Bessie Potter Vonnoh

Photo of Bessie Potter Vonnoh
Bessie Onahotema Potter, Bessie Onahotema Potter Vonnoh
1872 -1955
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BORN
August 17, 1872
Saint Louis, Missouri
DIED
March 8, 1955
New York, New York
EDUCATION
Art Institute of Chicago
Chicago, Illinois
GENDER
RACE / ETHNICITY

Bessie Potter Vonnoh was born on August 17, 1872, in St. Louis, Missouri. Her father died when she was only two years old, and she and her mother relocated to Chicago to live with relatives. She began her formal art education in 1886 at the Art Institute of Chicago, where she studied under the sculptor Lorado Taft and assisted with sculptural decoration at the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago (1893). She opened a studio in Chicago in 1894 and began producing small-scale bronze sculpture.

In 1895-1896, she traveled to Paris, where she was introduced to Auguste Rodin and visited his studio. She later exhibited in the Paris Exposition of 1900. She married American impressionist painter Robert William Vonnoh in 1899. 

Vonnoh’s work was characterized by its delicacy, and often featured domestic and feminine subjects including small groups, women and children.

She repeatedly returned to St. Louis as a juror and exhibitor. Her work was included in the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, St. Louis, 1904, winning a Gold Medal, and she exhibited at the Fine Arts Institute of Kansas City in 1916. That same year, she and her husband exhibited jointly at the City Art Museum, St. Louis.

One of Vonnoh’s most important works is the Burnett Memorial Fountain in New York’s Central Park, created in memory of Frances Hodson Burnett, author of the popular children’s book The Secret Garden. After her death, friends of the author wished to memorialize her and commissioned Vonnoh to create an original sculpture inspired by the book. Vonnoh’s sculptures can also be found in numerous institutions throughout the United States, including the Saint Louis Art Museum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City and the Art Institute of Chicago. 

She was active in a number of national artists' organizations, including the Allied Arts of America and the National Society of Portrait Painters. She was elected Academician of the National Academy of Design in 1921. Vonnoh died on March 8, 1955, in New York City.

References

Artist clippings file is available at:

“Bessie Potter Vonnoh: Artist File.” St. Louis Public Library, St. Louis, Missouri

“Bessie P. Vonnoh and Robert W. Vonnoh: Artist File.” St. Louis Public Library, St. Louis, Missouri

Bibliography

Select Sources

Bessie Potter Vonnoh Papers, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.

Julie Aronson, Bessie Potter Vonnoh: Sculptor of Women (Athens: Ohio University Press, 2008).


Core Reference Sources

Peter H. Falk, et. al, Who was Who in American Art, 1564-1975: 400 Years of Artists in America (Madison: Sound View Press, 1999).

Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, https://www.aaa.si.edu/.

St. Louis Public Library, Dictionary of Saint Louis Artists (St. Louis: St. Louis Public Library, 1993).

Union List of Artist Names Online, Getty Research Institute, https://www.getty.edu/research/tools/vocabularies/ulan/.

Mantle Fielding, Dictionary of American Painters, Sculptors & Engravers (Poughkeepsie: Apollo, 1983).

E. Bénézit, Dictionary of Artists (Paris: Gründ, 2006).

askART (database), askART, https://www.askart.com/.

Image Credits

Artwork

Bessie Potter Vonnoh, Burnett Memorial Fountain, 1936

Bronze, 6'5" x 3'8" x 1'11''

New York’s Central Park, Southern end of Conservatory Garden.

Bessie Potter Vonnoh, Day Dreams, 1903

Bronze, 10 5/8 x 21 1/2 x 12 in.

Corcoran, Museum purchase, 10.4.

Bessie Potter Vonnoh, In Arcadia, circa 1926.

Bronze, 12 7/8 x 28 3/4 x 6 5/8 in.

Smithsonian American Art Museum, Museum purchase, 1994.8.

Portrait of Artist

Bessie Potter Vonnoh, n.d.

Photograph.

From the Berry-Hill Galleries, New York.

Contributors

John Knuteson, St. Louis Public Library

Artist Record Published

Published on September 20, 2021

Learn more

References

Artist clippings file is available at:

“Bessie Potter Vonnoh: Artist File.” St. Louis Public Library, St. Louis, Missouri

“Bessie P. Vonnoh and Robert W. Vonnoh: Artist File.” St. Louis Public Library, St. Louis, Missouri

Artist’s work in these institutions’ collections

Art Institute of Chicago

Saint Louis Art Museum

Bibliography

Select Sources

Bessie Potter Vonnoh Papers, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.

Julie Aronson, Bessie Potter Vonnoh: Sculptor of Women (Athens: Ohio University Press, 2008).


Core Reference Sources

Peter H. Falk, et. al, Who was Who in American Art, 1564-1975: 400 Years of Artists in America (Madison: Sound View Press, 1999).

Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, https://www.aaa.si.edu/.

St. Louis Public Library, Dictionary of Saint Louis Artists (St. Louis: St. Louis Public Library, 1993).

Union List of Artist Names Online, Getty Research Institute, https://www.getty.edu/research/tools/vocabularies/ulan/.

Mantle Fielding, Dictionary of American Painters, Sculptors & Engravers (Poughkeepsie: Apollo, 1983).

E. Bénézit, Dictionary of Artists (Paris: Gründ, 2006).

askART (database), askART, https://www.askart.com/.

Contributors

John Knuteson, St. Louis Public Library

Artist Record Published

Published on September 20, 2021

Updated on None

Citation

Knuteson, John. "Bessie Potter Vonnoh." In Missouri Remembers: Artists in Missouri through 1951. Kansas City: The Kansas City Art Institute and The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art; St. Louis: The St. Louis Public Library, 2021, https://doi.org/10.37764/5776.