Description
Book SynopsisAn argument against reductive accounts of the nineteenth-century sculptor Mary Edmonia Lewiss work as the product of her identity as an African American and Native American woman.
Trade Review“Buick provides the most comprehensive history of Lewis to date and a critical assessment of the discipline through close readings of primary sources and the leading scholarship on Lewis. . . . This volume is a crucial model for multiple disciplines. Essential. Lower-level undergraduates and above; general readers.” - K. N. Pinder,
Choice“[D]oing justice to the subject of Edmonia Lewis may be beyond the knowledge of any single scholar, as studying her ‘differences’ and the ways in which she was cast as anomalous requires one to search a myriad of shifting databases and intervene in the interstices of archives. Speaking generally, however, this book goes a long way toward providing a model of responsive, responsible art history.” - Jennifer DeVere Brody,
Women’s Review of Books“This book is so tantalizing because, as Buick herself concludes, Lewis remains an enigma. . . . Despite the difficulties presented by the lack of
archival materials, the quality of this study presents a challenge to art
historians to avoid ‘conversing with stereotype’ by doing our cultural and
contextual homework.” - Jennifer Wingate,
Woman’s Art Journal“Buick’s book is groundbreaking in its reinterpretation of Lewis and her art. . . .
Child of the Fire is a significant book because it reminds us to consider cultural context over simpler readings that merge racial and gender identity with interpretation of an artist’s work.” - Renée Ater,
American Indian Culture and Research Journal“[A] thoughtful, groundbreaking study that should be a must-read for anyone interested in art of the United States and in a nuanced treatment of race, ethnicity, and gender.” - Katherine Manthorne,
CAA Reviews“[T]his fiercely intellectual study offers insightful, original readings of Edmonia Lewis's art. Buick gives these intriguing sculptures the serious attention they have long deserved.” - Laura R. Prieto,
Women and Social Movements in the United States, 1600-2000“In revisiting and revising the examination of Lewis and her art, Buick challenges earlier interpretations and sheds new light on Lewis and adds to the scholarship.... Buick concludes with a persuasive call for a more ‘responsive and responsible art history’… [Her]
Child of the Fire helps move us forward.” - Margaret Rose Vendryes,
The Journal of African American History“
Child of the Fire is a tour de force. Kirsten Pai Buick has written a brilliant, historically and culturally grounded investigation into one of the most fascinating people of the nineteenth century. Despite the challenge of a subject as elusive and enigmatic as Mary Edmonia Lewis, Buick brings Lewis’s work back where it belongs: into the fold of nineteenth-century American art, albeit from the vantage point of a knowing, African American, female, expatriate, Catholic iconoclast.”—
Richard J. Powell, author of
Cutting a Figure: Fashioning Black Portraiture“Rich in testimony to Lewis' impressive achievements as a ‘facile manipulator of marble and white patrons,’ Buick's rigorously argued and refreshingly forthright inquiry articulates the challenges inherent in the sculptures of an enigmatic, determined, and courageous American artist.” -- Donna Seaman * Booklist *
“[A] thoughtful, groundbreaking study that should be a must-read for anyone interested in art of the United States and in a nuanced treatment of race, ethnicity, and gender.” -- Katherine Manthorne * CAA Reviews *
“Doing justice to the subject of Edmonia Lewis may be beyond the knowledge of any single scholar, as studying her ‘differences’ and the ways in which she was cast as anomalous requires one to search a myriad of shifting databases and intervene in the interstices of archives. Speaking generally, however, this book goes a long way toward providing a model of responsive, responsible art history.” -- Jennifer DeVere Brody * Women's Review of Books *
“[T]his fiercely intellectual study offers insightful, original readings of Edmonia Lewis's art. Buick gives these intriguing sculptures the serious attention they have long deserved.” -- Laura R. Prieto * Women and Social Movements in the United States 1600-2000 *
“Buick provides the most comprehensive history of Lewis to date and a critical assessment of the discipline through close readings of primary sources and the leading scholarship on Lewis. . . . This volume is a crucial model for multiple disciplines. Essential. Lower-level undergraduates and above; general readers.” -- K. N. Pinder * Choice *
“Buick’s book is groundbreaking in its reinterpretation of Lewis and her art. . . .
Child of the Fire is a significant book because it reminds us to consider cultural context over simpler readings that merge racial and gender identity with interpretation of an artist’s work.” -- Renée Ater * American Indian Culture and Research Journal *
“In revisiting and revising the examination of Lewis and her art, Buick challenges earlier interpretations and sheds new light on Lewis and adds to the scholarship.... Buick concludes with a persuasive call for a more ‘responsive and responsible art history’… [Her]
Child of the Fire helps move us forward.” -- Margaret Rose Vendryes * Journal of African American History *
“This book is so tantalizing because, as Buick herself concludes, Lewis remains an enigma. . . . Despite the difficulties presented by the lack of archival materials, the quality of this study presents a challenge to art historians to avoid ‘conversing with stereotype’ by doing our cultural and contextual homework.” -- Jennifer Wingate * Woman's Art Journal *
Table of ContentsIllustrations xi
Preface. Framing the Problem: American Africanisms, American Indianisms, and the Processes of Art History xiii
Acknowledgments xxiii
1. Inventing the Artist: Locating the Black and Catholic Subject 1
2. The "Problem" of Art History's Black Subject 31
3. Longellow, Lewis, and the Cultural Work of
Hiawatha 77
4. Identity, Tautology, and
The Death of Cleopatra 133
Conclusion. Separate and Unequal: Toward a More Responsive and Responsible Art History 209
Notes 215
Bibliography 257
Index 277
