Saturday, February 15, 2020

Abraham Lincoln - Vinnie Ream


We just learned about the Angel of the Waters by Emma Stebbins.

Another famous sculpture made by a woman from American history is the statue of Abraham Lincoln made by Lavinia "Vinnie" Ream in 1871.

Vinnie was born in Madison Wisconsin in 1847.

When she was 14 her family moved to Washington D.C. where she got a job at the post office, and as a singer at church.
When she was 16 she got a job as an apprentice for a sculptor, and then when she was 18 President Abraham Lincoln asked her to make a sculpture of him to be used in Washington D.C.

Shew as the youngest artist and first woman to get hired by the US government to make a statue.

She sat with Lincoln every day for a month to try and look at him and make the sculpture as real looking as possible.

Vinnie once said "I think that history is particularly correct in writing Lincoln down as the man of sorrow. The one great, lasting, all-dominating impression that I have always carried of Lincoln has been that of unfathomable sorrow, and it was this that I tried to put into my statue."


(from: wikipedia - vinnie ream)


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