Ella Buchanan (July 14, 1867 – July 15, 1951) was an American sculptor.

Biography

Born in Canada, Buchanan grew up in

Springfield, Illinois Springfield is the capital of the U.S. state of Illinois and the county seat and largest city of Sangamon County. The city's population was 114,394 at the 2020 census, which makes it the state's seventh most-populous city, the second largest o ...

and

Pittsburgh, Kansas Pittsburg is a city in Crawford County, Kansas, United States, located in southeast Kansas near the Missouri state border. It is the most populous city in Crawford County and southeast Kansas. As of the 2020 census, the population of the cit ...

, where her father was a newspaper editor. She trained at the

Art Institute of Chicago The Art Institute of Chicago in Chicago's Grant Park, founded in 1879, is one of the oldest and largest art museums in the world. Recognized for its curatorial efforts and popularity among visitors, the museum hosts approximately 1.5 mill ...

, where she also taught from 1911 to 1915. She became a sculptor in Los Angeles, California, and she was the vice president of the Sculptors' Guild of Southern California. Her work was part of the sculpture event in the art competition at the

1932 Summer Olympics The 1932 Summer Olympics (officially the Games of the X Olympiad and also known as Los Angeles 1932) were an international multi-sport event held from July 30 to August 14, 1932 in Los Angeles, California, United States. The Games were held duri ...

. Much of Buchanan's work featured social issues such as slavery, women’s rights, poverty, and early settlement of the California frontier. Among her works were “The Young Lincoln” (1927), “The Spirit of the West Going Forward” (1917) , and “Navaho Indian and Zuni Girl” (1931). In 1938, her smaller-scale sculptures of cowboys, Indians and soldiers toured California as part of the WPA Federal Art Exhibition. Buchanan’s most well-known sculpture was “The Suffragist Trying to Arouse Her Sisters” (1911). This sculpture was widely reproduced in small scale, and on posters, banners, and cards. The woman in the center of the group is the suffragist, blowing her metaphoric horn to awaken her sisters. The downtrodden figures around her represent Degradation, Vanity, Conventionality, and the Wage Earner, all of whom rely on the suffragist to lift them up.

References

1867 births 1951 deaths People from Cambridge, Ontario School of the Art Institute of Chicago alumni School of the Art Institute of Chicago faculty Sculptors from Los Angeles Olympic competitors in art competitions 20th-century American sculptors 20th-century American women artists American women academics Canadian emigrants to the United States 20th-century American women sculptors {{US-sculptor-stub