|
“Chic, revolutionary, and modern in the extreme”: phrases that describe the work of Bessie Potter Vonnoh. Vonnoh’s talent brought her recognition at 14 when the artist Lorado Taft, offered her a position as a studio assistant and a way to finance a formal art education at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Vonnoh was one of the six women known as the “White Rabbits”, who created exterior sculptures for the buildings at the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition under the direction of Taft. The following year, Vonnoh opened her studio in downtown Chicago. There Vonnoh developed small-scale bronze sculptures depicting women through motherhood, dancing, and contemporary dress. Alicia by Bessie Potter Vonnoh stands 10 inches tall and embodies most of the attributes that are key in Potter’s work: impressionistic, small-scale, decorative for the home, and depicts what she would consider as the “modern woman” of the time. Vonnoh found an audience in the new middle class who could afford these small works for home decor. The subject matter of modern women aligned with the growing women’s suffrage movement across the United States and the changing ideas about women’s roles in the public sphere and workplaces of the newly industrialized American society. Vonnoh herself was considered middle class, which gave her insight into the kind of art that this new social group could afford. Mystery lies within who Alicia depicts, and the reasoning for the name. Most of Vonnoh’s work holds titles about a broader subject than the actual model such as Day Dreams, A Young Mother, and An American Girl. It is unclear if Alicia is the model’s name or if the title Alicia is a reference to the story of Alcestis from Greek antiquity. Alcestis sacrifices herself to the underworld for her husband, Admetus: a move that holds the duality of strong will and submissiveness. Vonnoh’s Alicia depicts a feminine figure who is strong-willed portrayed through the figure’s sculpted upright posture, and submissive as the figure aims her gaze downwards and her arms wrap around herself in a protective posture. The duality of Alcestis mirrors the changing ideals of women in the early 20th century. Like Alcestis, Vonnoh’s Alicia is free to be a complex human harboring different, sometimes clashing, identities.
|
