Vinnie Ream
- BORN
-
September 25, 1847
Madison, Wisconsin
- DIED
-
November 20, 1914
District of Columbia
- EDUCATION
-
Christian College
Columbia, MissouriJ.T. Robinson's Select School for Girls
St. Joseph, Missouri
Born in Madison, Wisconsin, in 1847, Lavinia Ellen "Vinnie" Ream Hoxie was an American sculptor, portraitist and composer. Her father was a surveyor, and the family moved to Missouri in 1854. She first attended J.T. Robinson's Select School for Girls in St. Joseph, then attended Columbia College in Columbia, Missouri. While there she wrote several songs and had artistic training.
She moved with her family to Washington, D.C, where she studied under Clark Mills at the age of fifteen in his studio located under the Capitol. She also spent some time in Europe, where she studied with Leon Bonnat in Paris and Luigi Majoli in Rome.
In 1866, at the age of eighteen, she was selected by the U.S. Congress to create what is her best-known piece, a sculpture of Abraham Lincoln, which is located in the Capitol Building. With this sculpture, she became the first female artist commissioned to create a work of art for the U.S. government.
This project led to controversy, as she was criticized for her gender, youth and beauty. Accusations of her using her sexuality to lobby herself arose. However, the allegations related to her gender seem biased from the time. She was strategic with disclosing information when needed to appeal to whoever was commissioning her. For example, when being commissioned for her statue of Lincoln, she did not mention that her brother fought for the Confederacy or that she had sewn a flag for the first Confederate regiment from Arkansas. Later in her career, however, she used these points to strengthen her reasoning for being commissioned to create a monument of Robert E. Lee.
She died in 1914 in Washington, D.C., leaving behind three sculptures in the Capitol Building.
St. Louis Exposition
Organized by St. Louis Agricultural and Mechanical Association
Organized by St. Louis Agricultural and Mechanical Association
Award, Appropriation for statue of President Lincoln
Awards & Exhibitions 3
St. Louis Exposition
Organized by St. Louis Agricultural and Mechanical Association
Organized by St. Louis Agricultural and Mechanical Association
Award, Appropriation for statue of President Lincoln
References
Artist clippings file is available at:
“Vinnie Ream: Artist File,” Spencer Art Reference Library, The Nelson-Atkins Musuem of Art, Kansas City, Missouri.
Bibliography
Select Sources
“Vinnie Ream (Hoxie) Sculptor of the Abraham Lincoln statue in the U. S. Capitol Building," accessed January 31,2022, http://www.vinnieream.com.
Linda Davis, “Vinnie Ream,” accesed January 31,2022, https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/7186312/vinnie-ream.
“Vinnie Ream,” Architect of the Capitol, accessed January 31, 2022, https://www.aoc.gov/explore-capitol-campus/art/vinnie-ream.
“Vinnie Ream, Christian College's first artist,” Spotlight Blog, accessed February 8, 2022, http://spotlight.ccis.edu/2011/01/vinnie-ream-christian-colleges-first.html.
“Lavinia Ellen "Vinnie" Ream,” Ancestry, accessed February 3,2022.
“Vinnie Ream,” Historic Missourians, accessed February 3,2022, https://historicmissourians.shsmo.org/vinnie-ream.
“Vinnie Ream and a Senate Debate,” U.S. Capitol Visitor Center, last edited May 19,2020, https://www.visitthecapitol.gov/blog/article/vinnie-ream-and-senate-debate.
Sarah Hines, “Vinnie Ream's Sappho,” last modified on May 24, 2018, https://americanart.si.edu/search?query=%22Vinnie+Ream%22.
Edward S.Cooper, Vinnie Ream: An American Sculptor (Chicago, Ill. : Academy Chicago Publishers, 2004).
Maureen Stack Sappéy, Letters From Vinnie (Asheville,North Carolina: Front Street, 1999), 17, 19.
Donald R. Kennon and Thomas P. Somma, ed., American pantheon : sculptural and artistic decoration of the United States Capitol (Athens Ohio: Ohio University Press, 1948),160-175.
Kansas City Art Institute. Midwestern Artists' Exhibition Consisting of Representative Work from Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma, Nebraska and Colorado, 1924,
“Letter Signed W.T. Sherman, Headquarters Army Of The United States, Washington, D.C., To Vinnie Ream,” March 26, 1878, Missouri Historical Society Online Collections, http://collections.mohistory.org/resource/176145.
Core Reference Sources
Union List of Artist Names Online, Getty Research Institute, https://www.getty.edu/research/tools/vocabularies/ulan/.
Anita Jacobsen, Jacobsen's Biographical Index of American Artists (Carrollton: A.J. Publications, 2002).
Oxford Art Online, Oxford University Press, https://www.oxfordartonline.com/.
Peter H. Falk, et. al, Who was Who in American Art, 1564-1975: 400 Years of Artists in America (Madison: Sound View Press, 1999).
Image Credits
Artwork
Vinnie Ream, Statue of Samuel Jordan Kirkwood, 1913.
Bronze.
Hall of Columns
Vinnie Ream, Abraham Lincoln Statue, 1871.
Marble, Red Granite.
Capitol Rotunda
Portrait of Artist
George Peter Alexander Healy, Vinnie Ream, 1870.
Oil on Canvas, 31 3/8 x 22 3/8 in.
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Brigadier General Richard L. Hoxie, saam_1917.11.1.
Contributors
Eva Llarena, Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art
Artist Record Published
Published on March 3, 2022
Learn more
References
Artist clippings file is available at:
“Vinnie Ream: Artist File,” Spencer Art Reference Library, The Nelson-Atkins Musuem of Art, Kansas City, Missouri.
Bibliography
Select Sources
“Vinnie Ream (Hoxie) Sculptor of the Abraham Lincoln statue in the U. S. Capitol Building," accessed January 31,2022, http://www.vinnieream.com.
Linda Davis, “Vinnie Ream,” accesed January 31,2022, https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/7186312/vinnie-ream.
“Vinnie Ream,” Architect of the Capitol, accessed January 31, 2022, https://www.aoc.gov/explore-capitol-campus/art/vinnie-ream.
“Vinnie Ream, Christian College's first artist,” Spotlight Blog, accessed February 8, 2022, http://spotlight.ccis.edu/2011/01/vinnie-ream-christian-colleges-first.html.
“Lavinia Ellen "Vinnie" Ream,” Ancestry, accessed February 3,2022.
“Vinnie Ream,” Historic Missourians, accessed February 3,2022, https://historicmissourians.shsmo.org/vinnie-ream.
“Vinnie Ream and a Senate Debate,” U.S. Capitol Visitor Center, last edited May 19,2020, https://www.visitthecapitol.gov/blog/article/vinnie-ream-and-senate-debate.
Sarah Hines, “Vinnie Ream's Sappho,” last modified on May 24, 2018, https://americanart.si.edu/search?query=%22Vinnie+Ream%22.
Edward S.Cooper, Vinnie Ream: An American Sculptor (Chicago, Ill. : Academy Chicago Publishers, 2004).
Maureen Stack Sappéy, Letters From Vinnie (Asheville,North Carolina: Front Street, 1999), 17, 19.
Donald R. Kennon and Thomas P. Somma, ed., American pantheon : sculptural and artistic decoration of the United States Capitol (Athens Ohio: Ohio University Press, 1948),160-175.
Kansas City Art Institute. Midwestern Artists' Exhibition Consisting of Representative Work from Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma, Nebraska and Colorado, 1924,
“Letter Signed W.T. Sherman, Headquarters Army Of The United States, Washington, D.C., To Vinnie Ream,” March 26, 1878, Missouri Historical Society Online Collections, http://collections.mohistory.org/resource/176145.
Core Reference Sources
Union List of Artist Names Online, Getty Research Institute, https://www.getty.edu/research/tools/vocabularies/ulan/.
Anita Jacobsen, Jacobsen's Biographical Index of American Artists (Carrollton: A.J. Publications, 2002).
Oxford Art Online, Oxford University Press, https://www.oxfordartonline.com/.
Peter H. Falk, et. al, Who was Who in American Art, 1564-1975: 400 Years of Artists in America (Madison: Sound View Press, 1999).
Contributors
Eva Llarena, Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art
Artist Record Published
Published on March 3, 2022
Updated on None
