Emma Stebbins: Carving Out History Now Open at The Heckscher Museum

Huntington, NY — In the mid-19th century, American neoclassical sculptor Emma Stebbins (1815–1882) was a cultural force: reviewed in The New York Times, featured in Harper’s Bazaar, and the sculptor behind Central Park’s iconic Bethesda Fountain. Her studio in Rome was frequently visited by Grand Tour travellers and she was commissioned by prominent patrons of the time. Emma Stebbins was a widely lauded and successful artist, and yet her legacy has been lost to history.

This Fall, The Heckscher Museum of Art, in Heckscher Park, Huntington, reunites Stebbins’s oeuvre of neoclassical works for the first time ever in Emma Stebbins: Carving Out History (September 28, 2025 – March 15, 2026). The exhibition brings together 14 marble sculptures from across the United States and Europe and is the culmination of more than five years of sustained research by The Heckscher Museum’s Chief Curator, Karli Wurzelbacher, PhD. The search led to collaborations with public museums, private collections, and unexpected locations — including a long-lost work discovered in the hallway of the Belfast Central Library.

Many of the sculptures have been newly conserved and photographed for the first time and are displayed alongside a wealth of archival materials, offering an unprecedented opportunity to understand the range and ambition of an artist who, in her lifetime, was celebrated on both sides of the Atlantic.

Emma Stebbins: An artist of “firsts”
Born in New York City to a prominent family involved in the city’s business and cultural spheres, Stebbins trained in drawing and painting before moving to Rome in 1857 to pursue sculpture. There she joined The Jolly Bachelors, a lively expatriate circle of women artists, writers, and intellectuals founded by sculptor Harriet Hosmer, author Grace Greenwood (the first woman journalist for the New York Times), and actress Charlotte Cushman, who became Stebbins’s wife and life partner.
Stebbins was an artist of “firsts.” Her sculpture, The Lotus Eater, was the first male nude sculpted by an American female artist and she also produced one of the first—if not the only—neoclassical busts by a lesbian artist of her wife: her bust of Charlotte Cushman. Her sculptures Industry and Commerce are the earliest known depictions of American laborers in sculpture, and finally, her commission of the Bethesda Fountain established her as the first woman to complete a public art commission in New York City. Despite these achievements, her legacy has been largely forgotten.

“Bethesda Fountain is instantly recognizable, but the woman who created it has been hidden in plain sight,” says Heather Arnet, The Heckscher Museum’s Executive Director and CEO. “Emma Stebbins was acclaimed in her lifetime, then written out of history by the very institutions that should have preserved her legacy. This exhibition confronts that erasure and restores her voice as a pioneering queer artist of the 19th century.”

Reuniting Lost Works
Emma Stebbins: Carving Out History is the culmination of more than five years of sustained research and collaboration by The Heckscher Museum’s Chief Curator, Karli Wurzelbacher, PhD. Among the 14 marble sculptures on view is Stebbins’s intimate bust of Charlotte Cushman. The exhibition also reunites four works long thought to be lost, along with three that have not been publicly displayed in over a century. For example, The Lotus Eater (1863) and Sandalphon (1866), had spent decades in a private collection before being acquired by the Heckscher. Both underwent extensive conservation to clean discolored marble, repair damage — work made possible by a grant from the New York State Council on the Arts/Greater Hudson Heritage Network and the Robert David Lion Gardiner Foundation.

A section of the exhibition entitled, “Chosen Family” prominently displays Stebbins’s bust of Charlotte Cushman alongside archival photographs, rare works on paper by Stebbins and Hosmer, and first editions of Stebbins's posthumous biography of Cushman, reviving the lost legacy of this significant LGBTQ+ neoclassical artist.

"Organizing this exhibition took me from Rome and Belfast to Maine and Oregon, with many stops along the way,” says Wurzelbacher. “Tracing the history of Stebbins’s career required deep dives into historical newspapers and passenger manifests, as well as countless hours deciphering the spidery handwriting of nineteenth-century letters. Once we started looking, evidence of Stebbins’s importance and impact was everywhere, just waiting to resurface."

As part of this groundbreaking exhibition, The Heckscher Museum of Art brings Stebbins’s iconic Bethesda Fountain to Heckscher Park, Huntington, using Augmented Reality (AR). Visitors will be able to use their smartphones to experience the full monument in this new setting. The immersive experience will allow visitors to look thoughtfully at Stebbins’s magnificent work as they take a 360-degree virtual walk around the entire monument.

Finally, contemporary voices, including painter Martha Edelheit, and photographer Ricky Flores — whose iconic 1983 image captures the Bethesda Fountain during the Puerto Rican Day Parade — each present work in conversation with Stebbins’s sculptures. Their contributions, along with reflections by other contemporary artists in the accompanying exhibition catalog, underscore how Stebbins’s legacy continues to inspire new artistic interpretations.

Visit Heckscher.org/Stebbins for more information.