Bessie Potter Vonnoh

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Bessie Potter Vonnoh American sculptor, born August 17, 1872 in St Louis, Missouri and died in New York City on March 8, 1955.

Best known for her small bronzes, mostly of domestic scenes and for her garden fountains. She was one of Lorado Taft's White Rabbits and one of her well known pieces, Young Mother used fellow White Rabbit Mary Proctor, then wife of sculptor Alexander Phimister Proctor and their first born child as models.

In 1899 she was married to painter Robert Vonnoh. Besides the work she did at the World's Columbian Exposition for Taft on the Horticultural Building she also produced an independent commission for the Illinois State Building. She was to she again at both the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York in 1901 and at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition in St Louis, Missouri in 1904 where one of the ten works that she showed won a gold medal.

[edit] References

• Baigell, Matthew (1979) "Vonnoh, Bessie Potter" Dictionary of American Art Harper & Row, Publishers, New York;
• Bowman, John S. (ed.) (1995) "Vonnoh, Bessie (Onahotema) Potter" The Cambridge Dictionary of American Biography Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, England;
• Falk, Peter Hastings (1985) "Vonnoh, Bessie Potter" Who Was Who in American Art: 1898-1947 Sound View Press, Madison, CT;
• Garraty, John A. and Carnes, Mark C. (eds.) (1999) "Vonnoh, Bessie Onahotema Potter" American National Biography Oxford University Press, New York;
• Heller, Jules and Heller, Nancy G. (1995) "Vonnoh, Bessie Potter" North American Women Artists of the Twentieth Century: A biographical dictionary Garland Publishing, New York;