Helen Farnsworth Mears

BORN: Dec. 21, 1872, Oshkosh, WI

Died: Feb. 17, 1916, NYC, NY

Helen Farnsworth Mears was born in Oshkosh on December 21, 1871, the youngest of John and Mary Elizabeth Mears' three daughters. The entire family was extremely creative and their home a nurturing place for the budding artist. A shed in their back yard became Helen's "studio" and her father even fashioned special sculpting tools for her to use.

Helen showed artistic ability at an early age. Family friends recalled that as early as three or four years old Helen would sit in her highchair and bite her bread into animal shapes, like cats and dogs. At eight years old Helen won first place at the Winnebago County Fair for a small head of Apollo that she fashioned out of clay. Helen's sculptures gained national recognition and today she is still considered one of Wisconsin's premier sculptors.

While studying under Lorado Taft at the Chicago Art Institute, Helen was commissioned to do a figure, entitled Genius of Wisconsin, to represent Wisconsin at the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago. The nine-foot marble sculpture now stands in the Wisconsin State Capitol. A five-hundred-dollar prize from the General Federation of Women's Clubs-Wisconsin enabled Helen to study in New York under one of the most famous and respected sculptors of the time, Augustus Saint Gaudens. She later worked and studied in Europe.

Helen resumed work in New York in 1899 where she completed a number of commissions in bronze and marble. In 1904 she was awarded a medal for her work Fountain of Life at the St. Louis Exposition, and in 1907 Helen secured a fellowship at the famed MacDowell artists' colony in New Hampshire. Her best-known work is a marble statue of Frances Willard that was unveiled in Statuary Hall of the U.S. Capitol in 1905. Among her other works are bronze busts of George Rogers Clark and William Morton, and bas-reliefs of Edward MacDowell and August Saint Gaudens.

In 1911, the State of Wisconsin awarded Helen the contract to sculpt a heroic figure to surmount the dome of the state capitol building. However, a crushing blow to her career came when the Capitol Committee later suspended this contract and instead gave the job to Daniel Chester French. Helen received a nominal payment for the work she had already done, but the loss of the commission was a shock from which she never fully recovered.

Helen Farnsworth Mears died on February 17, 1916, in New York City. One of the country's most promising artists, her career cut short by an untimely death. In 1927, the General Federation of Women's Clubs-Wisconsin honored her memory by inaugurating an annual art competition for school children.

BIOGRAPHIC CREDIT: Oshkosh Public Museum

PHOTO CREDIT: George Grantham Bain Collection - Library of Congress, United States Prints and Photographs division: digital ID ggbain.21087