Edmonia Lewis Sculpture Dropped En Route to Oberlin

by Michael Barthel

Mary Edmonia “Wildfire” Lewis is what some would call a “difficult” figure, both for art and for Oberlin. Half African-American, half Native American, she attended the College from 1859 to 1862 but never received her degree as a result of being arrested — and acquitted — twice. Now one of her greatest works, the once-thought-lost statue “Death of Cleopatra,” was scheduled to come to the Allen Memorial Art Museum this month, but it has been delayed due to some possible damage to the sculpture.
“The staff at the National Museum of American Art is currently reviewing the loan of the Lewis sculpture in light of some recent damage sustained in shipping,” said Leslie Miller, assistant to the director at the Museum. “It is anticipated that the loan will be completed as planned with a possible reschedule date in late fall or early winter of 2001. We expect to receive a final decision in spring.”

Lewis grew up either in the wilds of New York with a tribe of Chippewa, or in Newark, NJ. Her parents were both dead by the time she was five, and eventually her brother sent Lewis to a Baptist academy near Albany, NY.
She was admitted to Oberlin in 1859 and changed her name to Mary Edmonia. During her stay she roomed with Reverend Keep, and “enjoyed a good reputation on campus,” according to an article in the Oberlin Alumni Magazine. But in 1862, she was accused of poisoning two girls after they fell sick (but did not die) during a sleigh ride. The town and the College were both embarrassed and avoided dealing with the issue for some time. One night she was set upon outside Keep’s house and severely beaten.
Eventually she was brought to trial, where her defender was John Mercer Langston. It was possible she put cantharides, or “Spanish Fly,” in the girls’ drinks, but Langston simply argued that the prosecution had not proven its case and it was dismissed.

A few months later she was accused of stealing art supplies and was again acquitted. Nevertheless, the principal of the ladies department forced her to leave Oberlin.
With a letter of introduction from William Lloyd Garrison, she traveled to Boston and trained as a sculptor, eventually saving up enough money to travel to Europe. She settled in Rome and set up a studio. Her neoclassical statues were exhibited around the world. Scholars today debate whether her black and Native American figures, modeled after popular perceptions (her black women appeared white, and her Native American subjects were all chosen from Longfellow’s “Hiawatha”) were conforming to Victorian standards or an ironic comment on the same.
The statue coming to AMAM, Death of Cleopatra, is one of her major works. Selected for the Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition, it was the first American vindication of her work. It was also an innovation at the time, playing with neoclassical traditions by using a traditional subject — Cleopatra — in unusual ways. Her death received frequent treatment, but she was always shown just before death, implying the justness of ending the reign of a character usually seen as lustful, deceitful and violent. But by portraying her already dead, her view averted from the viewer, Lewis draws on her African and Ethiopian heritage to allude to the oppression of Africa by the West.

It was lost for many years but rediscovered in 1988 by a professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology in a shopping mall warehouse in Forest Park, Ill. Now the statue is in peril again, but it will assuredly reach Oberlin one day. “I find it very appropriate that it never made it here because she left Oberlin with a lot of bitterness,” said sophomore Hannah Weinberg, who gave a talk on Lewis this past Tuesday. 
Difficult or not, it is unsurprising that interest has recently grown in Edmonia Lewis. With her confused heritage, artistic merits, and dedication to the rights of the oppressed, she fits right in today. As she once said, “I have a strong sympathy for all women who have struggled and suffered.”