Standing before this magnificent work of art, wrapped in admiration, I asked a bystander some questions in regard to the design and nativity of the artist, when I was reminded this was the work of an American colored lady. I said, “Oh yes, I have heard of her, and this is what I have been waiting to see,” but really I was so much interested in the work itself that I had not thought of her. Just then a very ordinary looking colored girl (as I thought) offered very kindly to show me other statues carved by the same lady. She took me to another department where I saw several beautifully carved statues of Sumner, Giddings [sic], a group of infants, &c., all of which seemed to be the centre of attraction – in the class of statuary in which they were found. I am no critic in aesthetics and yet I could see that her works, took the popular eye. I was more surprised when I found my guide, a plain and unassuming young woman, was the veritable sculptress herself. After some conversation I soon found Miss Lewis to be a downright sensible woman; a young lady of no foolishness, a devoted lover of her race, a woman courageous in the faith of her final triumph and the fullest recognition of the equal brotherhood of the race she so successfully represents. She spoke of her trials and said she rested under the burden of two despised races, the Indian and the Negro. Some of her own people, who had been more favored in point of opportunity, gave her no encouragement but came to criticise her work, of the merits of which they knew nothing; it was presumptuous; she had no time for them; and instead of fooling here with our people aping the prejudices of the whites, “I am going back to Italy to do something for the race – something that will excite the admiration of the other races of the earth.”[654]
As Rev. Sampson made clear, Edmonia was furious. After warm receptions by colored people all over America, she did not expect to be ignored, insulted, and stupidly criticized by local colored folk.
Twenty-five years later, writing about Philadelphia, W. E. B. Du Bois suggested, “So hard has been the rise of the better class of Negroes that they fear to fall if they stoop to lend a hand to their fellows.”[655] This ‘better class’ rejected Edmonia and her work – even her memorials to anti-slavery heroes – especially the disturbing Death of Cleopatra. That she showed her work in a town run by bigots may have raised fears of hostile overreaction. That she was a Catholic also may have been a factor. The Recorder editorialized against Catholic interests in colored people. Yet, Bishops Arnett and Payne so admired Edmonia they sat for their portraits.
The best to be said for Rev. Tanner is he mustered the courage to publish the letter. His son, Henry Ossawa Tanner,[656] then in his teens, would follow Edmonia over hurdles of alienation in America a generation later, and then go to Europe where he sought recognition as a painter.
Philadelphia did not reflect the views generally held by colored people. A letter to the New York Progressive American understood Edmonia’s mission. Criticizing the Centennial, it praised her:
Passing through the main building, you are surrounded with the productions and representations of every nation, save that of Africa; and anyone who is interested in any way in that race of people feels that there is something wrong somewhere; somebody has been left out, or to say the least have been overlooked.
But on entering Memorial Hall any person at all sensitive as to the non representative position in this centennial exhibition of the nation becomes greatly relieved. While it cannot be said Africa or the negro race have any department as a national or race affair, it will be with gratification to the colored people throughout the country, and with much credit to Miss Edmonia Lewis, who in her group of “Sleep” and “Hiawatha’s Marriage” also “Old Arrow Maker and his Daughter” grouped in marble, and terra-cotta busts of “Longfellow,” “Sumner,” and “John Brown,” and more especially does her production of the death of “Cleopatra,” do her credit. Not only credit to herself, but it wipes out the burning stigma that has been for centuries fastened upon this would be prosperous people. It brands the nation with shame before God and, in the eyes of man, and renders Miss Lewis’s name conspicuous among the most skillful and eminent artists of ancient or modern times. Miss Lewis cannot be esteemed too warmly by her people, she has made for herself and race a name that will live long after she shall have ceased to be.[657]
A Wonderful Town – Chicago
After the great fire of 1871, Chicagoans boosted their rebirth through popular expositions. They earned the nickname “Windy City” not so much for their weather as for their incessant self-promotion.
Before the Centennial closed, a representative asked her to exhibit The Death of Cleopatra in Chicago. She welcomed the proposal, feeling relieved of a great burden: what was going to happen to her masterwork? Maybe it would find a permanent home there.
Costs of shipping the large statue back to Rome were prohibitive. Where would she find a home for it? There were few possibilities. Art museums in the United States scarcely existed. The five-year-old Metropolitan in New York lodged in town houses. The Art Institute of Chicago was also in early development. Philadelphia already boasted two collections – the Charles Willson Peale collection housed temporarily at Independence Hall and the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts – but Philadelphia was very conservative and, as noted, unfriendly.[658] Despite the admiring crowds, no one had offered to buy it.
Chicago had been wonderful to her. She would again see John Jones, now a Cook County Commissioner, and could count on his counsel.
She readily agreed.
34. THE DEPARTURE OF EDMONIA LEWIS – 1877 to 1878
Portraits in Rome
Edmonia celebrated her success by printing a book of her reviews from the Centennial.[659] She included a “sketch” of the love story and dramatic deaths of Antony and Cleopatra. In no way a poet of words, she followed William Story again, emulating his post-carving literary effort by taking passages from the popular Langhorn translation of Plutarch’s Lives. She changed the death scene, of course, to portray Cleopatra on a golden throne, rather than a bed.
Surely she sent the book to her brother, to Isabel Cholmeley in Venice, perhaps another to one of the Tadolini family. A copy in her studio would impress visitors; on the road, her fans. Only one copy survives to our knowledge, in the national library at Florence.
A few American visitors could still delight her, such as the AME Church minister who cared nothing about stylish art or religious difference. Intent on meeting her face to face, he sought out her studio, his first stop on arriving at Rome.[660]
Thousands of faithful flocked to Rome for Holy Week each spring, creating a steady demand for religious themes. Other art sales suffered as fewer tourists came looking for artists’ studios. A new excitement in Paris had upstaged the neoclassical style and Rome.
Pope Pius IX died in early 1878. John Cardinal McCloskey, the first American prince of the Church, arrived too late for the papal conclave. At some point, he sat for Edmonia as she made his portrait bust.[661] Named in 1847 as the first bishop of the diocese that ran from Albany NY to the St. Regis Akwesasne Mohawk reserve, he must have been a most exciting subject.
Ex-President Grant, on a world tour, also agreed to a sitting. Asked if he liked his portrait, Edmonia replied, “Oh yes, but he didn’t say much; he is such a quiet man. He is the only president we ever had who doesn’t talk much. He will be the next president. I don’t know anyone who is better fitted for that position. I was invited to the grand reception given him, and I went.”[662]
She probably hoped to sell many copies. Unfortunately, Grant lost the 1880 Republican nomination after thirty-six ballots.
The 1878 Chicago Exposition
Chicago’s recurring expo was about attracting tourists and selling hardware, from tool-making machines to reapers and plows. Ten thousand people poured in on opening day. Expo planners meant art and music to draw the general public and entertain wives and children who had no interest in engines and levers. The art committee, trying to raise the quality of exhibits, had banned portraits by local artists – upsetting them an
d their sitters.
Edmonia arrived in August 1878 with her bust of President Grant and the array she had showed in Philadelphia. Once again, she probably relied on John Jones.
Figure 43. Advertisement, Chicago Tribune, 1878
Daily ads featured Edmonia’s Cleopatra with no mention of her color while news items reminded every reader.[663]
As Edmonia held forth beside her work, some praised her. Others picked at any nit to express their misery.[664] A widely copied news item that called her “dark, short, and young” cited her noble patrons as it protested the abuse she suffered.[665] Others acknowledged her skill, recalling her 1870 showing of Hagar and railing outrage on her behalf. Some editors noted such annoyances at the Centennial. A letter writer summed up: “Notwithstanding the provocations to which Miss Lewis is subjected, she will prove herself more worthy of honor and fame than her heartless detractors.”[666]
The Woman’s Journal ignored the race issue, preferring to romance its readers with poetry as it described the marble queen, “[in] the moment when, mounting her throne, and bidding her maids robe her in the finest garments, she touched the asp to her bosom.”[667]
Suffering from kidney disease and semi-retired, John Jones could have shared his views on the state of civil rights with her. Reconstruction, mortally hurt in the 1874 mid-term polls, had finally fallen in a deal made after the most argued national election of the century.
In the 1876 national contest, Ohio Governor Rutherford B. Hayes lost the popular vote against the reform-spirited New York Democrat, Governor Samuel J. Tilden. However, Hayes won the Electoral College – barely, with twenty votes in doubt. To resolve the dispute, he traded civil rights for the office with a special commission rather than by vote of the Electoral College. Once in power, he pulled Federal troops out of the South, thus inviting violence and deceit to fill the void. This cynical pact stalled the march of civil rights for a long time.
Aging and stymied by political riptides sweeping away hard-won gains, John Jones and Edmonia must have thought about retiring. Much of their work would stand. Others could pick it up one day.
They both had changed the way Americans thought about people of color. Both upset myths of weakness. No one had forced their long-term successes on the public. The public had spoken – at least, outside the old South.
Yet, the public was changing in other ways. The future seemed bound to Jim Crow. As the last biracial Congress of the nineteenth century prepared to exit, it had passed the 1875 Civil Rights Act. Backed by the late Senator Sumner, the Act aimed for equal treatment in hotels, public transportation, and theaters. Soon it was in the courts.
When the Expo closed in October, Edmonia let The Death of Cleopatra remain in a weeklong Grand Bazaar to benefit the Catholic House of the Good Shepherd,[668] a shelter for abandoned women. Two years later, the Republican National Convention called the Interstate Exposition Building their “wigwam” as they honored Emancipation and eulogized Reconstruction.
Indianapolis
After the expo, Edmonia slipped away to fast-growing Indianapolis, where former slaves accounted for a large but segregated public. Members of the Vermont Street Bethel AME Church had shown interest in her portrait of Grant. She showed it at the church while staying at a member’s home.
It was there she gave an affable interview to the two-year-old Indianapolis News. Its publisher was a young and ambitious Civil War vet who was keener on gaining a large circulation than in a whites-only pose.
When asked about the Grant bust, she told the News, “I shall see if the church people don’t want to subscribe enough to buy it. It would cost anybody else $300, but I will let them have it for a great deal less.”[669] Church members soon presented the bust to their retiring minister.
She breezed past her “wild” origins with a new tilt, more Uncle Tom’s Cabin than The Song of Hiawatha: “I guess I was just like Topsy,[[670]] I just growed up,” she laughed.
She announced a commission for a statue of Bishop Foley in Chicago. She was also “well acquainted” with Bishop Chatard, now head of the local diocese, having met him frequently when he was rector of the American College in Rome.
Of racist snipes, she said:
I never hear of them [in Rome]. Why, I am invited everywhere, and am treated just as nicely as if the bluest of blue blood flowed through my veins. I number among my patrons the Marquis of Bute, Lady Ashburton and other members of the nobility.
She offered this spiritual guidance:
Sometimes the times were dark and the outlook was lonesome, but where there is a will, there is a way. I pitched in and dug at my work until now I am where I am. It was hard work though, but with color and sex against me, I have achieved success. That is what I tell my people whenever I meet them, that they must not be discouraged, but work ahead until the world is bound to respect them for what they have accomplished.
In an article that editors picked up in rural Iowa and Pennsylvania as well as Boston, the News described her as “small in stature with the regular features of her race, and in color is a little lighter than the ordinary negro.” It went on:
Her eyes, however, are large, brown and sparkling, her forehead is broad and high, and her hair is allowed to fall over her shoulders untrammeled by bow or ribbon. She is a charming conversationalist, using the choicest language, shows a wonderful enthusiasm in her work, and speaks freely of her past life and future prospects.
Was this her last visit to America? She told the News: “I don’t know. The Chicago people have my Cleopatra still and want me to come back next year and exhibit it again. I may come back – I would like to and perhaps I will.”
Farewell, John Jones
Idle talk and circumstances frustrated art lovers who wished for a museum in Chicago. The Chicago Academy of Design had lost its home in the great fire and was headed for bankruptcy. Lacking other options, Edmonia left The Death of Cleopatra in storage at the Inter-State Exposition Building.
It had out-earned The Battle of Gettysburg – $2,947 to $2,690[671] – despite the painting’s top billing. At twenty-five-cents a head, it was a real achievement. Thousands of Midwesterners had seen her and knew she had created a fabulous work of art.
As she packed for Rome, she must have recognized she would never see the ailing John Jones again. They were sad at her departure. For Edmonia it meant the end of an ally in America.
Six months later, he died.[672] Many leading Chicagoans attended elaborate funeral services in his home. Her busts of Brown and Sumner decorated the mantle. Longfellow appeared between two windows.
Figure 44. John Brown. Plaster, painted terra cotta, 1876
By using contemporary attire with the affordable plaster medium, Edmonia reached beyond the wealthy elite buyers of studious neoclassical marbles. Private collection.
Figure 45. Senator Charles Sumner. Plaster, painted terra cotta, 1876
The fragile bust above was destroyed in a 1974 tornado. Photo courtesy Wilberforce University.
Figure 46. Bishop Benjamin W. Arnett. Plaster, painted terra cotta, 1876
Photo courtesy: Wilberforce University.
“Seeking Equality Abroad”
Two visits to New York’s Shiloh Church and Rev. Dr. Henry Highland Garnet fifteen years apart suggest matched portals in time. The first marks her entry as an unknown artist in 1863, the second her exit as a celebrity in 1878. She had gone for his counsel when the church was located at 61 Prince (near Lafayette) Street. She was then a mere student with an odd gleam in her eye. The second time, she was so famous that the New York Times published advance notices of a grand reception at 140 Sixth Avenue (near Dominick St.) and then sent a reporter.[673]
The highlight of the evening was the unveiling of her life-size bust of the first hero she ever portrayed, John Brown. Having donated her time and talent, she proudly presented it to the aging preacher, now a famous colored orator.
As a young man, Rev. Garnet supported Brown’s forceful approach. After the war,
Congress invited him to deliver his views as it passed the Thirteenth Amendment. As the first colored American to speak at the Capitol, he prayed for equal justice – even for the poorest, weakest citizens – in a memorable address.[674]
The Shiloh celebration had the nature of a lasting farewell. Never again would she be so applauded, so revered, so recognized in person. Rev. Garnet shook with emotion as he spoke of John Brown and recalled Edmonia’s history, how she came to him for advice, how he blessed her and sent her on her way to Boston, and the successes that followed.
The New York Times, the New York Herald Tribune, and other accounts provided a rare picture of her at a critical point in her life, having won unique battles in a tortuous struggle. Their lofty tone also betrayed the pervasive bias she found so suffocating. She spoke “very frankly and unaffectedly of her early struggles and privations,” reported the Times, unfortunately without details. It was more intent on her blood:
a fluent talker when the theme is such as to arouse her enthusiasm, she has something of the habitual quietude and stoicism of the Indian race.... In person she is rather below medium stature, and strong and supple rather than delicately made. She leans slightly forward in speaking, pronounces slowly and deliberately, and has a trace of sadness of both races in her manner, not withstanding her assured artistic success.
Unscripted responses from the pews would have been more enthusiastic, saluting her travails and celebrating her triumphs. Together they all sang John Brown’s favorite hymn, “Blow Ye the Trumpet, Blow,” and the Civil War anthem, “John Brown’s Body.” Someone read a poem, “The Dying Cleopatra,” probably the ode by Thomas S. Collier that Edmonia included in her book of Centennial reviews.
The Indomitable Spirit of Edmonia Lewis Page 28