Essay on An American Girl (1895) by Bessie Potter Vonnoh
Information About the Artist Bessie Potter Vonnoh (born Bessie Potter) was born in St. Louis Missouri on August 17, 1872. She was the only child her parents conceived, and two years after she was born, her father died in an accident. In her early age, she developed a fondness for sculpting, and when she was 14, she began attending the Art Institute of Chicago. Early in her career, she worked under Larado Taft, who was a sculptor who lived in her area. She worked with Taft along with a group of other women sculptors. Collectively, Vonnoh and these women were known as the “White Rabbits,” and they were assembled by Larado to assist him in preparing sculptures for the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago. Later in 1899, she married the impressionist painter, Robert Vonnoh, and took his last name. He would eventually die in 1933. She would remarry to Dr. Edward L. Keyes Jr., who died within a year of their marriage. Vonnoh herself would die in 1955 at age 52, and she was buried beside her first husband, Robert Vonnoh, in Connecticut.
Bessie Potter Vonnoh received numerous awards for her sculpting throughout her career including a Bronze Medal for her statuettes, Young Mother and Dancing Girl at the 1900 Exposition Universelle, a world’s fair in …show more content…
While she may have done this because it would have been popular among the people of her time, it has turned out that works like An American Girl have become more than just entertaining or pleasing to look at. Instead, what they have become are beautifully made records of history that offer later generations a first hand account of America’s past. It is crucial to American culture and society that contemporary artists do not just create art using subjects of the past, but also create works that use subjects of their own time in order to preserve small but important aspects of America’s