Vonnoh, Bessie Potter (1872–1955)

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Vonnoh, Bessie Potter (1872–1955)

American sculptor. Name variations: Bessie Potter. Born Bessie Onahotema Potter in 1872 in St. Louis, Missouri; died in 1955; studied at the Art Institute of Chicago under Lorado Taft, in a studio that included sculptors Janet Scudder and Julia Bracken Wendt; married Robert W. Vonnoh (an artist), in 1899.

Traveled to Paris (1895); best known for small genre subjects like The Young Mother (1896); moved to New York City (1899); held one-woman show at Brooklyn Museum (1913); work of the 1920s and 1930s includes the Burnette Fountain in Central Park and a fountain for the Roosevelt Bird Sanctuary in Oyster Bay, Long Island; portrait commissions include Major General S. Crawford for the Smith Memorial, Philadelphia, and James S. Sherman for the U.S. Capitol.

Bessie Potter Vonnoh was born Bessie Potter in St. Louis, Missouri, in 1872, and studied at the Art Institute of Chicago with Lorado Taft, whose studio yielded a generation of women sculptors, including Janet Scudder and Julia Bracken Wendt . Known as one of Taft's "White Rabbits," the young Bessie was hired to assist with his sculptures for the 1893 Columbian Exposition in Chicago, where she found artistic inspiration in the elegant bronze figurines by

Prince Paul Troubetskoy that were exhibited in the Italian section of the fair. In Taft's opinion, this exposure was crucial to Vonnoh's development, although her attempts to emulate Troubetskoy's style meant some critics found her early work derivative. Taft encouraged her throughout this formative period, later describing her as "another eager spirit out of the West whose little bronzes are welcome the world over."

After a 1895 trip to Paris, where she may have been influenced by the simple, domestic subjects chosen by painters Auguste Renoir and Mary Cassatt , Vonnoh became famous for her small genre subjects, which were characterized by a spontaneous feel, including her most popular works, The Young Mother (1896), Girl Dancing (1897), Enthroned (1902), A Modern Madonna (1905), and Beatrice (1906). A copy of The Young Mother is on display in New York City in the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

In 1899, Bessie married well-known painter Robert Vonnoh and moved to New York City to continue her work, staging a one-woman show at the Brooklyn Museum in 1913. Like Cassatt, Vonnoh concentrated on the details of serene middle-class domesticity in her work, though in the 1920s and 1930s she turned her focus to larger pieces, including the Burnette Fountain in Central Park and a fountain for the Roosevelt Bird Sanctuary in Oyster Bay, Long Island. Her major portrait commissions were of Major General S. Crawford for the Smith Memorial in Philadelphia and James S. Sherman for the U.S. Capitol. Vonnoh was awarded a bronze medal at Paris in 1900, and a gold medal at St. Louis in 1904; she was elected an associate of the National Academy of Design in 1906 and a member in 1921. She died in 1955, at the age of 83.