Bessie Potter Vonnoh

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.