Finding Cleopatra

Sidedoor

Edmonia Lewis was the first sculptor of African American and Native American (Mississauga) descent to achieve international fame. Her 3,000-pound masterwork, “The Death of Cleopatra,” commemorated another powerful woman who broke with convention… and then the sculpture disappeared. On this return episode of Sidedoor, we find them both.

You can see "The Death of Cleopatra" at the Smithsonian American Art Museum. The new exhibition, The Shape of Power: Stories of Race and American Sculpture features 82 artworks created between 1792 and 2023, including two by Edmonia Lewis.

Guests:
Marilyn Richardson, art historian and independent curator

Kirsten Pai Buick, professor of art historian at the University of New Mexico and author of Child of the Fire: Mary Edmonia Lewis and the Problem of Art History's Black and Indian Subject

Karen Lemmey, the Lucy S. Reign Curator of Sculpture at the Smithsonian American Art Museum