WHITNEY, ANNE

born Sept. 2, 1821, Watertown, Mass., U.S. died Jan. 23, 1915, Boston, Mass. American sculptor whose life-size statues and portrait busts frequently reflected Abolitionist and feminist concerns. During the 1850s Whitney began to write poetry and experiment in sculpture. She had advanced to making portrait busts by 1855, and in 1859, the year she published a volume entitled Poems, she began to study sculpture in earnest. Whitney entered a bust of a child in the 1860 exhibit of the National Academy of Design in New York City, and in 1864 and 1865 she exhibited a life-size Lady Godiva and a colossal Africa in Boston and New York. She studied privately with William Rimmer in Boston for a time and in 1867 journeyed to Rome, where she remained for four years. Her Roma (1869), inspired by the poverty of Roman peasants, was shown in London, Boston, and Philadelphia. After her return to the United States she exhibited her statue of Toussaint-Louverture. While in Rome, Whitney became acquainted with fellow sculptors Harriet Hosmer and Edmonia Lewis. A commission to execute a statue of Samuel Adams (one of Massachusetts's contributions to Statuary Hall in the U.S. Capitol) prompted her return to Europe in 1875 to supervise the cutting of the stone and to study in Paris. In 1876 she established a home and studio in Boston. Over the next three decades Whitney executed portrait busts of Alice Freeman Palmer, Lucy Stone, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Mary A. Livermore, Frances Willard, Harriet Martineau, William Lloyd Garrison, and others. She also carved a statue of Leif Eriksson that was placed on the Commonwealth Avenue mall in 1887 and a statue of the seated Charles Sumner that was placed in Harvard Square in 1902. At the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago, she exhibited a larger version of Roma.