Patience Wright
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Patience Lovell Wright (born 1725, Bordentown, New Jersey; died March 23, 1786, London) was the first recognized American-born sculptor. She chiefly created wax figures of people.
Wright was born into a Quaker farm family and married Joseph Wright in 1748.[1] For years, she had amused herself and her five children by molding faces out of putty, bread dough, and wax. After her husband died in 1769, her pastime became a full-time occupation as she began earning a living from molding portraits in tinted wax.
In 1772, Wright traveled to England and opened a successful wax museum. Benjamin Franklin introduced her to London society. Wright became known as the "Promethean modeller," for her New World egalitarianism and often coarse speech as well as her artwork. She was patronized by George III, and sculpted him and other members of British royalty and nobility, but fell from royal favor because of her open support for the colonial cause during the American Revolution. Never forgetting her Patriot loyalties, she became a spy for the cause, often sending messages to America inside her wax figures. Wright's sculpture of friend William Pitt still stands in Westminster. She loved to write poetry and was a painter.
Patience Wright's son Joseph Wright (1756-1793) was a well-known portrait painter, and her daughter Phoebe married British painter John Hoppner.
Her home at 100 Farnsworth Avenue in Bordentown, New Jersey still stands.[2]
[edit] References
- Pegi Deitz Shea, "Life in Early America:An 'Ingenius' Woman", Early American Life magazine, June 2008.
- Shea, Pegi Deitz, and Bethanne Anderson. Patience Wright:America's First Sculptor, and Revolutionary Spy. Henry Holt & Company (2006).
- Dean, Richard. "America's First Sculptor: Patience Wright Began Her Work With Dough and Putty", The Mentor magazine (eBay listing for copy of this issue, including full table of contents), June 1926. Retrieved on 2006-08-16.
