📍 University Circle

Arrested Gestures: Embracing Mystery in Edmonia Lewis’s “Indian Combat”

 

Start: October 7, 2025 12:00 pm
End: October 7, 2025 1:00 pm

Cleveland Museum of Art
Address:
11150 East Blvd.
Cleveland, OH – 44106-1797

Admission Price: Free

Those acquainted with the CMA’s collection of American art may be familiar with Edmonia Lewis’s Indian Combat (1868), which the artist, who studied at Oberlin College, completed two years after moving to Rome. With its spiraling composition and gracefully interlocking figures, Indian Combat immediately calls to mind famous examples of Italian Mannerism and may also quote from sculptural precedents in Classical antiquity and the Baroque period. But what other stories did the artist embed in this artwork, and how did it find its way to Cleveland more than a century after her death? This talk examines what is known about Lewis and her work and probes some of the mysteries she left behind in this unique and captivating sculpture.

 

Link to more info