Many mysteries surround the personal life of acclaimed sculptor Edmonia Lewis. But her actions tell a story — one that Montana State University art historians are piecing together with researchers around the world.
Their findings are included in the catalog for the largest exhibition to date on Lewis and her 19th century artwork, which opened on Feb. 14 at the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Massachusetts. Lewis, likely born in 1844 in New York, was the first Black and Indigenous artist to earn international recognition for her neoclassical sculptures. She was a descendant of the Mississauga of the Credit nation residing in present-day Ontario, and she died in London in 1907 at about the age of 63.
Lewis’ history and original artwork will also be displayed in a Museum of the Rockies exhibition titled “Chisel and Razor: Art, Entrepreneurship and the Lewis Family,” which opens Oct. 12 and highlights Lewis’ familial connection to Bozeman.
“When we first heard of the Peabody show, I think we were a little daunted for a moment,” said Regina Gee, professor of art history in the College of Arts and Architecture who studies Roman art. “It connected us to a network of scholars interested in similar research questions, but then we began to realize we have something to say that other exhibits don’t have.”
What most other researchers don’t have is Samuel Lewis. Samuel Lewis, Edmonia Lewis’ older brother, is often a footnote in discussions about the sculptor, but he had a significant impact on her life, and therefore American art history. Melissa Ragain, professor of American and modern art, spent time studying Samuel in MSU’s museum, library and city archives, in addition to connecting with local historians and Eileen Tenney, an owner of Samuel Lewis’ house on South Bozeman Avenue. Ragain’s expertise was recently featured in a New York Times article exploring the resurgence of scholarship on Edmonia Lewis.
Samuel Lewis settled in Bozeman in 1868 shortly after the Civil War and became a cornerstone of the community with his barbershop and his magic performances for youth, which raised money for local churches, charities and civic projects, Ragain said. His flair for performance art, which he studied in Paris in the 1860s, gave both him and his family a public voice at a time when Black residents had limits placed on their social mobility.
As he was pursuing popular art in Bozeman, his sister embraced the “fine art” of marble sculpture in Rome. Her move abroad in 1865 was inspired partly by Samuel Lewis’ stories of Europe, where he found a thriving arts scene and a place to escape the prejudices of America, Ragain said. Edmonia Lewis had faced several instances of racism at Oberlin College in Ohio, which she attended in 1859 with financial help from Samuel Lewis, and left before completing her degree.
“They supported each other,” Ragain said. “Her celebrity helped him to start his businesses in Montana. His money helps support her schooling and then in her later years supported her when market interest in neoclassical sculpture waned. There is no Edmonia without Samuel; no Samuel without Edmonia.”
Without much money to her name, Edmonia Lewis founded a popular studio in Rome alongside other female American artists. There, she created her magnum opus, The Death of Cleopatra, a 3-ton marble piece depicting queen Cleopatra slumped on her throne after death. Gee is studying how 19th century collections of ancient art in Rome may have inspired the piece, and she hopes to visit the Vatican and Capitoline museums in the future to learn more.
The sculpture lived many lives after its creation. Edmonia Lewis first shipped it to Philadelphia for an exhibition, using funds left to her by Lizzie Williams, a formerly enslaved settler who became a restauranteur and hotelier in Bozeman. In later years, it became a grave marker for a racehorse and decoration in a Chicago saloon before finally landing in the Smithsonian in Washington, D.C., in 1994 after its rediscovery in a suburban shopping mall.
Gee and Ragain enlisted Montana Tech mechanical engineering students to help recreate the sculpture using 3D printing technology and detailed scans provided by the Smithsonian. The resulting replica will be displayed in the Museum of the Rockies from Oct. 12, 2026, to Sept. 12, 2027, along with other original artworks and documents from the Lewis siblings that have never been shown before in Montana.
“A central conceit of the show is our imagining what it would be like for Edmonia to visit her brother, as though she was bringing these pieces back home where they belong,” said Ragain, who will also co-host an academic symposium with Gee that is inspired by Edmonia Lewis on Oct. 23-24 at MSU.
Until recently, Edmonia Lewis was thought to have last appeared in archival records in the 1880s, and not much is known about her later years. Researchers, like those at MSU, are scouring letters written by others about Edmonia Lewis to learn more, Ragain said. Preliminary research from Quest Dovky, a graduate of MSU’s art history program, helped identify where Edmonia Lewis traveled and the locations of her existing artwork, providing insight into her network of fellow artists and American abolitionists.
Dovky, who grew up in a military family and lived in Belgrade, joined the study as an undergraduate research assistant in 2022. He did so with support from the McNair Scholars Program, which provides research opportunities for exemplary first-generation, low-income and historically underrepresented students. He is now preparing to graduate from MSU in May with a master’s in history, which he was inspired to pursue after presenting his Edmonia Lewis research in California and receiving praise for his storytelling ability.
“The magic of doing history is being able to tell the story that you’re seeing, that’s being spoken to you by the archives,” said Dovky, who post-graduation will continue working as a curatorial assistant for Tinworks Art in Bozeman on a June exhibition featuring the Lewis siblings. The exhibition is curated by Ragain, MSU professors and contemporary artists.
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