Helen Farnsworth Mears (; December 21, 1872 – February 17, 1916) was an American sculptor.

Early years

Mears was born December 21, 1872, in

Oshkosh, Wisconsin Oshkosh is a city in Winnebago County, Wisconsin, of which it is the county seat. The city had a population of 66,816 in 2020, making it the ninth-largest city in Wisconsin. It is also adjacent to the Town of Oshkosh. History Oshkosh was ...

, daughter of John Hall Mears and Elizabeth Farnsworth Mears (pen names "Nellie Wildwood" and "Ianthe", called the first Wisconsin poetess ) and youngest sister to Louise and Mary Mears. Mears studied at the State Normal School in Oshkosh, and art in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

. In New York, she studied under

Augustus Saint Gaudens Augustus Saint-Gaudens (; March 1, 1848 – August 3, 1907) was an American sculptor of the Beaux-Arts generation who embodied the ideals of the American Renaissance. From a French-Irish family, Saint-Gaudens was raised in New York City, he trave ...

for two years and worked as his assistant before heading to Paris in 1895 to continue working with

Denys Puech Denys Puech (3 December 1854, Gavernac, Bozouls, Aveyron – December 1942, Rodez, Aveyron) was a French sculptor. Biography From a family of farmers (his brother was Louis Puech, Député for the Seine Department from 1898 to 1932, and Minist ...

(sometimes Puesch),

Alexandre Charpentier Alexandre-Louis-Marie Charpentier (1856–1909) was a French sculptor, medalist, craftsman, and cabinet-maker. Life and work From working-class origins and apprenticed to an engraver as a young man, he became a studio assistant to the innov ...

, and

Frederick MacMonnies Frederick William MacMonnies (September 28, 1863 – March 22, 1937) was the best known expatriate American sculptor of the Beaux-Arts school, as successful and lauded in France as he was in the United States. He was also a highly accomplishe ...

Career

Her first success, before any formal art training, was "Genius of Wisconsin", a work commissioned by the State of Wisconsin when she was just 21. The work was exhibited in the Wisconsin Building at the

World's Columbian Exposition The World's Columbian Exposition (also known as the Chicago World's Fair) was a world's fair held in Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordi ...

in 1893. The marble sculpture was executed by the

Piccirilli Brothers The Piccirilli brothers were an Italian family of renowned marble carvers and sculptors who carved many of the most significant marble sculptures in the United States, including Daniel Chester French’s colossal ''Abraham Lincoln'' (1920) in the ...

. It is now housed in the

Wisconsin State Capitol The Wisconsin State Capitol, located in Madison, Wisconsin, houses both chambers of the Wisconsin legislature along with the Wisconsin Supreme Court and the Office of the Governor. Completed in 1917, the building is the fifth to serve as the Wi ...

. Both she and sculptor

Jean Pond Miner Jean Pond Miner Coburn (1866–1967) was born in Menasha, Wisconsin. She studied at the Art Institute of Chicago, and is most notable for her work '' Forward''. Early life Jean Pond Miner was born in Menasha, Wisconsin on the 8th July 1866. H ...

were named "artists in residence" at the Wisconsin Building, and that is where she created ''The Genius of Wisconsin'', while Miner produced ''Forward''. Mears was one of a group of women sculptors christened the " White Rabbits" who worked under

Lorado Taft Lorado Zadok Taft (April 29, 1860, in Elmwood, Illinois – October 30, 1936, in Chicago) was an American sculptor, writer and educator. His 1903 book, ''The History of American Sculpture,'' was the first survey of the subject and stood for decad ...

producing sculpture for the

World Columbian Exposition The World's Columbian Exposition (also known as the Chicago World's Fair) was a world's fair held in Chicago in 1893 to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus's arrival in the New World in 1492. The centerpiece of the Fair, hel ...

. In 1907, Mears, and her sister, writer Mary Mears, were the first colonists at

MacDowell Colony MacDowell is an artist's residency program in Peterborough, New Hampshire, United States, founded in 1907 by composer Edward MacDowell and his wife, pianist and philanthropist Marian MacDowell. Prior to July 2020, it was known as the MacDowell ...

Important works

Her most important works include a marble statue of

Frances E. Willard Frances Elizabeth Caroline Willard (September 28, 1839 – February 17, 1898) was an Americans, American educator, Temperance movement, temperance reformer, and women's suffrage, women's suffragist. Willard became the national president of Wom ...

(1905,

Capitol A capitol, named after the Capitoline Hill in Rome, is usually a legislative building where a legislature meets and makes laws for its respective political entity. Specific capitols include: * United States Capitol in Washington, D.C. * Numerous ...

, Washington) that is included in the

National Statuary Hall Collection The National Statuary Hall Collection in the United States Capitol is composed of statues donated by individual states to honor persons notable in their history. Limited to two statues per state, the collection was originally set up in the old ...

; portrait reliefs of

Edward MacDowell Edward Alexander MacDowell (December 18, 1860January 23, 1908) was an American composer and pianist of the late Romantic period. He was best known for his second piano concerto and his piano suites ''Woodland Sketches'', ''Sea Pieces'' and ''Ne ...

(

Metropolitan Museum The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 1000 ...

, New York); and Augustus St. Gaudens; portrait busts of

George Rogers Clark George Rogers Clark (November 19, 1752 – February 13, 1818) was an American surveyor, soldier, and militia officer from Virginia who became the highest-ranking American patriot military officer on the northwestern frontier during the Ame ...

and William T.G. Morton, M. D. (

Smithsonian Institution The Smithsonian Institution ( ), or simply the Smithsonian, is a group of museums and education and research centers, the largest such complex in the world, created by the U.S. government "for the increase and diffusion of knowledge". Founded ...

Washington Washington commonly refers to: * Washington (state), United States * Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States ** A metonym for the federal government of the United States ** Washington metropolitan area, the metropolitan area centered o ...

). In 1904, her "Fountain of Life" ( St. Louis Exposition) won a bronze medal. She made

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States New York may also refer to: Film and television * '' ...

her residence and exhibited there and in

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

Statue of Wisconsin

In 1910, George B. Post, the architect of the Wisconsin State Capitol then being designed, attempted to secure the services of the well-known sculptor

Daniel Chester French Daniel Chester French (April 20, 1850 – October 7, 1931) was an American sculptor of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, best known for his 1874 sculpture ''The Minute Man'' in Concord, Massachusetts, and his 1920 monume ...

to create a statue of ''Wisconsin'' to be placed on top of the dome. French, having as much work as he desired, turned the commission down, and Post recommended Mears for the job. With the belief that she had the contract, she began working on a model; she ultimately created three models, with two of them receiving feedback from the commission. By August 1911, Post suggested that Mears could not complete the design in their time frame, and the commission ultimately selected French to complete the sculpture. Mears was paid $1,500 for the work that she had already done, but the loss of the commission was a shock from which she never recovered.

Death

Following the debacle surrounding the Wisconsin Capitol statue, Mears's health declined, as did her financial well-being. She died of heart disease on February 17, 1916, at the age of 43. At the time of her death, she was working in her studio at 46 Washington Square South, in

Greenwich Village Greenwich Village ( , , ) is a neighborhood on the west side of Lower Manhattan in New York City, bounded by 14th Street to the north, Broadway to the east, Houston Street to the south, and the Hudson River to the west. Greenwich Village ...

Gallery

Genius of Wisconsin by Helen Farnsworth Mears, view 1 - Wisconsin State Capitol - DSC03138.JPG, ''Genius of Wisconsin'' Helen Farnsworth Mears File:Death Uncovering Its Face and Showing It To Be Life by Helen Farnsworth Mears.jpg, Death Uncovering Its Face and Showing It To Be Life by Helen Farnsworth Mears, 1916 File:Sketch for Fountain of Silence and Meditation by Helen Farnsworth Mears.jpg, Sketch for Fountain of Silence and Meditation by Helen Farnsworth Mears, 1915 File:Armless Angel by Helen Farnsworth Mears.jpg, Armless Angel by Helen Farnsworth Mears, 1916 File:The Awakening by Helen Farnsworth Mears.jpg, The Awakening by Helen Farnsworth Mears, 1916 File:Edward Alexander Mac Dowell.jpg, Edward Alexander MacDowell by Helen Farnsworth Mears, 1906

References

External links

*
Helen Farnsworth Mears entry
at the Museum of Wisconsin Art {{DEFAULTSORT:Mears, Helen Farnsworth 1872 births 1916 deaths American women sculptors Sculptors from Wisconsin People from Oshkosh, Wisconsin University of Wisconsin–Oshkosh alumni Artists from New York City 19th-century American sculptors 20th-century American sculptors 20th-century American women artists 19th-century American women artists Sculptors from New York (state)