Emma Stebbins: Carving Out History

About This Event

Emma Stebbins made history in 1863 as the first woman to earn a public sculpture commission from the City of New York — the result was the Bethesda Fountain's Angel of the Waters, a piece in Central Park that millions of visitors have stood under without knowing who made it or what she had to overcome to get the job. This is the first museum exhibition ever devoted to her career, reuniting her work after more than a century scattered across collections.

The show brings together 13 of Stebbins's marble sculptures from across the US and Europe — neoclassical work she made while living in Rome from 1857 to 1870, studying alongside the era's other expatriate sculptors — plus paintings and archival material tracing her career and her social circle. One section centers on her bust of Charlotte Cushman, the renowned Shakespearean actress who was Stebbins's partner, alongside photographs and first editions of the biography Stebbins wrote of her after Cushman's death.

Worth knowing: it opens Oct 8, 2026 and runs through April 18, 2027 at the Driehaus Museum's Near North Side mansion — a setting that suits a 19th-century subject better than a typical white-box gallery would.