Bessie Potter Vonnoh

Bessie Onahotema Potter was born in St Louis, Missouri,{{cite web|last1=Blumberg|first1=Naomi|title=Bessie Potter Vonnoh American sculptor|website=Encyclopedia Britannica|date=25 April 2024 |url=https://www.britannica.com/biography/Bessie-Potter-Vonnoh}} the only child of Ohio natives Alexander and Mary McKenney Potter. Her father died in an accident in 1874 at the age of 38.{{cite book |publisher=Ohio University Press |title=Bessie Potter Vonnoh: Sculptor of Women |first=Julie|last= Aronson |year=2008 |isbn=978-0-8214-1800-0}}{{rp|p. 7}} By 1877, she and her mother had joined members of her mother's family in Chicago.{{rp|p. 9}}

In school, she enjoyed clay-modeling class and decided early on that she wanted to be a sculptor.{{cite web |url= http://www.aaa.si.edu/collections/bessie-potter-vonnoh-papers-6601/more|title=Bessie Potter Vonnoh papers, circa 1860-1991, bulk 1890-1955 |publisher= Archives of American Art|access-date=July 29, 2011}} In 1886, at age 14, she enrolled in classes at the Art Institute of Chicago.{{cite news |work=New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/23/nyregion/connecticut/23artsct.html |title=In Her Hands, Naturalism Won Out |author=Benjamin Genocchio |date=November 21, 2008}} She was able to afford the tuition only because a local sculptor, Lorado Taft, hired her to work as a studio assistant on Saturdays. From 1890 to 1891, she studied with Taft at the Art Institute, where she completed sculpture courses.{{rp|p. 11, 15}}

File:Bessie Potter.jpg, c. 1895]]

Vonnoh became one of the so-called "White Rabbits", women artists including Helen Farnsworth Mears and Janet Scudder who assisted Taft on the sculpture program for the Horticultural Building at the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago.{{Cite web|url=https://nmwa.org/explore/artist-profiles/bessie-potter-vonnoh|title=Bessie Potter Vonnoh {{!}} National Museum of Women in the Arts|website=nmwa.org|access-date=2019-03-02}} She also produced an independent commission, the Personification of Art, for the Illinois State Building of the exposition.

In 1895, she traveled to Europe and met Auguste Rodin. Her best-known statuette, Young Mother (1896), used fellow "White Rabbit" Margaret Daisy Gerow (Mody) Proctor, wife of sculptor Alexander Phimister Proctor, and their infant son as models. In 1898, she received the commission for a bust of General Samuel W. Crawford for the Smith Memorial Arch in Philadelphia.{{cite book|last1=Tolles|first1=Thayer|title=Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History|date=April 2012|publisher=The Metropolitan Museum of Art|location=New York|chapter=Bessie Potter Vonnoh (1872–1955)|chapter-url=http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/bess/hd_bess.htm|access-date=30 September 2017}}{{Cite web|url=http://www.philart.net/images/large/smacrawford.jpg|title=Crawford bust}}

In 1899 she married impressionist painter Robert Vonnoh, at his home in Rockland Lake, New York,{{cite news |work=New York Times |date=September 21, 1899 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1899/09/21/archives/a-marriage-of-artists-miss-bessie-potter-quietly-wedded-to-rw.html?sq=Bessie+Potter+Vonnoh&scp=25&st=cse |title=A Marriage of Artists; Miss Bessie Potter Quietly Wedded to R.W. Vonnoh}} and honeymooned in Paris. At the 1900 Exposition Universelle, she was awarded a Bronze Medal for A Young Mother and exhibited another statuette, Girl Dancing.{{cite book|editor-last1=Tolles|editor-first1=Thayer|title=American sculpture in the Metropolitan Museum of Art|date=1999|publisher=Metropolitan Museum of Art|location=New York, NY|isbn=9780870999147|pages=559–561|volume= 2|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=slQEFSrX3ooC&pg=PA559|access-date=30 September 2017}}

She exhibited at both the 1901 Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York, receiving an honorable mention for A Young Mother, and at the 1904 Louisiana Purchase Exposition in St Louis, Missouri, where she was awarded a Gold Medal for a group of ten works.{{cite book|last1=Ellis|first1=Delancey M.|title=NEW YORK AT THE LOUISIANA PURCHASE EXPOSITION ST. LOUIS, 1904 REPORT OF THE NEW YORK STATE COMMISSION|year=1907|publisher=J. B. Lyon|location=Albany|url=https://archive.org/details/newyorkatlouisi00harrgoog|page=[https://archive.org/details/newyorkatlouisi00harrgoog/page/n289 281]|access-date=30 September 2017}}

File:Bessie Potter Vonnoh in her studio by Jessie Tarbox Beals, c. 1905.jpg

File:Bessie Potter Vonnoh&Robert Vonnoh,ca. 1930.jpg, c. 1930.]]

In March 1903, the New York Times noted that the Vonnohs were two of a dozen painters and sculptors who got together to create a building specifically for their studios at 27 West Sixty-Seventh Street in Manhattan.{{cite news |work=New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1903/03/27/archives/a-new-hive-of-artists-studios-built-by-a-dozen-painters-to-suit-the.html?sq=Bessie+Potter+Vonnoh&scp=14&st=cse |title=A New Hive of Artists; Studios Built by a Dozen Painters to Suit Themselves -- Practical Side of the Sixty-seventh St. Building |date=March 27, 1903}} In mid-1903, the Vonnohs began summering in Old Lyme, Connecticut, and became long-time members of its Old Lyme Art Colony.{{cite book|last1=Cooley|first1=Jeffrey W.|title=Fine American Paintings|year=1993|publisher=The Cooley Gallery|location=Old Lyme, CT|pages=58–59}}

Vonnoh's small-scale works were suitable for the size and style of the average American home and had broad appeal. Many of her works, such as Water lilies, were portraits. Vonnoh's statue Water lilies (1913) was based on the daughter of fellow artists Helen Savier and Frank DuMond at Lyme. Vonnoh stated that she was "determined to prove that as perfect a likeness and as much beauty could be produced in statuettes twelve inches in height, and in busts of six inches, as could be had in the life-size and colossal productions suitable for so few houses."{{cite journal|last1=Kim|first1=Linda|title=Separate Spheres: Potterines, Gender, and Domestic Sculpture in Turn-of-the-Century America|journal=American Art|date=June 2014|volume=28|issue=2|pages=2–25|doi=10.1086/677963|s2cid=192987832}}

In December 1912, the New York Times, writing about her works at the New York Academy of Art, described her figurines as "lovely" and of a "charming style." The article also mentioned, "We must applaud once more her skillful harmonizing of detail in the contemporary costume, her selection of the most distinguished line for emphasis."{{cite news |work=New York Times|title=Art at Home and Abroad; From the Academic to the Modern Is the Range Shown in Exhibition of Sculpture at the Academy |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1912/12/22/archives/art-at-home-and-abroad-from-the-academic-to-the-modern-is-the-range.html?sq=Bessie+Potter+Vonnoh&scp=15&st=cse |date=December 22, 1912}} In 1915, Vonnoh exhibited in the Armory Show exhibition. In 1921, she was elected as an academician of the National Academy of Design. She was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 1931.{{cite web|title=Deceased Members|url=http://www.artsandletters.org/academicians2_deceased.php|work=American Academy of Arts and Letters|access-date=July 30, 2011|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110726004624/http://www.artsandletters.org/academicians2_deceased.php|archive-date=July 26, 2011}}

In 1933, her husband died at age 75.{{cite news |title=Robert Vonnoh, Noted Hartford Artist, Dies |work=The Hartford Courant |date=December 29, 1933 |url=https://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/courant/access/825489322.html?dids=825489322:825489322&FMT=CITE&FMTS=CITE:AI&type=historic&date=Dec+29%2C+1933&author=&pub=Hartford+Courant&desc=Robert+Vonnoh%2C+Noted+Hartford+Artist%2C+Dies&pqatl=google |access-date=July 5, 2017 |archive-date=November 7, 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121107134000/http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/courant/access/825489322.html?dids=825489322:825489322&FMT=CITE&FMTS=CITE:AI&type=historic&date=Dec+29,+1933&author=&pub=Hartford+Courant&desc=Robert+Vonnoh,+Noted+Hartford+Artist,+Dies&pqatl=google |url-status=dead }} In 1937, Vonnoh completed her best-known large-scale work, the Burnett Memorial Fountain in Central Park.{{Cite web|url=http://ephemeralnewyork.files.wordpress.com/2009/07/conservatoryfountain.jpg?w=450&h=337|title=Burnett Memorial}}

After her first husband's death, Vonnoh produced relatively little. She married again in 1948 to Dr. Edward L. Keyes, Jr., a widower, who died only nine months later.{{cite news |work=New York Times |title=Mrs. Bessie P. Vonnoh a Bride |date=June 27, 1948 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1948/06/27/archives/mrs-bessie-p-vonnoh-a-bride.html?sq=Bessie%2520Potter%2520Vonnoh&scp=36&st=cse }}{{cite web|title=Edward Loughborough Keyes, Jr., Papers: Part 2 (special collections)|access-date=2011-07-30|publisher=Georgetown University|url=http://gulib.georgetown.edu/dept/speccoll/cl297.htm|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120322101845/http://gulib.georgetown.edu/dept/speccoll/cl297.htm|archive-date=2012-03-22|url-status=dead}} Vonnoh herself died in New York City in 1955, at age 82.{{cite news |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1955/03/09/archives/bessie-p-yoffloh-sculptor-was-82-widow-of-dr-edward-keyes-is.html?sq=bessie+potter+vonnoh+death&scp=1&st=p |work=New York Times |date=March 9, 1955 |title=Bessie P. Yonnoh, Sculptor, was 82; Widow of Dr. Edward Keyes Is Dead--Her Works Won Many Medals in Shows}} She is buried alongside her first husband, Robert Vonnoh (1858 – 1933), in the Duck River Cemetery in Old Lyme, Connecticut.

File:Girl Dancing by Bessie Potter Vonnoh, 1897 - Corcoran Gallery of Art - DSC01277.JPG|Girl Dancing, 1897

File:Daydreams - Bessie Potter Vonnoh (Yale Art Gall 1973.124) 01.jpg|Day Dreams, 1898

File:Motherhood by Bessie Potter Vonnoh.jpg|Bessie Potter Vonnoh, Motherhood, 1905, photo by David Finn, ©David Finn Archive, Department of Image Collections, National Gallery of Art Library, Washington, DC

File:BustJamesSSherman.jpg|Bust of U.S. Vice President James S. Sherman, 1911

File:In Grecian Draperies by Bessie Potter Vonnoh, c. 1913 - Corcoran Gallery of Art - DSC01279.JPG|In Grecian Draperies, 1913

File:In_Arcadia_SAAM-1994.8_2.jpg|In Arcadia, bronze on marble base, 1926

File:Theodore Roosevelt Sanctuary & Audubon Center fountain.jpg|Theodore Roosevelt Memorial Bird Fountain, Oyster Bay, New York, 1927{{cite web |last1=Lane |first1=Laura |title=Major renovations of TR Sanctuary to begin soon |url=https://www.liherald.com/oysterbay/stories/major-renovations-of-tr-sanctuary-to-begin-soon,90949 |website=LI Herald Oyster Bay |date=21 April 2017 |publisher=Long Island Herald |access-date=30 November 2020}}

• American Women Artists: 1830–1930, The National Museum of Women in the Arts, 1987
• Four Centuries of Women’s Art, The National Museum of Women in the Arts, 1990
• [https://books.google.com/books?id=WQxH-SiOJooC Bessie Potter Vonnoh: Sculptor of Women], Florence Griswold Museum, 2008. {{ISBN|978-0-8214-1800-0}}.

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{{Reflist}}

• Aronson, Julie. Bessie Potter Vonnoh: Sculptor of Women. Athens: Ohio University Press, 2008;
• Baigell, Matthew (1979) "Vonnoh, Bessie Potter" Dictionary of American Art Harper & Row, Publishers, New York;
• Bowman, John S. (ed.) (1995) "Vonnoh, Bessie (Onahotema) Potter" The Cambridge Dictionary of American Biography Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, England;
• Falk, Peter Hastings (1985) "Vonnoh, Bessie Potter" Who Was Who in American Art: 1898-1947 Sound View Press, Madison, CT;
• Garraty, John A. and Carnes, Mark C. (eds.) (1999) "Vonnoh, Bessie Onahotema Potter" American National Biography Oxford University Press, New York;
• Heller, Jules and Heller, Nancy G. (1995) "Vonnoh, Bessie Potter" North American Women Artists of the Twentieth Century: A biographical dictionary Garland Publishing, New York

{{commons category|Bessie Potter Vonnoh}}

• [http://www.aaa.si.edu/collectionsonline/vonnbess/ Bessie Potter Vonnoh Papers Online at the Smithsonian Archives of American Art]
• [https://missouriartists.org/person/morem53/ Missouri Remembers: Artists in Missouri through 1951]

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{{New Woman (late 19th century)}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Vonnoh, Bessie Potter}}

Category:1872 births

Category:1955 deaths

Category:Members of the American Academy of Arts and Letters

Category:American modern sculptors

Category:Artists from St. Louis

Category:National Academy of Design members

Category:19th-century American sculptors

Category:20th-century American sculptors

Category:Sculptors from Missouri

Category:School of the Art Institute of Chicago alumni

Category:National Sculpture Society members

Category:20th-century American women sculptors

Category:19th-century American women sculptors