Great Art Explained: Edmonia Lewis

These shorts are also a way for me to look at lesser-known artists and gauge interest in them for a possible longer video. Edmonia Lewis should be one of the great, instantly recognisable names of nineteenth-century art. But for a long time, she almost vanished from the story. Lewis was one of the first internationally recognised Black and Native American sculptors, working in the 19th century at a time when both her race and her gender excluded her from the art world. Born in New York in the 1840s, she studied briefly at Oberlin College before moving to Rome, where she joined a community of expatriate artists. Working mainly in marble, Lewis carved powerful sculptures exploring abolition, freedom, and classical mythology. Her work challenged racist assumptions about artistic skill and reclaimed classical sculpture as a site of resistance and self-determination. What do you think?