Hiram Powers was an American neoclassicalsculptor. He was one of the first 19th-century American artists to gain an international reputation, largely based on his famous marble sculpture The Greek Slave.
Early life and studies
Powers was born to a farmer on July 29, 1805 in Woodstock, Vermont. When he was 14 years old, his family moved to Ohio, about six miles from Cincinnati, where Powers attended school for about a year while staying with his father's brother, a lawyer. He began working after the death of his parents, first superintending a reading-room in connection with the chief hotel of the town, then working a clerk in a general store. At age 17, Powers became an assistant to Luman Watson, Cincinnati's early wooden clockmaker, who owned a clock and organ factory. Using his skill in modeling figures, Powers mastered the construction of the instruments and became the first mechanic in the factory. In 1826 he began to frequent the studio of Frederick Eckstein, and at once conceived a strong passion for the art of sculpture. His proficiency in modeling secured him the situation of general assistant and artist of the Western Museum, kept by a Louisiana naturalist of French extraction named Joseph Dorfeuille. Here he created representations of scenes in the poem Inferno by Dante, which met with extraordinary success. Fanny Trollope helped launch his career when she had him sculpt Dante's Commedia. After studying thoroughly the art of modeling and casting, he moved to Washington, D.C. at the end of 1834.
Career as a sculptor
Powers drew attention and local commissions in D.C. with his modeled portrait of Andrew Jackson. In 1837 he moved to Italy and settled on the Via Fornace in Florence, where he had access to good supplies of marble and to traditions of stone-cutting and bronze casting. He remained in Florence till his death, though he did travel to Britain during this time. During his time in Italy, he developed a friendship with Horatio Greenough. He developed a thriving business in portraiture and "fancy" parlor busts, but he also devoted his time to creating life-size, full-figure ideal subjects, many of which were also isolated as a bust. In 1839 his statue of Eve won the admiration of the leading European neoclassical sculptor, Bertel Thorvaldsen. In 1843 Powers produced his most celebrated statue, The Greek Slave, which at once gave him a place among the leading sculptors of his time. It attracted more than 100,000 viewers when it toured America in 1847; and in 1851 was exhibited in Britain at the center of the Crystal Palace Exhibition, when Elizabeth Barrett Browning wrote a sonnet on it. This sculpture was used in the abolitionist cause and copies of it appeared in many Union-supporting state houses. Among the best known of his other idealising statues are The Fisher Boy, Il Penseroso, Eve Disconsolate, California, America and The Last of the Tribe. He was elected an Associate Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1851. Powers' most discerning and important private client was Prince Anatole Demidoff, who owned marble full-figure versions of both the Greek Slave and the Fisher Boy and also commissioned from Powers a portrait bust of his wife, the niece of Napoleon and the Grand Duchess of Tuscany. The statues and busts Powers carved for Demidoff were exceptional in the quality and purity of the marble employed. Powers became a teacher at the Florence Accademia. One of his sons was the sculptor Preston Powers. Hiram Powers died on June 27, 1873, and is buried, as were three of his children, at the Cimitero Protestante di Porta a' Pinti, Florence. Spiritual descendants of Hiram Powers in Europe included the notorious Futurist designer 'Thayaht,' pseudonym of Ernesto Michahelles and his brother, the notorious neo-metaphysical artist RAM, pseudonym of Ruggero Alfredo Michahelles who was awarded the "Prix Paul Guillaume" in Paris in 1937.
