Hiram Powers
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Hiram Powers (July 29, 1805 – June 27, 1873) was an American neoclassical
sculptor Sculpture is the branch of the visual arts that operates in three dimensions. Sculpture is the three-dimensional art work which is physically presented in the dimensions of height, width and depth. It is one of the plastic arts. Durable sc ...
. He was one of the first 19th-century American artists to gain an international reputation, largely based on his famous marble sculpture '' The Greek Slave''.


Early life and studies

Powers was born to a farmer on July 29, 1805 in
Woodstock, Vermont Woodstock is the shire town (county seat) of Windsor County, Vermont, United States. As of the 2020 census, the town population was 3,005. It includes the villages of Woodstock, South Woodstock, Taftsville, and West Woodstock. History Cha ...
. When he was 14 years old, his family moved to
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, about six miles from
Cincinnati Cincinnati ( ; colloquially nicknamed Cincy) is a city in Hamilton County, Ohio, United States, and its county seat. Settled in 1788, the city is located on the northern side of the confluence of the Licking River (Kentucky), Licking and Ohio Ri ...
, where Powers attended school for about a year while staying with his father's brother, a lawyer. He began working after the death of his parents, first superintending a reading-room in connection with the chief hotel of the town, then working as a clerk in a general store. At age 17, Powers became an assistant to Luman Watson, Cincinnati's early wooden
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, who owned a
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and
organ Organ and organs may refer to: Biology * Organ (biology), a group of tissues organized to serve a common function * Organ system, a collection of organs that function together to carry out specific functions within the body. Musical instruments ...
factory. Using his skill in modeling figures, Powers mastered the construction of the instruments and became the first mechanic in the factory. In 1826, he began to frequent the studio of Frederick Eckstein, and at once conceived a strong passion for the art of sculpture. His proficiency in modeling secured him the situation of general assistant and artist of the Western Museum, kept by a Louisiana naturalist of French extraction named Joseph Dorfeuille. Here he created representations of scenes in the poem Inferno by
Dante Dante Alighieri (; most likely baptized Durante di Alighiero degli Alighieri; – September 14, 1321), widely known mononymously as Dante, was an Italian Italian poetry, poet, writer, and philosopher. His ''Divine Comedy'', originally called ...
, which met with extraordinary success. Fanny Trollope helped launch his career when she had him sculpt Dante's ''Commedia''. After studying thoroughly the art of modeling and casting, he moved to
Washington, D.C. Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly known as Washington or D.C., is the capital city and federal district of the United States. The city is on the Potomac River, across from Virginia, and shares land borders with ...
at the end of 1834.


Career as a sculptor

Powers drew attention and local commissions in Washington, D.C. with his modeled portrait of
Andrew Jackson Andrew Jackson (March 15, 1767 – June 8, 1845) was the seventh president of the United States from 1829 to 1837. Before Presidency of Andrew Jackson, his presidency, he rose to fame as a general in the U.S. Army and served in both houses ...
. In 1837 he moved to Italy and settled on the Via Fornace in
Florence Florence ( ; ) is the capital city of the Italy, Italian region of Tuscany. It is also the most populated city in Tuscany, with 362,353 inhabitants, and 989,460 in Metropolitan City of Florence, its metropolitan province as of 2025. Florence ...
, where he had access to good supplies of marble and to traditions of stone-cutting and bronze casting. He remained in Florence till his death, though he did travel to Britain during this time. During his time in Italy, he developed a friendship with Horatio Greenough. He developed a thriving business in portraiture and "fancy" parlor busts, but he also devoted his time to creating life-size, full-figure ideal subjects, many of which were also isolated as a bust. In 1839 his statue of ''Eve'' won the admiration of the leading European neoclassical sculptor,
Bertel Thorvaldsen Albert Bertel Thorvaldsen (; sometimes given as Thorwaldsen; 19 November 1770 – 24 March 1844) was a Danes, Danish-Icelanders, Icelandic Sculpture, sculptor and medallist, medalist of international fame, who spent most of his life (1797–183 ...
. In 1843 Powers produced his most celebrated statue, '' The Greek Slave'', which at once gave him a place among the leading sculptors of his time. It attracted more than 100,000 viewers when it toured America in 1847; and in 1851 was exhibited in Britain (along with the ''Fisher Boy'', his other very famous statue, mentioned below) at the center of the Crystal Palace Exhibition, when Elizabeth Barrett Browning wrote a sonnet on it. This sculpture was used in the abolitionist cause and copies of it appeared in many Union-supporting state houses. Among the best known of his other idealising statues are ''The Fisher Boy'', ''Il Penseroso'', ''Eve Disconsolate'', ''
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'', ''America'' and '' The Last of the Tribe'' (also called ''The Last of Her Tribe''). He was elected an Associate Fellow of the
American Academy of Arts and Sciences The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (The Academy) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, and other ...
in 1851. Powers' most discerning and important private client was Prince Anatole Demidoff, who owned marble full-figure versions of both the ''Greek Slave'' and the ''Fisher Boy'' and also commissioned from Powers a portrait bust of his wife, the niece of Napoleon and the Grand Duchess of Tuscany. The statues and busts Powers carved for Demidoff were exceptional in the quality and purity of the marble employed. Powers became a teacher at the Florence Accademia. One of his sons was the sculptor Preston Powers. Hiram Powers died on June 27, 1873, and is buried, as were three of his children, at the Cimitero Protestante di Porta a' Pinti, Florence (
English Cemetery, Florence The English Cemetery in Florence, Italy (Italian, ''Cimitero degli inglesi'', ''Cimitero Porta a' Pinti'' and ''Cimitero Protestante'') is an Evangelical cemetery located at Piazzale Donatello. Although its origins date to its foundation in 1827 ...
). Spiritual descendants of Hiram Powers in Europe included the notorious Futurist designer ' Thayaht,' pseudonym of Ernesto Michahelles and his brother, the notorious neo-metaphysical artist
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, pseudonym of Ruggero Alfredo Michahelles who was awarded the "Prix Paul Guillaume" in Paris in 1937.


Collections

In 2007 the Taft Museum of Art,
Cincinnati, Ohio Cincinnati ( ; colloquially nicknamed Cincy) is a city in Hamilton County, Ohio, United States, and its county seat. Settled in 1788, the city is located on the northern side of the confluence of the Licking River (Kentucky), Licking and Ohio Ri ...
presented the first major exhibition devoted to his work, "Hiram Powers: Genius in Marble". This is the same place of the first solo exhibition of Powers' work in Cincinnati in 1842, when Nicholas Longworth opened his private residence to allow the public to view Power's newest sculpture. Collections holding works by Hiram Powers include the Addison Gallery of American Art (Andover, Massachusetts), the Amon Carter Museum (Texas), the Arizona State University Art Museum, the Art Gallery of the University of Rochester (New York), the Art Institute of Chicago (Illinois), the Berkshire Museum (Massachusetts), the
Birmingham Museum of Art The Birmingham Museum of Art is a museum in Birmingham, Alabama. Its collection includes more than 24,000 paintings, sculptures, prints, drawings, and decorative arts representing various cultures, including Asian, European, United States, Amer ...
(Alabama), the
Brooklyn Museum of Art The Brooklyn Museum is an art museum in the New York City borough (New York City), borough of Brooklyn. At , the museum is New York City's second largest and contains an art collection with around 500,000 objects. Located near the Prospect Heig ...
(New York City), the
Carnegie Museum of Art The Carnegie Museum of Art is an art museum in the Oakland (Pittsburgh), Oakland neighborhood of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States. The museum was originally known as the Department of Fine Arts, Carnegie Institute and was formerly located ...
(Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania), the Chrysler Museum of Art (Norfolk, Virginia), the
Cincinnati Art Museum The Cincinnati Art Museum is an art museum in the Eden Park neighborhood of Cincinnati, Ohio. Founded in 1881, it was the first purpose-built art museum west of the Alleghenies, and is one of the oldest in the United States. Its collection of ...
, the
Corcoran Gallery of Art The Corcoran Gallery of Art is a former art museum in Washington, D.C., that is now the location of the Corcoran School of the Arts and Design, a part of the George Washington University. Founded in 1869 by philanthropist William Wilson Corco ...
(Washington D.C.), Cornell Fine Arts Museum at Rollins College (Florida),
High Museum of Art The High Museum of Art (colloquially the High) is the largest museum for visual art in the Southeastern United States. Located in Atlanta, Georgia (on Peachtree Street in Midtown, the city's arts district), the High is 312,000 square feet (28, ...
(Atlanta, GA) Dallas Museum of Art (Texas),
Detroit Institute of Arts The Detroit Institute of Arts (DIA) is a museum institution located in Midtown Detroit, Michigan. It has list of largest art museums, one of the largest and most significant art collections in the United States. With over 100 galleries, it cove ...
, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, the Glencairn Museum (Pennsylvania), the Greenville County Museum of Art (South Carolina), Harvard University Art Museums, the
Honolulu Museum of Art The Honolulu Museum of Art (formerly the Honolulu Academy of Arts) is an art museum in Honolulu, Hawaii, Hawaii. The museum is the largest of its kind in the state, and was founded in 1922 by Anna Rice Cooke. It has one of the largest single co ...
, the Hudson River Museum (Yonkers, New York), the McMullen Museum of Art (Massachusetts), the
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, the
Milwaukee Art Museum The Milwaukee Art Museum (also referred to as MAM) is an art museum in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Its collection of over 34,000 works of art and gallery spaces totaling 150,000 sq. ft. (13,900 m²) make it the largest art museum in the state of Wis ...
,
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, the Minneapolis Institute of Arts (MIA), the Morse Museum of American Art, (Florida), the
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston The Museum of Fine Arts (often abbreviated as MFA Boston or MFA) is an art museum in Boston, Massachusetts. It is the list of largest art museums, 20th-largest art museum in the world, measured by public gallery area. It contains 8,161 painting ...
, the
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the
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(Washington D.C.), the Newark Museum (New Jersey), the North Carolina Museum of Art, the Portland Museum of Art (Maine), Raby Castle (County Durham, England), the
Smithsonian American Art Museum The Smithsonian American Art Museum (SAAM; formerly the National Museum of American Art) is a museum in Washington, D.C., part of the Smithsonian Institution. Together with its branch museum, the Renwick Gallery, SAAM holds one of the world's lar ...
(Washington D.C.), the United States Senate Art Collection, the University of Cincinnati Galleries (Ohio), the
University of Michigan Museum of Art The University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) is one of the largest university art museums in the United States, located in Ann Arbor, Michigan, with . Built as a war memorial in 1909 for the university's fallen alumni from the Civil War, Alu ...
, the Vermont State House Fine Arts Collection (Montpelier, Vermont), the White House Collection, (Washington), the Yale University Art Gallery (New Haven, Connecticut), Huddersfield Art Gallery (UK) and Edward Lee McClain High School (Greenfield, Ohio).


Gallery


References


Further reading

* * David Wilson (2013). ''Hiram Powers' 'Demidoff' Fisher Boy'', London. * * * * * *


External links


''Art and the empire city: New York, 1825-1861''
an exhibition catalog from The Metropolitan Museum of Art (fully available online as PDF), which contains material on Powers (see index)

{{DEFAULTSORT:Powers, Hiram 1805 births 1873 deaths 19th-century American sculptors 19th-century American male artists American male sculptors Neoclassical sculptors Vermont culture People from Woodstock, Vermont Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences Artists from Vermont American expatriates in Italy Expatriates in the Grand Duchy of Tuscany Sculptors from Ohio Artists of the Boston Public Library Sculptors from Vermont