The Art of the Woman: The Life and Work of Elisabet Ney

Description

She sculpted Texas’s heroes — then vanished for twenty years. The Art of the Woman by Emily Fourmy Cutrer is the first biography to fully reckon with Elisabet Ney, one of the nineteenth century’s most flamboyant sculptors.

Born in Germany in 1833, Ney trained in Munich and Berlin, won fame across Europe with busts of figures such as Schopenhauer and Garibaldi — and then, at the height of her career, abandoned the Old World for Texas. Settling first in Hempstead, she spent nearly two decades out of the public eye before Texas leaders lured her back to the studio in the 1890s. From her light-filled Austin atelier — now the Elisabet Ney Museum — she produced the marble heroes that define the state’s image of itself: Sam Houston and Stephen F. Austin, whose statues stand in both the Texas State Capitol and the U.S. Capitol’s Statuary Hall.

Drawing on extensive primary sources, Cutrer argues that beneath the eccentricities lay an accomplished artist from a neglected German neoclassical tradition — essential reading for art, biography, and the American West.

“The Art of the Woman: The Life and Work of Elisabet Ney” by Emily Fourmy Cutrer is the first biography to fully reckon with one of the nineteenth century’s most flamboyant sculptors. Born in Germany in 1833, Elisabet Ney trained in Munich and Berlin, won fame across Europe with busts of figures such as Schopenhauer and Garibaldi — and then, at the height of her career, abandoned the Old World for Texas.
n
nSettling first in Hempstead with her husband Edmund Montgomery, Ney spent nearly two decades out of the public eye before Texas leaders lured her back to the studio in the 1890s. From her light-filled Austin atelier — now the Elisabet Ney Museum — she produced the marble heroes that define the state’s image of itself: Sam Houston and Stephen F. Austin, whose statues stand in both the Texas State Capitol and the U.S. Capitol’s Statuary Hall.
n
nDrawing on extensive primary sources, Cutrer appraises both Ney’s legend and her individual works, arguing that beneath the eccentricities lay an accomplished artist from a neglected German neoclassical tradition — and an important catalyst for culture in Texas. Published in the Women in Texas History Series, this is essential reading for anyone interested in art, biography, or the American West.