Vinnie Ream
Vinnie Ream was an American portrait artist who lived from 1847 to 1914. Though she worked in several mediums, she is mostly known for her work as a sculptor.
Vinnie Ream was born as Lavinia Ream in Madison, Wisconsin. She was the youngest of three children. Her father worked as a surveyor, and as such, the family moved around frequently to wherever his work took them. Vinnie Ream showed an artistic talent early on which her family nurtured. When Vinnie was 14 years old, she moved with her family to Washington, D.C. so her father could look for work. Unfortunately, her father became ill soon after arriving in D.C. and he passed away. After her father’s death, she did several jobs to help with the family but spent her free time perusing the public art located around the capital.
At 17 years of age, Ream became an apprentice to Clark Mills, an American sculptor who had a studio in Washington D.C. While an apprentice, Ream created busts of several Congressmen. In 1864, she was commissioned by the Congress to make a bust of President Abraham Lincoln from life. Lincoln sat for her almost daily for half-hour segments in the mornings for 5 months as she constructed her clay bust.
Lincoln was assassinated the following year, and it affected Ream greatly. She had said of Lincoln, “He had been painted and modeled before, but when he learned that I was poor, he granted me the sittings for no other purpose than that I was a poor girl. Had I been the greatest sculptor in the world, I am sure that he would have refused at that time.”
Ream was smart, and to promote herself as an artist, she released photographs of herself and gave interviews to newspapers. It worked and by age 18, she had an almost celebrity status among the general public. In 1866, at just 18 years of age, the Congress voted to commission Ream to construct a full-size statue of Abraham Lincoln as a memorial. To apply for the job, Ream submitted the bust she had made of Lincoln from life in 1864. Her noted fame, youthful age, and friendships with some members of Congress made her a questionable candidate, but she won the commission in the end. At the time, she was the first woman and youngest candidate to have received a commission from Congress.
Ream had originally created the full-size Lincoln statue of plaster. In 1869, she brought it to Europe, accompanied by her parents, where she could oversee the statue as it was carved by Italian stone masters. At the time, it was common practice for the initial sculpted models of statues to be recarved in their final form by master stoneworkers and Ream was following the same process.
While in Europe, Ream studied under Léon Bonnat in Paris and Luigi Majoli in Rome. The statue was completed after 6 months and was publicly unveiled in 1871 in the Capitol Rotunda, where it is still exhibited today. This commission skyrocketed Ream’s fame. In addition to her beauty and charm, she was socially very prominent. She had many suitors, including the artist, George Caleb Bingham, who painted several portraits of Ream.
In 1871, Ream opened two studios; one in New York City, and one in Washington, D.C. She completed more commissioned sculpture portraits including one of George Armstrong Custer, Ulysses S. Grant, Admiral David Farragut, John Sherman, Thaddeus Stevens, and Robert E. Lee. In 1878, Vinnie Ream married General Richard L. Hoxie. After their marriage, Ream stopped pursuing her art. It was the Victorian Era, and her husband thought it inappropriate for a wife to work for money, thinking she should focus on the family. In 1883, the couple had one son together.
Over 40 years later, after her husband’s death, Ream resumed with her art. She completed two full-size bronze statue commissions; one of Governor Samuel Kirkwood in 1906, and in 1912-1914, one of the Cherokee scholars, Sequoyah. Vinnie Ream died in 1914 of uremic poisoning at age 67.
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