Powers, Hiram

Related Category: American Art: Biographies

1805–73, American sculptor, b. Woodstock, Vt. Having moved to Ohio, he made wax models for a Cincinnati museum. In 1835 he began his career as a sculptor, spending some time in Washington, D.C., where he modeled several portrait busts, including one of President Jackson (Metropolitan Mus.). In 1837 he went to Florence to study classical art. There he flourished to the end of his life. His Greek Slave (1843) became the most popular statue of the period in Europe and the United States. The second of several copies is in the Corcoran Gallery. His sculptures of Franklin and Jefferson are in the Capitol, Washington, D.C.

See S. E. Crane, White Silence (1972).