Dated Web objects 1880-1919

Bessie Potter Vonnoh

Date: c. 1926

Credit Line: Terra Foundation for American Art, Daniel J. Terra Collection

Object number: 1989.3

Text Entries: Bessie Potter Vonnoh, wife of the painter Robert Vonnoh, took up sculpture at an early age, first as a pastime as an invalid child and later, as a teenager, under the guidance of sculptor and teacher Lorado Taft at the Art Institute of Chicago. Her first commission was for a large-scale allegorical figure of Art for the Illinois State Building at the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition. However, In Arcadia is far more typical of Vonnoh's oeuvre in that it depicts, on a comparatively small scale, classicized, youthful figures with intimacy and spontaneity rather than monumentality. In 1921 Vonnoh was the first woman sculptor to be elected a full member of the National Academy of Design.