biografia di Sarah Fisher AMES (1817-1901)

Birth place: Lewes, DE

Death place: Washington, DC

Addresses: Boston, 1868; NYC, 1869-; Wash., DC, 1901

Profession: Sculptor

Studied: Boston; Rome

Exhibited: PAFA, 1868 (bust of Abraham Lincoln); Paris Exposition,1900 (bust of General Grant)

Work: marble bust of Abraham Lincoln, Senate Wing, U.S. Capitol, Wash., DC

Comments: Born Sarah Clampitt, later married to the painter Joseph Alexander Ames (National Academician, see entry). She executed busts of many notables of the day, including one of Lincoln (modeled from life in 1862, bought by the Congress in 1868 and placed in the Senate wing of the Capitol). Ames was prominent in antislavery circles and served as a nurse during the Civil War.

Sources: G&W; Fairman, Art and Artists; Wilson, Lincoln in Portraiture; Gardner, Yankee Stonecutters; Rutledge, PA; NAD Cat. 1868/69 (G&W cited courtesy Mary Bartlett Cowdrey). More recently, see McMahan, Artists of Washington, D.C. 1796-1996; Petteys, Dictionary of Women Artists.