Edmonia "Wildfire" Lewis: To Sculpt a Life

Abstract: Edmonia “Wildfire” Lewis (1844-1907), an Anishinaabe and Afro-descended neoclassical artist, sculpted many “life-like” portraits in part derived from her years living in Turtle Island (to use the Indigenous name for North America) and Italy during the latter half of the nineteenth century. Lewis’s alternative, bohemian lifestyle in Rome where she welcomed visitors from the tourist class, as well as diplomats, aristocrats and Pope Pius IX to her studios, fostered her work/life. This panel seeks papers exploring Lewis’s consequential life and work. Interdisciplinary approaches are welcome. We are interested especially in critical scholarship of her life and work in relation to speculative methods, archival-based research, interactions and encounters with other artists, sensory investigations, portraiture, and material culture.