Consistent with early Twentieth Century thinking that mothers were queens at home, Vonnoh sculpted "Enthroned,” modeled 1902, with the mother seated regally in a thronelike chair embracing three children symbolizing progression from dependence to independence. The dignity and majesty of the woman's figure epitomized the Gilded Age ideal of motherhood. The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
In 1895, Potter rode the popularity of the Potterines to Paris, where she met and visited the studio of the master of expressive sculpture, Auguste Rodin, who greatly influenced her work. The French sculptor's impact was evident when, after returning to Chicago, she achieved fame with the first of her masterpieces, "A Young Mother," modeled 1896, an animated, tabletop-size bronze piece of a woman cradling her infant. The only work by an American woman to win a medal at the Paris Exposition of 1900, it became one of Potter's most popular sculptures.
The theme of motherhood, a constant throughout her career, was a subject relevant to modern American life that endowed her work with the age-old ideal of moral and spiritual significance. Such work, transcending the commonplace by bearing deep meaning, was the kind most admired by Potter/Vonnoh's generation. As curator Aronson observes, "A celebration of youth and healthfulness…["A Young Mother"] elevated all that seemed right, in a time marked by runaway social and technological change."
This success was followed by another characteristic image, "Girl Dancing," modeled 1897, which also reflected the vibrancy and refinement of Rodin's modeling. The contemporary young woman dancing in a romantic, old-fashioned gauzy skirt and petticoat symbolized the sculptor's interest in both the present and past.
In 1898, Potter moved to New York City, a hotbed of Gilded Age art. In "A Study," modeled around 1898, she created a diminutive, intimate glimpse of a mother nursing.
The following year, she married Impressionist painter Robert W. Vonnoh (1858–1933). Around this time most women artists who married gave up their careers to become homemakers. Cecelia Beaux and Mary Cassatt, two outstanding painters who were Potter's contemporaries, stayed single in order to concentrate on their careers.
After befriending President Woodrow Wilson, his artist wife, Ellen, and two daughters at the art colony in Old Lyme, Conn., where she lived, Vonnoh created this expressive bronze statue of daughter Jessie around 1912–13. With her long Grecian dress and patrician features, embellished with a silver finish, "Jessie Wilson (Mrs Francis B. Sayre)” is distinctive and eye-catching. Florence Griswold Museum.
Robert Vonnoh, recognizing the quality and potential of Bessie's work, became a mentor, adviser and supporter of her independent career. In encouraging her appreciation of Impressionism, he influenced her concentration on contemporary subjects and vigorous modeling. For many years the Vonnohs divided their time between France and New York City, summering in Old Lyme, Conn.
Early on, Bessie Vonnoh, capitalizing on the contemporary idea that women artists, because of their maternal instincts, were temperamentally suited to depict children — regardless of the fact that she never had children of her own — specialized in portraits of youngsters. "Hester," modeled 1901, portraying the 4-year-old daughter of fellow sculptor Alexander Phimister Proctor, conveys the uncertainties of childhood.
Two notable bronzes, modeled soon after the turn of the Twentieth Century, epitomize Vonnoh's continuing commitment to images of motherhood. "Enthroned," modeled 1902, shows a mother regally ensconced in a thronelike chair, with a "halo" behind her head and holding three children. It reflects the sculptor's efforts to convey the dignity and majesty of maternity, consistent with contemporary thinking that "In every home, the mother is queen, enthroned in the hearts of her loving children."
Similarly, "A Modern Madonna," 1904, portrays Vonnoh's close friend and Old Lyme neighbor, artist Helen Savier DuMond (wife of painter Frank Vincent DuMond), affectionately holding her infant son.
For a few years, attracted by the potential of their pebbly texture and muted colors for suggestive effects, Vonnoh worked in terracotta, creating sculptures from earth clays fired to make them hard. In line with tradition, she used terracotta for intimate, spontaneous images, as in "Young Woman Reading," circa 1910.
During summers in Old Lyme just before World War I, the Vonnohs became friends of President Woodrow Wilson and his family, particularly his wife, Ellen, who was a trained painter, and their handsome daughter, Jessie. The Vonnohs attended the White House wedding of the latter to Episcopal priest Francis B. Sayre. In a substantial bronze, measuring 16 by 61/8 by 7 inches, the president's daughter appears elegant and stately in a long Grecian costume. Vonnoh later modeled a marble bust of Jessie that delineated her fine facial features. Vonnoh was pleased when these works and others by her were displayed in the Red Room of the White House.
Vonnoh apparently remodeled a terracotta version of "Good Night” (or "On the Sandman's Trail”), modeled 1909–10; cast by 1915, in plaster prior to casting it in bronze. One of her most popular designs, it was replicated at least 56 times, the most of any of her editions. The Art Institute of Chicago.
Seeking to tap into the market for sculpture to decorate the increasing number of large formal gardens, in 1913, Vonnoh made her first garden piece, "Water Lilies," depicting a slender, nude boy balancing on a rock.
That same year she created a graceful table fountain, "The Intruder," in which a gowned, chaste maiden's bath has been interrupted by the entrance of a turtle on the opposite side of a basin. These works proved popular, but it was not until 1920 that she focused on garden and outdoor statuary.
In contrast to earlier in her career, Vonnoh received two prestigious public garden commissions: "The Theodore Roosevelt Memorial Bird Fountain,"
1923–27, for a National Audubon bird sanctuary near the president's grave at Oyster Bay on Long Island, for which she molded a standing girl holding a basin for feeding birds and a seated boy feeding animals and birds from a bowl.
The second, the "Francis Hodgson Burnett Memorial," modeled 1928, was a tribute in bronze to the author of children's books, such as
The Secret Garden
and
Little Lord Fauntleroy
,
for the Conservatory Garden in New York City's Central Park. It featured a reclining, Pan-like boy playing the flute and a standing woodland nymphlike girl holding a bowl with a bird in it.
To raise needed funds for the statue, the Roman Bronze Works foundry cast six bronze replicas of the standing girl that were to be sold. The replica in the exhibition stood for years outdoors in a park in Batavia, N.Y.
Closely related to the garden pieces Vonnoh produced in the 1920s were larger bronze sculptures, often featuring nude figures. A complex and compelling multifigure work, "Allegresse," which was modeled in 1920, bears a title that is the French word for gaiety, joy or mirth. Based on poses of professional dancers in her studio and the Three Graces from antiquity, three nude or partially nude young women dance lightheartedly in an image of fragile equilibrium.
This 1928 photograph of Vonnoh with little Beverly Maynard, taken by her father while "Sea Sprite” was underway, suggests the care with which the sculptor worked with her subject in creating the life-size garden sculpture. Richard Field Maynard Papers, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
"Allegresse" won a gold medal at the National Academy of Design, which led to Vonnoh joining her husband as a full member — the first married couple to be so honored.
Toward the end of the 1920s, Vonnoh seemed to lose interest in the exhausting work of sculpture and her output decreased noticeably. Yet, creating sculpture was almost a compulsion with her. As Aronson puts it, "For Vonnoh, art and personal fulfillment were inextricably entwined, [so] she continued to work until she was no longer able."
By the late 1930s, Vonnoh was faced with a shift in popular tastes from naturalistic sculpture toward modern streamlined and abstract styles that were not to her liking. She worked sporadically until 1950, when she stopped sculpting.
She died in 1955 and is buried near her mother and husband in Duck River Cemetery in Old Lyme. Fellow sculptor Wheeler Williams eulogized Vonnoh as a pioneering and successful woman artist, noting, "In addition to her very great talent, she was a most wonderful person…."
By the time of her death Bessie Potter Vonnoh had fallen out of favor with a public committed to Modernism, but she commanded respect as the senior member of the National Sculpture Society — a
grande dame
of American sculpture.
"During her lifetime," says Aronson, "Vonnoh was considered a unique and significant contributor to the field of American sculpture." Her work with bronze statuettes has influenced sculptors ever since. Moreover, she deserves great credit for serving as a role model and for breeching institutional barriers to other women artists.
The illustrated 287-page catalog, written by Aronson (with an essay by Janis Conner on the casting of Vonnoh's early bronzes) is packed with interesting insights. Published by Ohio University Press with Cincinnati Art Museum, it sells for $39.95 softcover.
The Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts is at One Museum Drive. For information, 334-240-4333 or
www.mmfa.org
.
