Finding Cleopatra

Sidedoor

Smithsonian Institution

African American History And Culture, American History, Exhibits, Dc, History, Science, Sidedoor, History Of The World, Society & Culture, The Smithsonian, Washington, Natural History, Pop Culture, Smithsonian, Exhibit, Tony Cohn, Zoo, National Museum, Air And Space, National Zoo, Art19, Museum, Postal Museum

4.6 • 2.3K Ratings

🗓️ 27 November 2024

⏱️ 28 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Edmonia Lewis was the first sculptor of African American and Native American (Mississauga) descent to achieve international fame. Her 3,000-pound masterwork, “The Death of Cleopatra,” commemorated another powerful woman who broke with convention… and then the sculpture disappeared. On this return episode of Sidedoor, we find them both.

You can see "The Death of Cleopatra" at the Smithsonian American Art Museum. The new exhibition, The Shape of Power: Stories of Race and American Sculpture features 82 artworks created between 1792 and 2023, including two by Edmonia Lewis.

Guests:
Marilyn Richardson, art historian and independent curator

Kirsten Pai Buick, professor of art historian at the University of New Mexico and author of Child of the Fire: Mary Edmonia Lewis and the Problem of Art History's Black and Indian Subject

Karen Lemmey, the Lucy S. Reign Curator of Sculpture at the Smithsonian American Art Museum

Transcript

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0:00.0	A quick note. There's a mention of sexual violence in this episode, so it may not be appropriate for all listeners.
0:16.4	This is Side Door, a podcast from the Smithsonian with support from PRX. I'm Lizzie Peabody.
0:29.9	On a warm spring day in 1988, in a shopping mall outside Chicago,
0:35.9	Marilyn Richardson finally found what she was looking for, in an unlikely place.
0:41.6	It was kind of shady, shadowy there in the storage area, so I wanted more pictures.
0:47.5	And I asked one of the security guards, could I possibly go back in and take a few more pictures just by myself?
0:55.0	So he said, sure.
0:56.0	This is Marilyn.
0:57.7	Shall we all use first names?
0:58.9	Yes. Fine.
1:04.0	She's an art historian and independent curator. She's also a sleuth.
1:11.5	And on that day in 1988, armed with a disposable camera,
1:15.8	she peered into the cramped storeroom of a suburban shopping mall to find a masterpiece that had been missing for a hundred years.
1:20.6	A queen carved in marble.
1:22.8	The sculpture called The Death of Cleopatra.
1:27.9	But the sculpture looked less than queenly in its new home.
1:32.0	It was surrounded by the seasonal decorations, you know.
1:37.3	So there's a Cleopatra with Thanksgiving turkeys and Frosty the Snowman and Christmas whatever's.
1:46.3	And so, yeah, it was stored away there.
1:49.1	Happily, happily.
1:50.2	You know, it was indoors.
1:52.8	The sculpture was indoors, but a quick glance hinted that hadn't always been the case.
	...

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