Now Overlooked: Hettie Anderson, the Sculptors’ Model of Fame


This article is part of Overlooked, a series of obituaries about extraordinary people whose deaths were not reported in The Times beginning in 1851.

His likeness is engraved on monuments and on gold coins. In Augustus Saint Gaudens‘ high, gilded equestrian statute Honoring Civil War general William Tecumseh Sherman at the Grand Army Plaza in Manhattan, it represents Victory, the winged Greek goddess walking in sandals in front of her horse with one arm outstretched. But little is known about model Hettie Anderson, although her image can be found in many parts of the United States.

What is known is that it originated in Manhattan in the 1890s, a light-skinned African American who joined its cultural scene after escaping bitter prejudices in the South. Sculptors and painters sought to portray what she described in a newspaper article as her “creamy skin, limp curly hair, and warm brown eyes.”

But Anderson received less media attention than some of his contemporaries, such as models. Evelyn Nesbit and Audrey Munsoninvolved in murder and sexual assault scandals. And over time, Anderson’s name was separated from the famous artists who hired him.

When he died on January 10, 1938, at the age of 64, he was mostly forgotten around the world.

His story remained in the dark until the researcher’s 1990s. Willow HagansAt the same time Anderson’s cousin, he began publishing scientifically. article It’s about her that Ms. Hagans wrote with her husband, William E. Hagans.

The couple first learned of Anderson in 1980 from William Hagans’ grandmother, Jeanne Wallace McCampbell Lee. They learned that although Anderson was African-American, her fair skin had led census officials to list her as white. (It’s unclear what he tells people about his race.)

Despite his high-profile commissions, there is no evidence that Anderson is marketing himself.

“He was a quiet, purposeful person who was respected as a very professional and powerful presence – which resulted in beautiful works of art” Willow Hagans said over the phone.

Anderson was born Harriette Eugenia Dickerson in 1873 in Columbia, SC. His mother, Caroline Scott, was a tailor. His father is mentioned in the documents as Benjamin Dickerson.

Research, including the findings of his cousin Amir Bey, shows that prior to the Civil War, the government designated Anderson’s family as “free persons of color”; They owned land and earned wages.

But in the South, brutal enforcement of Jim Crow laws and financial troubles eventually drove Anderson and many of his relatives north. He and his mother rented an apartment on 94th Avenue Amsterdam Avenue in Manhattan.

Anderson—why he used that name is unknown—sometimes worked as a school clerk and tailor. Art Students League, the famous non-profit school in Manhattan. He also spent weeks in the sculptors’ country studios. Chesterwood, at Daniel Chester French’s estate in Stockbridge, Mass.

Soon, artists approached her to pose, and newspapers praised her “heroic” look.

“There is nothing more beautiful in Greek sculpture than her figure,” wrote The New York Journal and Advertiser in 1899, adding: “Her figure is majestic, her carriage like a queen, and she is famous for her perfect foot.”

“Because it was so popular,” Hagans said, “he could pick and choose which artists he wanted to pose for.”

Anderson’s likeness can be seen in the French sculptures in Congress Park in France. Saratoga Resources, NY; in cemeteries northern New Jersey and rapport, stack.; and entryways Louis Art Museum and Boston Public Library.

Sculptor Adolph Alexander Weinman painted her as a toga-clad goddess for the Civic Fame, which crowns the New York City government skyscraper now called the David N. Dinkins Manhattan City Hall.

Artist John La Farge painted him for a time as a willow Athenian god. Wall at Bowdoin College in Maine. a engraved Portrait of Swedish painter Anders Zorn seems stuck behind an exhaustion Saint Gaudens During a modeling session.

She was a favorite of Saint-Gaudens, who called her “the most handsome model I’ve ever seen”.

He once wrote to a friend, “I need him so badly”. In a sketch of his memoirs, he wrote that he depended on his stamina to “pose patiently, steadily and completely in the spirit one desires” – in his case for togas and gold swirling over monuments. coins.

In 1908, shortly after Saint-Gaudens’ death, Anderson received the copyright for his bronze work. swoop her. His family wanted to make replicas for sale, but he refused, insisting that it would remain the most valuable as “the only one in existence” and lent it to museums.

At the close of a Saint-Gaudens retrospective in Indianapolis in 1910, workers accidentally sent the bust to the sculptor’s family. Anderson wrote a stern letter to the curator. “You made a big mistake in letting that Bust of mine pass your control,” she wrote. and it sends it “exactly where I don’t want it to go”.

In 1990, Hagans purchased the bust of Saint-Gaudens at Christie’s auction house in New York.

Saint-Gaudens’ son Homer, who managed his father’s artwork after the sculptor’s death, was infuriated by Anderson’s challenge and tried to hide his relationship with his father.

In the late 1910s, as modeling opportunities dwindled, Anderson worked as a classroom assistant at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Until then, the museum had a Victory “Glory of Mourning” alongside French marble similarity.

In the 1920s, Anderson retired in poor health.

His death certificate listed his profession as “model”. HE and her mom They were buried in unmarked graves in a mostly white cemetery in Columbia, near the remains of President Woodrow Wilson. family members and the Confederacy monuments.

Last year, on the Met’s 150th anniversary, a label describing the Victory roster to show She referred to Anderson as “a Black woman posing for many artists in New York.” Victory dumps can also be found at: Carnegie Museum Art in Pittsburgh, Toledo Art Museum at Ohio and Arlington National cemetery. Another Victory sold for more than $2 million in 2017 NS Christie’s.

Chesterwood has casts of his right foot and right hand. Anderson’s paintings also circulated in the form of Zorn’s engravings and Saint-Gaudens’ coins; in June 1933 version $20 gold piece sold for almost $19 million At Sotheby’s in New York.

This fall, at Bowdoin’s museum, Anderson’s Athenian incarnation, a exhibition In 2023, works of art inspired by Anderson, titled “There is a Woman of All Colors: Black Woman in Art”, will be included in the exhibition. American Federation of the Arts‘ traveling show, “Monuments and Myths: The Sculptors’ America by Augustus Saint-Gaudens and Daniel Chester French.”

One afternoon a few months ago, Thayer Tolles, the Met’s curator of American painting and sculpture, looked at the Sherman monument in Grand Army Plaza. “The attention to detail – it’s just exciting,” he said.

The light of the setting sun shimmered on the gilded fingertips and wing feathers of a model in the statue’s heyday.



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