Google Doodle features Rensselaer County sculptor

Caption

Sculptor Edmonia Lewis, a native of Rensselaer County who spent most of her career in Italy, is the featured Google Doodle subject on Wednesday, Feb. 1, 2017.

Undated historic photograph of EDMONIA LEWIS, a famous African American sculptor of the 19th century, born in Rensselaer County. (Times Union archive)

Editor’s note: Wednesday’s Google Doodle features artist Edmonia Lewis, a Rensselaer County native. This story about Lewis originally was published in the Times Union on March 30, 2003:

More than a century ago, American artist Edmonia Lewis chiseled plump infants out of a marble block to produce ”Night.”

Don’t recognize the 19th-century artist’s name or her sculpture? You’re not alone. Due to her relatively small body of work, not too much is known of the artist who was born in Greenbush, Rensselaer County (now the city of Rensselaer), to African-American and Native American parents.

She is best known for her portrait sculptures of great American anti-slavery figures and Greek revival marble figures. The works earned her popularity during her time in Rome, where she spent the majority of her career after moving there in 1867. The largely self-taught artist is credited with being the first nonwhite American to receive international recognition as a sculptor.

Although a Jojobet few of her pieces are displayed at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American Art and libraries in San Jose, Calif., and Tuskeegee University, her work has mainly remained in the hands of private collectors.

”Night,” the latest of her pieces to be discovered, will be auctioned by Sotheby’s in London on April 9. The 2-foot sculpture was found in a private collection in Scotland. It is one of a pair of sculptures sometimes called ”Awake” and ”Asleep” and is the earliest of only two known versions, said Alexander Kader, one of the auction specialists in charge of the sale.

The marble piece, created in 1870 when Lewis was only 25, is expected to fetch $30,000 to $47,000, he said. In New York City in 1994, the last time Sotheby’s auctioned a piece of Lewis’ work, a sculpture called ”The Old Indian Arrowmaker and His Daughter” went for $87,750. Her works are rarely seen at auction, according to Sotheby’s.

Despite her connection to the Capital Region, her sculptures have never been displayed at the Albany Institute of History & Art, an omission the museum hopes to remedy, said executive director Christine Miles. The institute tried to borrow one of Lewis’ sculptures for a show last year, but couldn’t afford it. ”She’s such an interesting personality and eventually we will have the opportunity to exhibit her work,” Miles says.

Our editors found this article on this site using Google and regenerated it for our readers.