Image: Collections, Paris
The Georgia Museum of Art in Athens opens ‘Edmonia Lewis: Said in Stone’ this Saturday, bringing together approximately 30 sculptures by Edmonia Lewis from public and private collections in the United States and abroad. The exhibition runs from August 8, 2026, to January 3, 2027, and is presented as the first major retrospective exhibition of Lewis’s work, focusing on the range and reach of a sculptor whose career bridged several historical and artistic barriers.
Lewis, born in Greenbush, New York, in 1844, became the first sculptor of Black and Indigenous Mississauga descent to achieve international recognition, according to the Georgia Museum of Art. She began her career in Boston in 1863 and moved to Rome in 1866, where she joined leading American sculptors of her generation. The museum describes that move as part of her breaking international, racial and gender barriers, and the exhibition frames her career through that pioneering position in 19th-century sculpture.
The museum’s exhibition text notes that Lewis’s legacy endured in Black communities after her death in 1907, even as her contribution to American sculpture remained underrecognized for decades. Some of her major works were rediscovered later, while others are still lost. ‘Edmonia Lewis: Said in Stone’ gathers what the museum describes as the full range of her art alongside works by contemporaries and later artists she influenced, placing her life and work in context and emphasizing her command of marble.
Lewis’s sculptures are described in the museum material as vivid and naturalistic, with subjects that include abolitionists and social reformers, as well as figures linked to Indigenous identity, religion and mythology. The exhibition page cites works including ‘Indian Combat’, ‘Forever Free’, ‘Portrait of a Woman’, ‘Awake’, ‘Hiawatha’, ‘Hagar’, ‘The Old Indian Arrow Maker and His Daughter’ and ‘Portrait Bust of a Contadina’ among the artist’s featured sculptures. The header image on the museum site shows ‘Hagar’ from 1875, a marble work in the Smithsonian American Art Museum.
The Georgia Museum of Art says the exhibition was co-organized with the Peabody Essex Museum. The tour opens first at the Peabody Essex Museum from February 14 to June 7, 2026, then continues at the Georgia Museum of Art from August 8, 2026, to January 3, 2027, before traveling to the North Carolina Museum of Art from April 3 to July 11, 2027. The museum also notes support from the Terra Foundation for American Art, the Henry Luce Foundation, the Wyeth Foundation for American Art and the Traditional Fine Arts Organization.
The museum’s weekly brief described the exhibition as having been “ten years in the making” and said it had been called a “must-see” by The Art Newspaper and “an act of reclamation” by Art in America. Alongside the exhibition’s run, the Georgia Museum of Art lists related public programs beginning in August, including a toddler program, teen studio, community open house, family day, reception and curator talks. The museum notes that visitors should plan for a temporary road closure near the building and gives updated driving directions for access via River Road.
