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Article: The incredible Edmonia Lewis: The first major sculptor of African American and Native American heritage
- Article from:
- The Crisis
- Article date:
- January 1, 1999
- Author:
CopyrightCopyright Crisis Publishing Company, Incorporated Jan/Feb 1999. Provided by ProQuest LLC. (Hide copyright information)
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CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT:i This is Edmonia Lewis: Born in the middle of the 19th Century, part Chippewa Indian, part African-American and an orphan. Little is known about this woman who as a child roamed the woods with the Chippewas. Accounts tell of a successful brother who insisted she go to college. He supported her at Oberlin College in Ohio, a major abolitionist center at the time. There her talent for drawing emerged. But it was later in Boston that her desire to become a sculptor took hold. From Boston she journeyed to Rome, home to many expatriate American artists, including several women.
Following a visit to Lewis's studio in Rome, an anonymous American writer wondered in 1867 if ...