Before most women were accepted into the art world, before most American schools were assimilated, Edmonia Lewis became the first professional black sculptor in the United States. She was born on July 4, 1844 to a free black father and Chippewa Indian mother. Orphaned as a young girl, Edmonia grew up with her mother’s family until she was twelve. While she lived with the Chippewa tribe in upstate New York, she went by her Native American name, Wildfire.

Having been “declared to be wild,” Edmonia only studied for three years in college. She first spent a summer at a Baptist abolitionist college in New York. Here she met many activists who would later become subjects and patrons of her work. In 1859, when she was 15, Edmonia’s stepbrother, Samuel, sent her to Oberlin Academy in Ohio to study art. At this time Edmonia dropped her Native name of Wildfire and started going by Mary Edmonia Lewis. Edmonia was one of thirty students of color among a student population of 1,000. While Oberlin was one of the first schools to foster a co-educational environment, Edmonia experienced daily racism and sexism from her peers. In 1862, Edmonia was accused of poisoning two of her fellow female classmates. Although the women got sick, they were ultimately fine so the authorities did not take action. There was also no evidence that Edmonia was to blame or that the girls had even consumed poison. Yet, still, rumors of the event spread outside the school’s progressive campus. As Edmonia was walking home one night, unknown attackers severely beat her and left her for dead in a field. After this assault, Edmonia was then charged by authorities. Although Edmonia did not testify and even though most of the witnesses supported the charge, the jury acquitted her. The trial further ostracized Edmonia at school and after people suspected that she stole artists’ materials from the college, and so, she was forced to leave.

Freed from that abhorrent atmosphere, Edmonia began her sculpting career in Boston in 1864. Her first marble piece, a woman’s hand, sold for 8 dollars. She soon graduated to busts, creating one of Colonel Robert Gould Shaw, an African American Civil War regiment commander. The popularity of the piece led to poems and interviews about and with Edmonia, garnering her fame with the New York and Boston abolitionists. Edmonia, though, felt that not everyone truly appreciated her art, so in 1866 she traveled to Rome to get more involved in the international art world. Her passport stated: “M. Edmonia Lewis is a Black girl sent by subscription to Italy having displayed great talents as a sculptor.” When she first arrived, Edmonia became acquainted with other expatriate artists, first working in Hiram Powers’ studio, then settling into her own space, which once was the studio of 18th-century sculptor Antonio Canova.

Along with professional support from Boston actress Charlotte Cushman and abolitionist Maria Weston Chapman, Italy granted Edmonia more opportunities and a less pronounced racist environment. Surrounded by classical art, Edmonia began sculpting in a neoclassical style, but her subjects remained focused on black and Native American people and literary, biblical, and political themes. While it was common practice for sculptors to hire workers to create marble sculptures from clay and wax models, Edmonia did it herself, combating male suspicions that women did not or could not do their own work.

Edmonia’s studio was often open for studio visits and she welcomed Frederick Douglass and Ulysses S. Grant, who sat for her. Her pieces sold for thousands of dollars, yet the press still made comments like “a struggling genius” and “a black sculptress is rarer than a black swan.” Throughout her career, Edmonia held multiple expositions of her work, but by the 1880s neoclassical art lost favor. By the turn of the century, Edmonia moved to London where she died in 1907.