became a sculptor, specializing in
abolitionists and Civil War heroes. Forever Free (1867), a marble
sculpture now at the Howard University Gallery of Art in Washington,
DC, is her most famous work. Lewis reached the peak of her fame
when The Death of Cleopatra was presented at the 1876 Philadelphia
Centennial Exposition. It is now in the National Museum of American
DC, is her most famous work. Lewis reached the peak of her fame
when The Death of Cleopatra was presented at the 1876 Philadelphia
Centennial Exposition. It is now in the National Museum of American
Art in Washington, DC.
