NYAB Event - Asa Ames "Occupation Sculpturing"

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At American Folk Art Museum
Media: Sculpture

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Asa Ames is a mysterious and tragic figure. The young sculptor died from consumption when he was 27 years, 7 months, and 7 days old. Though his own life was short, he immortalized family members and neighbors in the vicinity of Evans, Erie County, New York, in a legacy of twelve three-dimensional portraits of children and young adults carved between 1847 and his death in 1851. The individuation and ethereal solemnity of the carvings derive from sculptural traditions with a long lineage, from Roman portrait busts to marble statuary associated with the rural cemetery movement that was burgeoning in the 1840s. Ames's sense of himself as an artist may be implied in the Federal Census of 1850, in which his occupation is listed as "sculpturing." Details of Ames's own history remain shrouded in shadow, but the work of his hands illuminates the meaningful and personal nature of the lives he captured so beautifully in wood.

[Image: Asa Ames "Phrenological Head" (c.1850) Paint on wood 16 3/8 x 13 x 7 1/8 in. Photo by John Parnell.]

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