Emma Cadwalader-Guild
Emma Marie Cadwalader-Guild, also known by Cadwallader-Guild, (August 27, 1843-c. 1911) was an American artist, notable for her sculpture busts of significant figures. Her subjects included President William McKinley, Andrew Carnegie, and George Frederick Watts, among others. Cadwalader-Guild spent much of her career abroad and achieved particular notoriety in England and Germany. Cadwalader-Guild works were exhibited at numerous locations, including the Royal Academy of Arts, the 1894 Paris Salon, the 1876 Philadelphia Centennial Exposition, and the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, also known as the 1904 St. Louis, or Louisiana Exposition, where she won  a bronze medal. Cadwalader-Guild primarily worked in marble and bronze. Life and career. Cadwalader-Guild was born in Zanesville, Ohio in 1843. The variations on Cadwalader-Guild's name are attributed to differences between the English and American spellings. Cadwalader-Guild's father was part of the English Cadwallader family. Her father was a doctor. While young, Cadwalader-Guild showed an interest in art, as her mother painted with oils and watercolors in a studio in their home. On October 8, 1861, Cadwalader-Guild married Reverend Edward Chipman Guild of the Unitarian church. The pair had two children, Eliza  and Rose. After her marriage, Cadwalader-Guild realized her love and talent for art while she and her husband were living in Boston where she spent time with local artists in their studios. Her first recorded exhibition was in 1876 at the Women's Pavilion of the Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition, while she was living in Waltham, Massachusetts. Reports note she was inspired to take up sculpting when she came across an African-American man at a market. Cadwalader-Guild spent weeks molding her own rendition of the man, which became known as "Free" or "Freed." Another source attests that her  first great work was a lifesize "David" in clay she completed in 1875. Cadwalader-Guild had no formal training and was self-taught. She attended William Rimmer's anatomy lectures as her only formal instruction. She was also known for working without models. Portraiture was her primary subject matter; however, Cadwalader-Guild did create other forms. Her historical subjects include an "Endyimon" in marble and a corresponding bronze statuette, a marble bust of "Lotos/Lotus," a bust of the "Head of St. Monica, the mother of St. Augustine," a marble figure of "Electron"/"Electro"/"Elektron," and "Psyche". Her historical subjects were praised  for their originality and craftsmanship. Though her primary work was sculpture, she also painted, though mostly without patronage. Her focus was on still lives and landscapes. She also painted a series of oil sketches. Cadwalader-Guild often had showings of her work in her studio. Once "Free" was completed, Cadwalader-Guild moved abroad in the mid-1880s, exhibiting and working in multiple cities. She placed "Free" in her London studio, where it was well-received by critics. She traveled and study the masters of art and opened studios in cities with strong art communities, including London, Berlin, Italy, and Frankfurt, to  increase the profitability of her travels. While in Europe, she produced pieces that were well-received and brought her recognition including marble and bronze busts of British Prime Minister William Gladstone, who contacted her for in-person sittings, something he had not done with any other sculptor. She returned to the United States at an unknown date to make a bust of President McKinley at the encouragement of then-United States Ambassador Andrew White. Cadwalader-Guild had long wanted to create a study of her fellow Ohioan. However, McKinley did not arrive to the scheduled sittings in the summer due  to the campaign of 1900. She returned to Berlin and came back to the United States the following summer to meet McKinley in Canton, Ohio where he was staying. Again McKinley was too busy to pose for sittings but promised to sit for her when he returned to Washington D.C. in October. However, McKinley was assassinated in September 1901 and Cadwalader-Guild made the bust from photographs. Congress purchased the bust for $2,000. It was placed in the President's Room in the Capitol and moved to the Senate Marble Room in 2000. Little is known of Cadwalader-Guild 's death but that it occurred around 1911, and in the United States. Notable work and exhibitions. Cadwalader-Guild exhibited at the Royal Academy multiple times throughout her career. She exhibited her bronze statuette "Free" in 1885; a still life painting in 1886; and two busts in 1887, one of the inventor Peter Brotherhood, and the other of British politician Frederick Seager Hunt. At the Royal Academy in 1888 she had a bronze portrait medallion and a bust of the Rev. Canon Wilberforce exhibited, in 1891 a bronze bust of an Indian rider, in 1893 her busts of the artist  George Frederick Watts, Esq. R.A. and of Henry Shore, Esq., and in 1898 her bronze statuette "Endymion". Cadwalader-Guild also exhibited at the Glaspalast in Munich starting in 1883, the Paris Salon, the Glasgow Institute of Fine Arts, and at least twice at the Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool, once with her bronze "Endymion" in 1891 and again in 1893 with her busts of Henry Thode, Esq. and G. F. Watts. At the Louisiana Purchase Exposition Cadwalader-Guild had five pieces exhibited; her bust of G. F. Watts, her marble "Endymion", her bust of Joseph Joachim, her bust of Lincoln , and her sculpture of "Electron". At the Paris Salon two pieces were exhibited in 1894, "Free" and a plaster bust called "Tramonto". Reception. The reception to Cadwalader-Guild's work was positive. Her sculpture "Lotos" was lauded in the "German Times" as, "This psychic masterpiece stamps Mrs. Guild unequivocally as an artist of the very first rank." Cadwalader-Guild's bust of Joseph Joachim was also complimented by the "German Times", saying, "[the bust is] by far the best and most significant work accomplished by any of the small army of sculptors who have been moved to do the violin -patriarch's characteristic head." Her marble study of Wilhelmina of the Netherlands so impressed Empress Augusta Victoria that when she saw it on public display, she ordered it to be taken to the palace. Princess Sophia of Saxe-Weimar, Wilhelmina's aunt, had Cadwalader-Guild make a duplicate as a coronation gift for Wilhelmina. United States politician John Hay described her bust of President McKinley as, "The power of the head is remarkable. It is a great expression of the personality of the man." In an article about Cadwalader-Guild the "Boston Evening Transcript" wrote, "...the work of Mrs. Guild  shows unmistakable talent and such as fresh, free spirit of originality that one can almost accept the alleged dictum of Berlin that Mrs. Guild 'is the greatest genius in sculpture that America has ever had.'" Her bronze statuette "Endymion" was complimented in the 1896 "Studio International" with, "...since the Italian bronzes of the "Quattrocento" no finer work of the kind has been seen than this." Similarly, upon the completion of her marble "Endymion" a complimentary piece was written in "The International Studio" which focused on the originality, pose, and composition of the sculpture. An author for "The International Studio" wrote  about the skill of her paintings in the journal's November 1897 to February 1898 volume, saying, "Mrs. Guild has a strong predilection for painting...which she does with no small degree of success, as her free and vigorous landscape studies abundantly testify...This pronounced feeling of hers for colour explains to me how in... her sculpture she employs means which really overstep the bounds of plastic art."