Emma Stebbins: Carving Out History

Two marble figures from 1860 stand in for American labour: a miner and a sailor, dressed in the clothes of their day rather than as the gods and allegories neoclassical sculpture expected. Artnet calls them the first known renderings of American workers in sculpture. Their maker, Emma Stebbins, also made Central Park's Bethesda Fountain, then all but vanished from the record.

This is the first museum show devoted to her, organised by the Heckscher Museum on Long Island, where it opened in 2025. The Chicago run has 13 marbles, plus paintings and archives. One section belongs to Charlotte Cushman, the Shakespearean actress Stebbins called her wife. You get Stebbins's marble bust of her next to photographs and first editions of the biography Stebbins wrote after Cushman's death. Reviewing the first venue, Artnet called the show "a momentous rediscovery".

Come for one overlooked sculptor in full; the fountain that made her name stays in New York. Adult tickets are $23, and the museum stays open until 7pm on Wednesdays.