{"product_id":"a-sisterhood-of-sculptors-9780271062204","title":"A Sisterhood of Sculptors","description":"\u003cb\u003eBook Synopsis\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003eExplores mid-nineteenth-century American women sculptors who developed successful professional careers in Rome. Draws from feminist theory, cultural geography, and expatriate and postcolonial studies to investigate the gendered nature of creativity and expatriation.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTrade Review\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Long awaited\u003ci\u003e, A Sisterhood of Sculptors\u003c\/i\u003e is a rich and satisfying account of that brave band of nineteenth-century Americans who defied Victorian conventions of womanhood to live in Italy as professional marble sculptors. Melissa Dabakis embeds these audacious women in the struggles for suffrage and the politics of race, as well as the pre-1876 taste and demand for large-scale neoclassical sculptures, rendering them inseparable from the larger forces of history that shaped and confined them.”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e—Wanda Corn,Stanford University\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Melissa Dabakis has written the book I've been longing to read. In the history of art, there has never been a book about the courageous first American female sculptors and their bold journey not just from Boston to Rome, but to becoming professional artists. Meticulously researched with perceptive insight that offers new analysis of neoclassical sculpture, this book examines how these artists transformed nationalist sculpture by injecting it with their suffragist and abolitionist views. It presents a fascinating account of the inherent complexities and contradictions of expatriate life in mid-nineteenth-century Italy, as well as a rigorous, fresh reading of how feminine propriety had to be negotiated with independence in a world where social conventions were constantly shifting on the eve of the Civil War and the unification of Italy. This groundbreaking book is an absolute must-read for anyone interested in the history of these women, the sheer audacity of their professional calling, and the creative authority of women.”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e—Patricia Cronin, Brooklyn College\/CUNY\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003e“[\u003ci\u003eA Sisterhood of Sculptors\u003c\/i\u003e] is a good example of how an author can blend scholarly research on multiple disciplines with clear, concise writing that is both informative and appealing to a wide audience. Drawing on personal records, correspondence, and previous scholarship on the topic, Dabakis adroitly balances social, cultural, and political history with vivid personal portraits of the artists. . . . The thoughtfully chosen photographic illustrations provide further evidence of each sculptor’s skills which equaled, if not rivaled, those of male sculptors of the era. The reader emerges with a clearer picture of each artist’s personality, as well as a greater understanding of their creative processes and of their significance to the history of American art.”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e—Marty Miller \u003ci\u003eARLIS\/NA Reviews\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Between 1850 and 1876, a group of women left the United States for Italy in order to pursue careers as neoclassical sculptors. In this lavishly illustrated, well-researched, and highly readable book, Dabakis builds on and synthesizes recent scholarship that has treated these artists . . . [and fleshes out] the politically charged atmosphere of Italy in the 19th century, when it was in the midst of a revolution. Additionally she builds a vital context for how the work of these artists also served as pointed and particular responses to issues at home, such as the Civil War, abolitionism, Reconstruction, and suffrage. As Dabakis elucidates, their work and their careers served as inspiration and models for a younger generation of women artists at a time when ‘genius’ was a quality reserved primarily for men.”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e—K. P. Buick \u003ci\u003eChoice\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Along with its predecessors, \u003ci\u003eSisterhood of Sculptors \u003c\/i\u003eproves that neoclassicism is much more than first meets the twenty-first-century eye, and not only because atmospheric lighting made marble figurative sculpture look more sensuously fleshlike to nineteenth-century audiences than today’s viewers can appreciate, but because of the socially, politically, and geographically grounded circumstances of its artistic production. This rich and engagingly conveyed history gives the stories of these sculptors and their work new life.”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e—Jennifer Wingate \u003ci\u003eWoman's Art Journal\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Dabakis’ beautifully researched and illustrated academic book establishes the importance of American women artists in 19th-century Rome, where their dazzling accomplishments succeeded in momentarily overcoming the sexism, if not the racism, of their era.”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e—Cassandra Langer \u003ci\u003eThe Gay \u0026amp; Lesbian Review\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003e“This serious study of expatriate women artists in Rome has been a long time coming. \u003ci\u003eA Sisterhood of Sculptors\u003c\/i\u003e is articulate, thorough, and engrossing in its examination of the personal challenges and political pressures these artists met and overcame.”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e—Laurinda S. Dixon \u003ci\u003eNineteenth-Century Art Worldwide\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Offers a new contribution to the study of American artists working in international contexts, to the body of scholarship on American sculpture and its connections with political history, and to the discussion of gender in art history.”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e—Emily C. Burns \u003ci\u003eCAA.Reviews\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTable of Contents\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003eContents\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eList of Illustrations\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAcknowledgments\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIntroduction\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003ePart I: Feminine Professionalism in Boston and Rome\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e1\tThe Boston-Rome Nexus\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e2\tNeoclassicism in Cosmopolitan Rome\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e3\t“A Woman Artist Is an Object of Peculiar Odium” \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003ePart II: Women Sculptors and the Politics of Rome\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e4\tRome in the Colonial Imagination\t\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e5\tReimagining Italy\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003ePart III: The Civil War, Reconstruction, and the Suffrage Debates\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e6\tAntislavery Sermons in Stone\t\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e7\tWomen Sculptors, Suffrage, and the Public Stage\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003ePostscript\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eNotes\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eSelected Bibliography\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIndex\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Pennsylvania State University Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":49400790384983,"sku":"9780271062204","price":999.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"url":"https:\/\/bookcurl.com\/products\/a-sisterhood-of-sculptors-9780271062204","provider":"Book Curl","version":"1.0","type":"link"}