Alison Stewart: This is All Of It on WNYC. I'm Alison Stewart. Bethesda Fountain in Central Park is a New York landmark, but it's also a historic landmark. The sculptor Emma Stebbins was the first woman to complete a public art commission in New York City history. Born to wealth in the city in 1815, Stebbins made her career in Rome, where she immersed herself in a bohemian artist group of expat women. It's where Stebbins met her future wife. Stebbins was noted for her fur. She created the first male nude sculpture made by an American woman artist and some of the first sculptures depicting American laborers. The Heckscher Museum in Huntington has organized an exhibition that displays 14 Stebbins sculptures, as well as her drawings and sketches. It's the first museum exhibition devoted to her work. The show is called Emma Stebbins: Carving out history. With me now is Heckster chief curator Karli Wurzelbacher. Karli, it is nice to meet you.

Karli Wurzelbacher: Hi. Thank you.

Alison Stewart: The museum has the largest collections of Stebbins work. How did the museum come to be in such possession of them?

Karli Wurzelbacher: Sure. We're actually the first museum in the country to acquire her work. In the 1920s, we were gifted two examples of her sculptures. These are marbles called commerce and industry. Then, during the pandemic, we were fortunate to be able to acquire three additional sculptures for a grand total of five of these rare works.

Alison Stewart: Tell us a little bit about the museum for folks who don't know.

Karli Wurzelbacher: Sure. We're just outside New York City, maybe about 30 miles, depending where you're coming from. You can come out on the Long Island Railroad. We were founded in 1920, so over 100 years ago. One of the first art museums outside of a major metropolitan center. We now have a collection of about 2,300 artworks. We present four to five exhibitions a year. Historic projects like Emma Stebbins, and also contemporary art.

Alison Stewart: You have been researching this exhibition for more than five years. What were your goals with your research about Emma Stebbins?

Karli Wurzelbacher: Really just seeing where the facts took me and learning as much as I possibly could, and one crumb of information would lead to another. Lots of Internet sleuthing, trying to put together as much as we could possibly know about her life and her work. There are still a lot of holes in this story. She lived a very long time ago. We were delighted to be able to bring together these 14 works for the first time and to publish this first scholarly book on her artwork.

Alison Stewart: I understand that you made a few discoveries in your research process. What did you find?

Karli Wurzelbacher: Perhaps the most exciting work is called Joseph the Dreamer, and it's an object that had been in the collection of the Belfast Public Library in Northern Ireland-

Alison Stewart: Oh my God.

Karli Wurzelbacher: -entered their collection, I believe, in 1888. They knew what they had. It is signed on the bottom, but we found it on Facebook. It had not been published in the art historical scholarship before, and so they were really a dream to work with. We were able to conserve this piece, professionally photograph it for the first time, reproduce it in the book, get it onto the Internet, and it's in the exhibition. The first time it's been on view in the United States ever.

Alison Stewart: Oh, wow. I'm speaking with Karli Wurzelbacher, chief curator at the Heckscher Museum of Art. We're discussing the exhibition Emma Stebbins: Carving out History, on view now. All right, there's 14 Stebbins sculptures in this show. She often worked with marble. Yes?

Karli Wurzelbacher: Yes.

Alison Stewart: What can you observe about her skill with marble as a sculptor after seeing these works in person?

Karli Wurzelbacher: They are luminous in a way. These works are small-scale or medium-scale. They were for domestic interiors in the 19th century, so they're not huge. When you're in the space, they really hold the room. They have such presence. They're so detailed and intricate. The meanings are really rich. She's layering all sorts of illusions and references, things from her personal life, ancient literature. She was looking at ancient Greek and Roman art. She's also reflecting the events of her time. They're just chock full of meaning.

Alison Stewart: Emma Stebbins was born and raised in New York to a high-society family. This is the way a lot of women artists got their start, because they were in wealthy families. [laughs] When did you start to show promise?

Karli Wurzelbacher: What's interesting is that she's born in New York City in 1815. We don't know a whole lot about the first four decades of her life. She did not move to Rome to become a sculptor until she was 40 years old.

Alison Stewart: Wow.

Karli Wurzelbacher: We do know that she trained privately with a few different artists. She would not have been able to go to art school as a woman at that time. It's remarkable to look at all she was able to achieve.

Alison Stewart: She went to Rome. That's where she made her name as an artist. What was the culture of Rome at the time?

Karli Wurzelbacher: It was really an international art hub. Artists from all over Europe and the US Were interested in ancient Greek and Roman culture. These objects, things we now see at the Vatican or the Capitoline Museum, were being excavated at the time. Stebbins was going and watching these sculptures come out of the ground. She was very inspired by that. She was also talking to the contemporary artists, many of them who were also women, American women, who were her friends and colleagues.

She also had some distance from the family that you were mentioning. She had a little more freedom to live outside of conventions and pursue life as a professional artist.

Alison Stewart: When Emma Stebbins was in Rome, she joined a group called The Jolly Bachelors. Tell us what this group was about. Who was in this group?

Karli Wurzelbacher: Sure. This is a group of women who were not married to men. They really congregated around the actress Charlotte Cushman, who became Stebbins' lifelong romantic partner. This is a group of women who were dedicated to their art, whether that be the stage or painting, or sculpting. They really supported one another and lifted each other up, even though there was some light competition there also for patrons and other professional opportunities.

Alison Stewart: Was Charlotte Cushman a well-known actor?

Karli Wurzelbacher: Actress? Yes, the most famous actress of her time. She would travel throughout the US, Boston, Philadelphia, New York City, into the Midwest, into the South, also on the London stage. Well known for playing both male and female roles, often from Shakespeare.

Alison Stewart: How did they meet?

Karli Wurzelbacher: They met in Rome. Cushman would host salons and gatherings, and often these were musical, and so they met in Rome, and they very quickly decided that they would stay in the city together, form a home together, and that Stebbins would pursue her sculpture there.

Alison Stewart: They often said they were married. Was this possible?

Karli Wurzelbacher: They were not legally married, but they did describe their life together in that way. Charlotte Cushman, in one letter, says to a friend, "Do you not know that I am already married and I wear the band on the third finger of my left hand?" They were living life within that format.

Alison Stewart: What kind of challenges did a female sculptor face in Rome during the 1800s?

Karli Wurzelbacher: Remarkably, in some circles, she was celebrated as an accomplished female sculptor. Other times that certainly worked against her, particularly around issues of making sculpture. It was very common at the time for artists of all genders to work with studio assistants and professional stone carvers and others. The women would really get knocked for that, accused of not making their own work. Stebbins and some other women, like Edmonia Lewis, would try to use fewer assistance.

This means they're creating less work. That means they're selling less work. That means they're less successful. They were subject to this different type of scrutiny based on their gender.

Alison Stewart: I'm speaking with Karli Wurzelbacher-- Excuse me, chief curator of the Heckscher Museum of Art. We're discussing the exhibition Emma Stebbins: Carving out History. All right, we're going to talk about the big sculpture at Bethesda Fountain. First of all, how did Emma Stebbins get the gig?

Karli Wurzelbacher: We know that she starts talking about the Bethesda Fountain with her brother, Henry G. Stebbins, and other members of her social circle who were planning Central Park at the time. In 1861, they start talking about this probably in person. By 1863, we know from the minutes of these meetings that she had been officially hired, and she would be paid for with these public funds. It would be 10 years, 1873, until the artwork was finally unveiled in place in Central Park.

Alison Stewart: What materials are associated with the sculpture that are on view?

Karli Wurzelbacher: The Bethesda Fountain is bronze. Of course, it can't be in the show because it's in Central Park. She also made a bronze sculpture of Horace Mann, the educator and abolitionist, and that is still standing outside of the Massachusetts State House in Boston. Then the work we have on view at the Heckscher is mostly marble.

Alison Stewart: I understand that when she first made the Bethesda Fountain, people weren't so sure about it.

Karli Wurzelbacher: Yes, the reception was mixed. Some newspaper accounts loved it, thought it was beautiful, powerful. Other people really made fun of the angel. They said she looked like someone dancing the polka, for example. Just really dismissive comments, probably in part because they knew it was created by an artist who was a woman. There also seems to be a sense that-- Stebbins had this work cast in overseas at the Royal Bronze Foundry in Munich, and people were upset she should have had it cast in the US. There was a little bit of that going on. It's interesting that when the sculpture was unveiled, many of the people who came to Central Park were German immigrants or of German descent, because they wanted to see this work that had been created at the Royal Bronze Foundry.

Alison Stewart: Why do you think it has remained so important in New York City history?

Karli Wurzelbacher: It was an icon from the beginning. Actually, images of it were circulating even before it was unveiled in 1873. In the exhibition, we have postcards from the turn of the century, including then other artwork that has been made even in the present time, depicting this work. It's a rare public monument. So much of what we have inherited in our public spaces from that time, 150 years ago, is either forgettable or objectionable. It doesn't relate to our life or our values today.

The Bethesda Fountain is about peace and healing and clean water and health and love. People connect with that. They get married there. I can think of few public monuments that have retained their meaning in the way that the Bethesda Fountain has.

Alison Stewart: Two sculptures that you have in the show. Industry and commerce are noteworthy because Stebbins depicted industrial American laborers. What was the idea behind these sculptures?

Karli Wurzelbacher: She was commissioned to create those by an uncle of the Heckscher Museum's founder. That's how they came to be in the Heckscher collection so early. He asked her to create works that would represent the way that he made his money. He owned coal mines, and he was involved in transportation. He wanted works that would celebrate his businesses. Stebbins had full creative control over what to do with that assignment. She decided to depict these working-class American laborers.

She represented the idea of commerce in the form of a sailor, and she represented the idea of industry in the form of a miner. A lot of neoclassical sculpture at that time was of the nude figure, often the nude female figure. Stebbins is really pushing at conventions here by deciding to represent male laborers in the clothing that they would have worn, holding the tools that they would have used. There's a degree of realism there connecting the actual details of these workers' lives that she has embedded in the work.

Alison Stewart: You mentioned that she was the first woman to make a male nude sculpture. It's called The Lotus-Eater. First of all, was it scandalous at the time? What was the public reception?

Karli Wurzelbacher: The reception was actually positive. People thought it was beautifully done. This is a work that she created in Rome. Making good sculpture at the time meant accurately representing the human form. To do that, you need to be able to look at the human form. Stebbins would not have had access to the male nude model had she stayed in New York City. She needed to go to Rome and work with professional artist models. That's part of it. She then debuts this work in New York City.

It's reviewed in The New York Times and other publications. People thought it was incredibly beautiful and well done. One critic said he couldn't believe it was by a woman because he knew that women didn't have access to the male nude model. Overall, her work was very well received during her lifetime.

Alison Stewart: The name of the exhibition is Emma Stebbins: Carving Out History. It's now on view at the Heckscher Museum in Huntington, Long Island. I have been speaking with chief curator Karli Wurzelbacher. Thank you so much for joining us.

Karli Wurzelbacher: Thank you.