'Wildfire' at the US Post Office: Edmonia Lewis Black Heritage Stamp
The US Postal Service revealed their latest edition to the Black Heritage Series - a stamp honoring 19th century American sculptor Edmonia Lewis. The stamp was unveiled a while ago in January 2022, but I was still smooth sailing on my August Wilson stamps until I started running low and ventured into the post office. I saw this wonderful homage to one of my favorite artists and let out a happy little yelp. I already have a soft spot for 19th century art and especially the work and life of Edmonia Lewis. So, I thought I would share a few notes I have already written about Lewis. Enjoy!
Mary Edmonia Lewis (either 1843 or 1845 – death unknown)
Edmonia Lewis was born to a father who was a “full-blooded black gentleman’s servant” and to a mother who was a Chippewa Indian either in Greenhigh, Ohio or in Albany, New York. She was orphaned at five years old and raised by her mother’s tribe and given the name “Wildfire.” She spent her days swimming, fishing, and making baskets and moccasins to sell at market.
She entered Oberlin College in Ohio in 1859 where she received some formal instruction in drawing. After completing the Preparatory High School courses she pursued a degree in the Liberal Arts program. In January of 1862, two white female classmates accused Lewis of poisoning them, which later through “heated forensics” was dismissed as false charges and turned out to be a prank committed by other girls. “The subsequent scandal intensified after vigilantes brutally beat her.” She was defended by Afro-Indian lawyer, John Mercer Langston, and was exonerated due to the lack of sufficient evidence. After her acquittal, she was accused of stealing art supplies in 1863 and she was later acquitted of those charges as well. Nevertheless, she was not allowed to graduate, as one of her classmates stated in hopes that this, “will humbler her some.”
After moving to Boston and seeing a life-size statue of Benjamin Franklin,
Lewis noted that, “I too can make a stone man.”
In Boston she received support from other artists who lent her fragments of plaster casts to sculpt. She painted in the same Boston Studio Building that was also utilized by African American artist Edward Mitchell Bannister as a studio. However, she did not receive formal training. “Lewis was amused by the observation that ‘as her father had been a ‘man of color’ it would have seemed as though she ought to have been a painter, had it not been that her mother was a ‘Chipp-e-way’ Indian, and that made it natural for her to be a sculptor.” What Lewis did receive was encouragement and support from abolitionists who helped to finance her travels and offered commissions. She garnered acclaim for her medallion portraits of abolitionists such as William Lloyd Garrison, Charles Sumner, and Wendell Phillips.
She also produced portrait busts of abolitionists John Brown and Colonel Robert Gould Shaw, who led the all-African-American 54th Regiment of the Civil War.
Realizing that her career would be severely limited if remaining in the US, she sailed for Europe. During her travels in 1865-66 to London, Paris, and Florence, Lewis decided to establish a studio in Rome where she began carving in marble. Lewis chose Italy because of its long history with sculpture and the ability to work in marble. She worked as an anomaly in that she completed most of her works entirely by herself and seldom employed Italian workmen. As a result, she was able to produce fewer works due to the consumption of time and efforts. Her methodology may have been impacted by a lack of funding and the fear of surrendering authorship. In Rome she permanently settled only to return to the United States for brief visits during exhibitions of her work.
Lewis and Henry Ossawa Tanner are two of the most renowned African American artists of the 19th century to have established permanent residency in Europe as artistic expatriates.
Alain Locke describes the migration as, “The white artist was a voluntary expatriate; whereas the Negro artist was an embittered exile, or else, if less fortunate, a circumscribed, half-smothered talent.”
Although both artists were forced to pursue their craft in Europe, they were able to have successful careers abroad and later within the United States achieving great success back “home.” Lewis is quoted as reporting to the New York Times in 1872,
“I was practically driven to Rome in order to obtain the opportunities for art culture and to find a social atmosphere where I was not constantly reminded of my color. The land of liberty had no room for a colored sculptor.”
In Lewis’s Forever Free, 1867, she offers a recurring theme in her work of slavery and racial oppression. She also visited themes relating to her Indian heritage, biblical events, and fanciful mythology. Forever Free demonstrates Lewis’s penchant for idealized figures reflecting less of a racial identity and inspiring more of the spirit of freedom. The physiognomy of the slaves is not typically “African” as she settles on a more universal aesthetic, perhaps in hopes of achieving a more universal appeal. Lewis’s work has been criticized for this convention of idealizing her subject’s features and creating images that are less “African.” Like other African American artists in the 19th century, Lewis didn’t feature African American subject matter, although she addresses the condition of slavery in her work. Alain Locke describes this practice by African American artists as one where they, “could succeed only as exceptional individuals, detached from the group, and, as a result, they eschewed the Negro subject…their only chance for training or extensive recognition, was to go abroad.” Considering her patronage was mainly from abolitionists, she may have considered the audience in addition to her own experience with racial oppression in the US. She imbues her work with a pride and sophistication of character as she reflects on her own African American and Indian heritage in works like Forever Free and Old Arrow Maker, 1872.
If you’re interested in reading more about Edmonia Lewis I highly recommend Kirsten Pai Buick’s, Child of the Fire: Mary Edmonia Lewis and the Problem of Art History’s Black and Indian Subject, 2010. Buick presents a depth of research that presents Lewis’s life and work in ways that have never been explored. It is well written and offers a much needed art historical and theoretical perspective that expands the field. It is full of gems like this one where Buick states,
“I contend that Lewis’s work sprang from a negotiated identity, as fluid as the notion of ‘race,’ ‘femininity,’ and the concept of ‘America’ itself. She is central to the compelling issues of ethnicity, gender, and nation.”
Get your Edmonia Lewis stamps today!
https://store.usps.com/store/product/buy-stamps/edmonia-lewis-stamps-S_481604
