Hiram Powers

(click to enlarge)
"Greek Slave," marble statue by Hiram Powers, 1843; in the Corcoran Gallery of Art, … (credit: Courtesy of the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.)

(born June 29, 1805, Woodstock, Vt., U.S. — died June 27, 1873, Florence, Italy) U.S.-born Italian sculptor. He worked as an artist-assistant in a waxworks museum in Cincinnati, Ohio, then moved to Washington, D.C., where he modeled busts of such figures as Andrew Jackson (1834). In 1837 he settled permanently in Florence. He attracted international notoriety with his marble Greek Slave (1843), an image of a nude young woman in chains, which caused a sensation at London's Crystal Palace Exposition in 1851. An artist of outstanding technical ability, he was one of the most popular sculptors of his time.

For more information on Hiram Powers, visit Britannica.com.

(b Woodstock, VT, 29 July 1805; d Florence, 27 June 1873). American sculptor. He grew up in Cincinnati, OH, and his career as a sculptor began when he created animated wax figures for a tableau of Dante's Inferno at Dorfeuille's Western Museum in Cincinnati, where he was supervisor of the mechanical department. He learnt to model clay and make plaster casts from Frederick Eckstein (c. 1775-1852). The portrait busts he created of his friends attracted the attention of the wealthy Nicholas Longworth, who financed trips for Powers to New York in 1829 and to Washington, DC, in 1834, when he sculpted President Andrew Jackson (marble, c. 1835; New York, Met.). Powers's strikingly lifelike bust, classicized only by the drapery, brought him commissions from other Washington luminaries, including John Marshall (marble, 1835; Washington, DC, US Capitol), Martin van Buren (marble, 1837; New York, NY Hist. Soc.) and John Quincy Adams (marble, 1837; Kinderhook, NY, Columbia Co. Hist. Soc. Mus.).

See the Abbreviations for further details.

Hiram Powers (1805-1873) was the most famous and significant of all the American neoclassic sculptors.

Hiram Powers was born on July 29, 1805, in Woodstock, Vt. The family soon moved to Cincinnati, where Powers grew up. He began his artistic career modeling wax figures for Dorfeuille's Western Museum in Cincinnati. His efforts then were noticed by the novelist Frances Trollope, who, years later, was of great assistance to him.

In 1834 Powers went to Washington, D.C., where he executed plaster portrait busts of such clients as Andrew Jackson and Daniel Webster. When Powers settled in Florence, Italy, in 1837, he made marble reproductions of these busts. He spent the rest of his life in Florence. The American sculptor Horatio Greenough, who was in Florence at that time, aided Powers socially and artistically. He also received encouragement from Bertel Thorvaldsen, then the most famous European neoclassic sculptor.

Powers continued to sculpture portraits throughout his lifetime. His patrons were visiting Americans and Europeans, some of noble heritage or of great repute. It was in the area of ideal works, however, that he made his reputation. He began creating such works as his bust Ginevra soon after arriving in Florence and followed this with his first full-length sculpture, Eve Tempted. His second full-length nude female figure, the Greek Slave, won him international acclaim; six full-size replicas were made. The statue became the best-known American sculpture of the 19th century because of its exhibition at the Crystal Palace in England in 1851 and the tour of several versions of the sculpture in the United States. The piece was emulated by other sculptors, both American and European.

Power's Greek Slave was followed by other full-length works, such as California, America, Eve Disconsolate, and The Last of the Tribe, as well as busts of these, and Faith, Hope, Charity, Psyche, Diana, and Proserpine. Over 130 replicas of Proserpine are known to have been made. The great disappointment of his life was the lack of serious governmental patronage; this was accorded, instead, to his contemporary Thomas Crawford. Powers did, however, furnish the U.S. Capital with sculptures of Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson.

Powers died in Florence on June 27, 1873. The entire contents of his studio, including all his plaster models, about 20 marble sculptures, and his tools, casts, and manuscripts, were later acquired by the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C.

Further Reading

There is no complete study of Powers. The Smithsonian Institution, utilizing the unpublished manuscript biography of Clara Louise Dentler, planned to publish a study in 1973. Powers is discussed or referred to in general works: Lorado Taft, The History of American Sculpture (1903); Albert TenEyck Gardner, Yankee Stonecutters: The First American School of Sculpture, 1800-1850 (1945); Oliver W. Larkin, Art and Life in America (1949; rev. ed. 1960); and Georgia S. Chamberlain, Studies of American Painters and Sculptors of the Nineteenth Century (1965).

Additional Sources

Reynolds, Donald M., Hiram Powers and his ideal sculpture, New York: Garland Pub., 1977.

Wunder, Richard P., Hiram Powers: Vermont sculptor, 1805-1873, Newark: University of Delaware Press; London; Cranbury, NJ: Associated University Presses, 1989-c1991.

Neoclassical sculptor Hiram Powers, ca. 1863, with his autograph.

The Greek Slave

Hiram Powers (June 29, 1805 - June 27, 1873) was an American neoclassical sculptor.

Contents 1 Biography 2 Collections 3 Further reading 4 External links

Biography

The son of a farmer, Powers was born in Woodstock, Vermont, on the July 29, 1805. In 1818 his father removed to Ohio, about six miles from Cincinnati, where the son attended school for about a year, staying meanwhile with his brother, a lawyer in Cincinnati. After leaving school he found employment superintending a reading-room in connection with the chief hotel of the town, but being, in his own words, forced at last to leave that place as his clothes and shoes were fast leaving him, he became a clerk in a general store. At age 17, Powers became an assistant to Luman Watson, Cincinnati's early wooden clockmaker. Powers was skilled in modelling figures. Watson owned a clock and organ factory, Powers set himself to master the construction of the instruments, displaying an aptitude which in a short time enabled him to become the first mechanic in the factory.

In 1826 he began to frequent the studio of Frederick Eckstein, and at once conceived a strong passion for the art of sculpture. His proficiency in modelling secured him the situation of general assistant and artist of the Western Museum, kept by a Louisiana naturalist of French extraction named Joseph Dorfeuille, where his ingenious representation of the infernal regions to illustrate the more striking scenes in the poem of Dante met with extraordinary success. The idea for this entertainment was conceived by Fanny Trollope. After studying thoroughly the art of modeling and casting, at the end of 1834 he went to Washington DC, where his remarkable gifts soon awakened general attention.

In 1837 he settled in Florence, where he remained till his death, though he did travel to England during this time. He developed a thriving business in portraiture and "fancy" parlor busts, but he also devoted his time to creating life-size, full-figure ideal subjects, many of which were also isolated as a bust. In 1839 his statue of Eve excited the warm admiration of Bertel Thorvaldsen, and in 1843 he produced his celebrated statue The Greek Slave, which at once gave him a place among the leading sculptors of his time. It was exhibited at the centre of the Crystal Palace Exhibition and Elizabeth Barrett Browning wrote a sonnet on it. The sculpture The Greek Slave became an abolitionist cause and copies of it appeared in many Union-supporting state houses. Among the best known of his other ideal statues are The Fisher Boy, Il Penseroso, "Eve Disconsolate", California, America and The Last of the Tribe (also called The Last of Her Tribe).

One of Powers' sons was the sculptor Preston Powers. The elder Powers died on the June 27, 1873, and is buried as were three of his children, in the English Cemetery, Florence. Direct descendants of Hiram Powers in Europe included the noted Futurist designer, Ernesto Michahelles (a.k.a. Thayaht), painter Ruggero Michahelles, and architect Michele Michahelles.

Collections

In 2007 the Taft Museum of Art, Cincinnati, Ohio presented the first major exhibition devoted to the most celebrated nineteenth century American sculptor, "Hiram Powers: Genius in Marble". This is the same place of the first solo exhibition of Powers' work in Cincinnati in 1842, when Nicholas Longworth opened his private residence to allow the public to view Power's newest sculpture.[1]

Collections holding works by Hiram Powers include the Addison Gallery of American Art (Andover, Massachusetts), the Amon Carter Museum (Texas), the Arizona State University Art Museum, the Art Gallery of the University of Rochester (New York), the Birmingham Museum of Art (Alabama), the Brooklyn Museum of Art (New York City), the Carnegie Museum of Art (Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania), the Chrysler Museum of Art [2] (Norfolk, Virginia), the Cincinnati Art Museum, the Corcoran Gallery of Art (Washington D.C.), Cornell Fine Arts Museum at Rollins College (Florida), Detroit Institute of Arts, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, the Glencairn Museum (Pennsylvania), the Greenville County Museum of Art (South Carolina), Harvard University Art Museums, the Honolulu Academy of Arts, the Hudson River Museum (Yonkers, New York), the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Milwaukee Art Museum, Miami University, the Morse Museum of American Art, (Florida), the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, the National Gallery of Art (Washington D.C.), the Newark Museum (New Jersey), the North Carolina Museum of Art, the Portland Museum of Art (Maine), the Smithsonian American Art Museum (Washington D.C.), the United States Senate Art Collection, the University of Cincinnati Galleries (Ohio), the University of Michigan Museum of Art, the Vermont State House Fine Arts Collection (Montpelier, Vermont), the White House Collection, (Washington), the Yale University Art Gallery (New Haven, Connecticut) and Edward Lee McClain High School (Greenfield, Ohio).

Further reading

• Lynne D. Ambrosini and Rebecca A. G. Reynolds (2007). Hiram Powers: Genius in Marble. Cincinnati: Taft Museum of Art. 

• Russell E. Burke III (2000). Hiram Powers: The Last of the Tribes. New York: Hollis Taggart Galleries. 

• Lauren Keach Lessing (2006). Presiding Divinities: Ideal Sculpture in Nineteenth-Century American Domestic Interiors. Ph.D. dissertation: Indiana University. 

• Richard P. Wunder (1991). Hiram Powers: Vermont sculptor, 1805-1873. Associated University Presses. 

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Hiram Powers

• Artcyclopedia: list of sites featuring Powers' work

This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)