Mary Edmonia Lewis – First African-American and Native-American Sculptor to Achieve National Recognition

Mary Edmonia Lewis also called “Wildfire” was the first African American sculptor in black history to gain recognition both nationally and internationally. Lewis was born on July 4, 1844, in upstate New York to an African American father and an African Native American mother who was a skilled craftswoman and weaver of Ojibwe descent. Unfortunately, Lewis became an orphan at nine, making her mother’s sisters adopt Lewis and her older brother, Samuel. The family lived in Niagara Falls, New York. Samuel worked as a barber at age 12 while Lewis sold Ojibwe baskets and moccasins with her aunts to tourists. After a while in 1852, Samuel left New York for San Francisco, California, to seek greener pastures and soon became economically stable. In 1859, he enrolled Lewis in a secondary school, Oberlin Academy Preparatory School, for a three-year course. He later sent her to Oberlin Collegiate Institute for her college degree. The college was one of the few higher Institutions in the U.S. to allow females and individuals of different races to gain entrance at that time.

At that time, Oberlin had about a thousand students with only 30 of them being people of color. Lewis claimed to be a victim of daily racism and prejudice because of her color. Life at Oberlin became unbearable for her after she was falsely blamed for poisoning two of her white classmates. The rumor spread rapidly and one night she was openly beaten by assailants who left her for dead. After the attack, the authorities arrested her for poisoning her friends and brought her to trial but the court dismissed the case because there was no proof. After the incident, the discrimination and accusations continued at Oberlin and Lewis could not take it any longer so she ran to Boston and was unable to complete her college degree.

When she arrived in Boston, she saw Benjamin Franklin’s statue and did not know what it was but was determined to make her own “stone man”. She became friends with abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison who introduced her to a sculptor, Edward Augustus Brackett who was thriving in art then. Under his instruction, she crafted her first sculpture which was a human hand, and sold it for $8. Lewis also got some inspiration from abolitionists and civil rights activists at that time and she made a statue
of Union Colonel Robert Gould Shaw after she met him.

Her most popular artwork was “The Death of Cleopatra”, a piece that depicted Queen Cleopatra who committed suicide after she lost her crown sitting dead on her throne with her head tilted backward. She spent over four years creating the 3000-pound masterpiece which gained so much recognition and found its place in the Smithsonian American Art Museum. Other famous crafts by Lewis include Forever Free, a statue that celebrated the liberation of the African American slaves, Old Arrow Maker and His Daughter, and Hagar.

In 1877, Lewis’ works became more famous as Ulysses A. Grant, former U.S. president, asked her to make a portrait of him while he posed as a model. She died of chronic kidney disease on September 17, 1907, and was laid to rest in St. Mary’s Catholic Cemetery, London.