Elisabet Ney, our intrepid sculptor from (what we now call) west Germany, raised a lot of eyebrows in her time. Reminder that ‘her time’ was 1833 to 1907. When still a teenager, Elisabet told her parents her heart was set on becoming a sculptor. They said no. She said yes. They said hell no. She said she would rather die than leave her art unfulfilled and immediately started a hunger strike. She was not messing around. Elisabet went weeks without food, resulting in her parents bringing in the local bishop to broker a deal that came with permission for her to attend art school in Munich*. In addition to her hunger strike, she got local tongues wagging by:
Stalling her husband for 10 years on his proposal of marriage.
~gasp~
Keeping her maiden name.
~clutches pearls~
Wearing pantaloons.
~bring me a fainting couch~
Riding a horse astride.
~uses couch~
Image: Detail of Lady Macbeth, wringing her hands, stained with imaginary blood. This is an unusual work for Ney in that it was not a commission and done entirely on her own dime. Image courtesy of the Smithsonian website.
Full view of the sculpture in plaster, courtesy of the Elisabet Ney Museum. The finished sculpture in marble is now in the Smithsonian.
*Munich and her schooling will be discussed in our next installment because that is a doozy too.
Missed previous posts? Read Part II here.
