Hiram Powers
Hiram Powers was the most renowned of America's nineteenth-century neoclassical sculptors. With his masterpiece, The Greek Slave, modeled in 1841, he not only became the first American sculptor to win international acclaim, but also was instrumental in extending American sculpture beyond the confines of portraiture to the production of neoclassical works of ideal and literary inspiration that rivaled those of European sculptors. Powers enjoyed enormous commercial success in Florence, Italy, where he lived and worked throughout most of his career, and he is credited for professionalizing the art of sculpture through innovative and efficient studio practices.
Powers was born in Woodstock Vermont, but grew up in Cincinnati, Ohio, where as a young man he oversaw the mechanical department of Joseph Dorfeuille's Western Museum, creating animated wax figures for a tableau of Dante's Inferno. In 1828, he began studying with the Prussian sculptor, Frederick Eckstein, who taught him how to model in beeswax and clay and to make plaster casts, thereby launching his career as a sculptor.
Power's initial artistic efforts consisted primarily of portrait busts of friends and patrons in Cincinnati. He soon attracted the attention of Nicholas Longworth, a wealthy businessman, who, in 1834, provided funds and letters of introduction that allowed Powers to travel to Washington, D.C. to seek out prospective clients, most notably the U.S. president, Andrew Jackson. Jackson sat for Powers in late 1834 and the resulting portrait bust established the sculptor's reputation as a consummate portraitist.
Reaching his artistic maturity in the late 1830s, Powers, like many other American sculptors, traveled to Italy to study first hand not only the classical sculpture of ancient Greece and Rome, but also the work of two contemporary European pioneers of "modern classics," Antonio Canova and Bertel Thorvaldsen. Settling permanently in Florence after 1837, Powers embarked on a more spiritual and philosophical approach to sculpture. Subscribing to the classical concept of the perfection of the human form as the ultimate artistic ideal, he aimed to create original works based on subjects drawn from mythology, history, and literature. In probing such themes, Powers explored the complex relationship between the real and ideal and elevated his work to a higher aesthetic plane. He believed that the legitimate aim of art should be "spiritual and not animal" and that "the nude statue should be an unveiled soul."
While creating his portraits and ideal works in Florence, Powers ran a formidable studio practice, securing white Italian marble of the highest quality and relying on the expert craftsmanship of Italian stone carvers to produce numerous replicas of his most popular compositions. It was during this period, from about 1840 until about 1851, that Powers' creative abilities were at their best and that most of his ideal works in the neoclassical tradition were conceived.
