(Theodora) Alice Ruggles (Kitson) (1876 - 1932)

Aux Bords de L'Oise (On the Banks of the Oise)--
scroll down the page
exhibited in Fine Arts Palace, 1893 Exposition.

Young Orpheus c. 1890 [my scan]--
exhibited in the Fine Arts Palace, 1893 Exposition.

A New England Fisherman 1892 and
Portrait Bust of an Italian Child c. 1887
(images unavailable) -- exhibited in
Fine Arts Palace, 1893 Exposition.

Born in Massachusetts, the teenaged Theo Alice Ruggles studied sculpture in Paris under Dagnan-Bouveret and under Henry Hudson Kitson whom she would marry in 1893. She was commissioned by the women of Michigan to make two bronze statues of the Michigan woods for the Columbian Exhibition at Chicago in 1893 (no images available). She is probably best remembered for her "hiker" statues which were erected in many communities throughout the country in memory of the servicemen killed in the Spanish-American War (1898-99). She was a prolific and well-respected artist in her day.

Cat image
Massachusetts State Memorial--soldier statute 1905; large image here.
Iron Mike or the Student Soldier--description and several images
Spanish American War Memorial ("The Spirit of '98" or "The Hiker") 1923.
Important Sculptures in Los Angeles County--description; more information here--scroll down the page.
Thaddeus Kosciuszko 1910
Vicksburg Artists - Theo Alice Ruggles Kitson--many, many images of military relief portraits.

Janet Scudder (1873 - 1940)
 

Frog Fountain  c. 1899-- one of her most successful works.

Cupid atop Tortoise: Fountain-- representative work

The Young Pan-- representative work

Janet Scudder was one of the most successful American women sculptors of the early twentieth century, but only after enduring considerable discrimination as a woman in the 1890s.  Born Netta Scudder in Terra Haute, Indiana, she first studied art in Cincinnati and then became the studio assistant to Lorado Taft at the 1893 World Fair where she received commissions to create two heroic-sized statues for the Illinois and Indiana buildings.  Scudder won a medal at the 1893 Exposition.  Despite this experience, she had trouble getting accepted into Frederick MacMonnies' male-dominated studio in Paris and nearly despaired of being recognized as a sculptor when she returned to New York.  However, with the creation of her playful fountains and garden statuary, she achieved great popularity.  Scudder wrote her autobiography Modeling my Life in 1925.

Biography/ 1 image--good biography
Biography/21 images
Biography and image
Fountain: Diana 1911
Young Diana c. 1918.
Wall Fountain Sculpture
2 images

Luella Varney (Serrao) (1865 - after 1935)
 

Right Reverend Amadeus Rappe, D.D 1888
--representative work.
 

Mark Twain (bronze) and Portrait of a Lady (marble)
 -- exhibited in Fine Arts Palace, 1893 Exposition.

American artist Luella Varney was trained in Italy.  In addition to the sculptures listed on this page, she also made a bust of Julia Ward Howe.  No other information is available online.

Bust of Mary Baker Eddy
Perkins Monument 1891

Bessie (Onahotema) Potter Vonnoh (1872 - 1955)
 

American Girl--representative work

Butterflies--representative work

Bird Fountain--representative work

Woman with Scarf--representative work

Young Mother c. 1896--cast in bronze 1913.
 Exhibited at 1900 World Fair
 

Bust of a Gentleman --
representative work.

Portrait of Prof. David Swing (image unavailable)--
exhibited in Fine Arts Palace, 1893 Exposition.

Born in St. Louis, Missouri, Bessie Potter Vonnoh was raised in Chicago where she studied at the Art Institute.  She was one of  Lorado Taft's female assistants at the 1893 World Fair ; she also did the decorative sculpture called "Art" on the Women's Building.  After studying in Paris, she returned to America and considerable success with her graceful statuettes.  She and her husband-painter Robert Vonnoh were part of the art colony at Old Lyme, Connecticut.

Statuettes by Bessie Potter--1897 article with several images of her work.
Biography / Minuet sculpture c. 1898 or two images--Young Mother and Minuet
Mother and Child
The Fan 1910
Fountain in Memory of Theordore Roosevelt and his Conservation Efforts--scroll down the page
James S. Sherman, Vice President
Goodnight c. 1900
The dancing girl
Statue--Cinderella, 1906
In Arcadia c. 1926 ; here also; large one here
Young Girl c. 1940
Enthroned 1902
72 images--click on "Image Gallery"; also click on Biography
A Study--biography included
Garden Figure c. 1931

Mary Seton (Fraser Tytler) Watts (1849 - 1938)
 

Boy and Dog--exhibited in the
Women's Building, 1893 Exposition

Mary Seton Watts (born Mary Fraser Tytler) was born in India, but raised by her grandparents in Scotland where she became the student of the famous but much older painter George Frederic Watts whom she would eventually marry.  At some point she evidently studied sculpting in London and Paris. An amateur portrait painter before her marriage, she became a social reformer afterwards by establishing the Potters Guild and the Arts & Crafts Guild in Compton, Surrey, to teach terracotta modeling to the local villagers and gentry.  They provided the labor for the remarkable Watts Chapel and Gallery which were designed and decorated with symbolic terracotta tiles by Mary Watts and dedicated to the preservation of the artistic reputation of her husband.  Mary Watts is remembered for her Celtic and Art Nouveau bas-reliefs, pottery, and textiles.  Her small statuettes, like the one pictured above, were made of terracotta clay, painted with watercolors, and waxed.

Mary Fraser Tytler (aka Mary Seton Watts) Biography
The Selfless Wife--article
Chapel Angel
Terracotta Compton Pottery Panel
Hearth rug, The Pelican, c. 1900.
Cobra Pot

Julia M. (Bracken) Wendt (1871 - 1942)
 

Lincoln the Lawyer 1925--
representative work.
 

The Apache Fire Hole--representative work
 

James Monroe and Illinois Welcoming the
Nations (images unavailable) -- exhibited
at Illinois Building, 1893 Exposition.

Julia Bracken Wendt was born in Apple River, Illinois. She studied at the Chicago Art Institute and became one of Lorado Taft's female assistants at the 1893 World Fair where her independently-commissioned statue representing the women of Illinois ("Illinois Welcoming the Nations") was exhibited at the Illinois pavilion and later placed in the Illinois state capitol building along with her statue of James Monroe. After she and her husband moved to California, she created a eleven-foot high allegorical work "The Three Graces:  Art, Science and History (1914)--draped goddesses holding up electrically lit globes--on display in the Los Angeles County Museum of Natural History. She became the city's leading sculptor.

2 images--click on "Image Gallery" and on "biography"
Frank Putnam Flint Fountain; Flint Fountain: Historical Background

Anne Whitney (1821 - 1915)
 

Bust of Lucy Stone--exhibited in
Women's Building, 1893 Exposition.

At the 1893 World Fair, Anne Whitney was an established older American sculptor.  Born in Watertown, Massachusetts and educated in art at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts and in Boston, Paris, and Rome, Whitney had one commission rejected when it was discovered that she was a woman sculptor. However, she ended up creating many prominent statues, such as her marble sculpture of the Revolutionary War hero Samuel Adams in Statuary Hall in the Capitol Building in Washington, D.C.  Her sculptures often carried a social message.  Africa (1864) showed a woman awakening from the sleep of slavery, and Roma represented the poverty in Rome as a beggar-woman.  She also sculpted busts of suffragists and abolitionists she admired.  Her partner was Abby Adeline Manning, a painter.

Biography; Biography--mentions other statues
Whitney, Anne--short biography
Lief Ericksson (scroll down the page)
Samuel Adams--image Samuel Adams; Laura Brown--image; Keats--image
2 statues--Senator Charles Sumner & temperance leader Frances Willard
19th Century Slides--scroll down to six images of statues by Whitney.
Illustration: for Jewett's texts--for "Farmer Finch"
Le Modele--scroll down the page; or here (Museum of Fine Arts, Boston)
Laura Brown

Enid Bland Yandell (1870 - 1934)

Boys--representative work
 

Daniel Boone (larger image) -- exhibited
before the Kentucky Building, 1893 Exposition.
Large image here or here. See placement of statue.

See also Caryatids--
Women's Building, 1893 Exposition.

Enid Yandell from Louisville, Kentucky studied at the Cincinnati Art Academy and later with Philip Martiny in New York and with Auguste Rodin and Frederick MacMonnies in Paris.  Besides her Daniel Boone and the caryatids on the Women's Building, Yandell's other statues at the 1893 World Fair included Henry Clay and her "Parthenon" statues on the porticoes of the Columbian Exposition Hall.  She won a Special Designer's Medal at the 1893 Exposition.  Along with two associates, Yandell wrote Three Girls in a Flat (1892) based on her personal experiences with the Women's Building.  Her later spectacular fountain sculpture "The Struggle of Life" (to escape male figures personifying Duty, Avarice, and Passion) was exhibited at the 1901 World Fair.  She is also remembered for her heroic figure of Athena, the largest figure designed by a woman.  Yandell was the first woman to become a member of the National Sculpture Society.

Enid Yandell Biography --plus 2 images.   2 images in Image Gallery--sundials
Biography; Athena; forty-foot Athena--to get some idea how large this statue is
Enid Bland Yandell--scroll down to last entry
Enid Yandell--scroll down to her name
Three statues--including the large sections of her Athena.
Ninigret--image; Bas Relief--image of Julia Dinsmore
 

Some of the above information came from these sources:

Return to Women Sculptors, p. 1

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Suggestions/Comments: knichols@pittstate.edu
Posted: 6-25-02; Updated: 06-28-08