"A portrait is a picture in which there is just a tiny little something not quite right about the mouth." -- John Singer Sargent

Sunday, August 14, 2016

Dio Lewis


This 1968 bust of Dr. Dio Lewis by Edmonia Lewis stands in the Walters Art Gallery in Baltimore, Maryland.
"Diocletian Lewis (March 3, 1823 – May 21, 1886), commonly known as Dr. Dio Lewis, was a prominent temperance leader and physical culture advocate who practiced homeopathy and was the inventor of the beanbag." -- Wikipedia


The Walters Art Gallery says this of this bust and its sculptor.
"Edmonia Lewis was the first African American sculptor to receive international recognition. Born in Greenbush, New York, to a Haitian father of African descent and a mother of Native American and African American descent, Lewis spent a brief time in Boston studying with the sculptor Edward Brackett. In 1866, she moved from Boston to Rome, Italy, to study sculpture and to escape racial discrimination. Lewis adopted the prevailing Neoclassical style of sculpture but softened it with a degree of naturalism. She had a successful career specializing in biblical subjects, themes recalling her Native American and African American ancestry, and portrait busts of important people. This portrait bust of Diocletian Lewis (1823–86), was made in the artist's Rome studio. Dio Lewis (no relation) who trained in medicine at Harvard College's medical department and practiced briefly in Buffalo, New York, is remembered chiefly for lectures and publications dealing with preventive medicine and physical hygiene, as well as for his support of liberal causes, including women's rights." -- The Walters Art Gallery


This photo of Dr. Dio Lewis appeared in Mary F. Eastman's 1891 Biography of Dio Lewis


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