STU 0 Y G U IDE
ELI SAB ET
The University of Thxas Institute of Thxan Cultures at San Antonio
Study Guide for Use with the Audiovisual Program
Elisabet N ey
Artist, Woman, Texan
Dr. Marian L. Martinello
Emily Cutrer
Al Lowman
credits
Slide Show
Edward Devany / Scriptwriter
Ben King / Musician
John King / Musician
Office of Media Resources, UTSA / Audio Production
This project was made possible, in part, by a grant from
the 'llixas Committee for the Humanities, a state
program of the National Endowment for the Humanities.
Linda Lea / Project Director
Emily Cutrer / Researcher
Kathleen Gee / Humanities Advisor
Cathy Everhart / Project Assistant
Advisory Committee
Greg Davenport
Dr. John L. Davis
Jim Fisher
Oscar Garza
Al Lowman
George Parrino
Special thanks to the Elisabet Ney Museum :;;taff:
Jim Fisher / Supervisor
Sarah Bolz / Curator
Lynn Lichtenfels / Curator
ttl1983, The University of Texas
Institute of Texan Cultures at San Antonio
P.O. Box 1226, San Antonio, Texas 78294
Jack R. Maguire, Executive Director
Pat Maguire, Director of Development
International Standard Book Number 0-86701-014-2
This study guide was made possible, in part, by a grant from
the Houston Endowment, Inc.
Contents
Introduction 5
How to Show the Program 6
Audio Typescript 7
Learning Activities 10
Instructional Goals and Methods 11
Guided Imagery:
A Visit to Elisabet Ney's Studio 11
Interpreting Principles of Design 15
Humanities Detective Work:
Finding Clues in Primary Sources 19
Humanities Detective Work:
Finding Clues in Architecture 20
Piecing the Puzzle 22
Expanding the Puzzle 22
Background Information on Elisabet Ney 24
Background Information on Texas, 1870·1910 31
Vocabulary 33
Bibliography 34
Photo Credits 35
3
Introduction
Thday's junior and senior high school students
may appear to have little connection with Elisabet
Ney. She was born more than a century and a half
ago on another continent. She was a sculptor by
profession. Her name is more closely linked with
the pioneers of this state than with anyone today.
Yet this immigrant woman artist left a legacy for
today's student. Her studio and home, which she
named Formosa, still stands in the heart of the City
of Austin. It is now the Elisabet Ney Museum,
administered by the Austin Parks and Recreation
Department. Inside, standing side by side, are
Stephen F. Austin and Sam Houston. Four former
governors of this state are there. So, too, are patrons
of the arts and Confederate generals. These 'Iexans,
and the European kings, philosophers and scientists
they stand with, are the legacy Elisabet Ney left
in marble and plaster. Through her work we can
know so much more about any of these people than
just their date of birth and death: We can get a good
idea of their attitude, their personality and their
place in time.
This study guide and the audiovisual presenta­tion
bring these great people into the classroom
through their creator. Understanding the real
Elisabet Ney is no easy task, as you will see. But
through the historic photographs and the overview
of her life in the audiovisual program and by the
careful guidance offered in the learning activities,
students can use Ney's talent and determination to
get in touch with a piece of Texas history.
5
How to Show the Program
VISUALS
Slide Set-The slides are numbered in sequential
order for your convenience. 'Th project properly, the
number should appear in the upper right-hand cor­ner
of the mount on the side away from the screen.
Position the carousel in the "0" position to begin.
'lWenty-one supplementary slides (#120-140)
accompany the learning activities section of the
study guide. Instructions for use of these slides are
given in that section.
Filmstrip -The filmstrip may be projected through
any standard 35mm filmstrip projector. The strip
includes a "focus" frame at the beginning. Advance
the strip once to the next black frame and start
the sound.
Following the show is a series of five bright
yellow frames. These precede the supplementary
frames to be viewed in conjunction with the learning
activities section of the study guide.
AUDIO
Cassette-Half-track monaural recorded at 17/8 i.p.s.
Only one side of the tape is recorded. "Manual" ver­sions
use an audible beep to cue the operator for
frame changes. ''Automatic'' versions use an inaudi­ble
tone (at 50 Hz) to cue an automatic projector
for frame changes. An arrow on the tape label
indicates the approximate beginning of the supple­mentary
frames narration. Fast forward the tape
until the spool on the right reaches the arrow.
6
1
Audio Typescript
The following script is a transcription of the audio
portion of the slide show. The numbers refer to
frame numbers in the visual portion of the program.
Slashes indicate frame changes.
1. /Music/
2. Take a slow walk around the self·
portrait of sculptor Elisabet Ney.!
3. As your point of view changes, so
does the appearance of the artist.!
4. Miss Ney herself can be viewed in
the same way .. . by looking at her
the way others might have seen her'!
5. Imagine living in Texas in 1873, just
eight years after the Civil War
ended.!
6. Home is Hempstead, a rugged east
'Texas town some 40 miles northwest
of Houston.!
7. About 800 friends and neighbors
live nearby .. .!
8. and most of the townspeople have
a great deal in common .. .!
9. similar backgrounds, similar life­styles.!
10. Early in 1873 a 40-year-old German
woman appears in your midst.!
11. She moves into nearby Liendo, an
1,100-acre plantation that had been
one of the glories of the state./
12. But, like other plantations after the
Civil War, Liendo had fallen on hard
times.!
13. The woman introduces herself as
Miss Elisabet Ney; but a few weeks
later . . .!
14. she is joined by a Doctor Edmund
Montgomery and two infant boys.
The townspeople want to know if
"Miss" Ney and this Dr. Mont­gomery
are married!/
15. And why is the woman supervising
the plantation, riding astride her
horse in a most unladylike fashion?
Strange folks, indeed. Then the inci­dent
occurred.!
16. Where the townspeople gathered,
rumors spread that Ney and Mont­gomery
were seen burning their
first-born son in the field behind
their house./
17. The citizens of Hempstead were
startled by this couple's odd behav­ior
before, but this was too much!!
18. The child had contracted diphtheria,
a deadly and contagious disease.
Cremation of the body was neces­sary
for the safety of the entire
neighborhood.!
19. But still there were questions: Who
were these people? Where had they
come from? What were they doing?!
20. Within the boundaries of Liendo
were the two people who knew the
answers. But they kept pretty much
to themselves, occupied with their
own thoughts, activities and
memories'!
21. Elisabet Ney was born in 1833 in
Miinster, Westphalia, now a part of
West Germany.!
22. Her father, Adam Ney, was a suc­cessful
stonecarver, and he wel­comed
his daughter'S visits to his
studio.!
23. The young girl showed an interest
in sculpture, even though the field
had been virtually closed to women
because of their supposed physical
weakness.! '
24. At the age of 19, however, Ney's
determination paid off.!
25. She became the first woman to
study sculpture at the Munich
Academy of Art. Her second major
triumph came four years later.!
26. Master sculptor Christian Rauch
agreed to allow this talented young
woman to study under him in
Berlin.!
27. One of her most important early
works was a portrait bust of philos­opher
Arthur Schopenhauer.!
28. Numerous commissions from the
great people of the day followed .. .!
29. King George the Fifth of Hanover,!
30. Joseph Joachim, a renowned
violinist,!
31. Jakob Grimm, who, with his brother
Wilhelm, gave the world Snow
White, Cinderella and other classic
fairy tales. After many other com­missions
. . .!
32. she married the intellectual Dr.
Edmund Montgomery in 1863.!
33. But she kept the title "Miss" Ney
and never took her husband's last
name./
34. They were wed on the resort island
of Madeira in the Atlantic Ocean.!
35. Dr. Montgomery built a studio for
her there, so that she could continue
her work.!
36. One of her pieces during the next
two years exemplified their idealistic
relationship. Sursum .. . one inno­cent
leading another.!
37. But in 1865 she left her island studio
to sculpt important political leaders
who were to change the map of
Europe./
38. The first of these was Giuseppe
Garibaldi, Italy's great liberator and
unifier'!
39. Then came Baron Otto von
Bismarck, the "Iron Chancellor:'
who was determined to unite the
various states of Germany under the
control of his native Prussia.!
40. Next, she traveled to the lavish court
of King Ludwig the Second in
Munich, Bavaria, a state which was
important to Bismarck's plans.!
41. She may have been sent by
Bismarck to spy on Ludwig ... or
she may have simply wanted to
introduce herself to this acknowl­edged
patron of the arts.!
42. Whatever the reason, she spent the
next three years in her Munich
studio and the king's palace com­pleting
many pieces . . .!
43. including her most ambitious piece
to date: the full-length statue of
King Ludwig.!
44. Then, in 1871, she suddenly
departed Munich with Dr. Mont­gomery,
bound for New York. They
spent the next two years in the
United States looking for a place to
settle./
45. The purchase of Liendo Plantation
ended their search. The couple put
7
down roots amidst people who knew
little of their prestigious past.!
46. In this country Dr. Montgomery
discontinued his medical practice to
concentrate on writing scientific
and philosophical papers.!
47. Ney, on the other hand, turned away
from her professional career alto­gether.
The next 19 years she
devoted to developing Liendo Plan­tation
.. .!
48. and to rearing her surviving son,
Lorna As far as the past was con­cerned,
she said, she was busy now
with a more important art .. .!
49. the art of molding this flesh and
blood.!
50. During this time the couple was for­tunate
to receive a visit from Oran
Roberts. The educated and cultured
judge was campaigning for governor
in 1878 in the Hempstead area'!
51. Roberts was the kind of person Ney
and Montgomery could share their
past achievements with .. .!
52. a man who would open the door
through which Ney would return to
her life's work. After his successful
campaign .. .!
53. Governor Roberts brought the
sculptor to Austin in 1882 to discuss
plans for a new state capitol
building.!
54. The original plans called for
limestone walls. Ney hoped to sculpt
statues to adorn the proposed
building's exterior.!
55. The final plans, however, called for
red granite, which is difficult to
sculpt in fine detail. Ney had no part
in this significant project.!
56. The project closest to her heart also
ended in disappointment. In 1892
her son Lorne eloped with a Hemp­stead
girl, whom Ney considered
quite beneath him. She rarely men­tioned
him again.!
57. The World's Columbian Exposition
in Chicago was being built that same
year. Here was an opportunity for
Ney to make an impact.!
58. Texas leaders agreed to join with
other states and foreign countries
in building grand halls and pavilions
. . .!
59. to showcase art, culture and history.!
60. The Women's Committee of Texas
was responsible for commissioning
artworks celebrating Texas heroes
and history. At first, the committee
members .. .!
8
61. turned to well-known sculptors in
the East, such as Augustus Saint­Gaudens.
But the committee could
not meet the high fees these artists
commanded.!
62. Once again, Oran Roberts
remembered his friend on the east
Texas plantation.!
63. The former governor influenced the
committee to approach Miss Ney
.. . and she responded eagerly and
professionally,1
64. offering to produce plaster statues
of Sam Houston . . .!
65. and Stephen F. Austin at cost. Her
only stipulation .. .!
66. was that both works would later be
rendered in marble and placed in
the Texas Capitol. Before the con­tracts
had even been signed,!
67. she contacted descendants of the
heroes by letter .. .!
68. and met with them in person. She
asked about every aspect of the two
heroes' lives that would enable her
to portray them in clay and marblal
69. The work on the Houston and
Austin statues gave Ney a reason to
do something she had hoped to do
for years . . . build a studio in
Austin.!
70. Completed in 1892 and named
Formosa, it was a sculptor's dream.!
71. Her design included a trap door to
the clay storage bins in the base­ment
.. .!
72. large windows that flooded her
workspace with northern light .. .!
73. and a sleeping loft with an escape
hatch to the roof where she often
slept. Miss Ney considered fresh air
necessary for good health.!
74. In this new environment of Austin,
Ney thrived on the growing appre­ciation
for her artistic talents .. .!
75. and the affection of her many
friends of all ages.!
76. Yet, even though she was invited to
social gatherings, her acquaintances
often viewed her as an eccentric .. .!
77. climbing that steep ladder to the
roof each night . . .!
78. setting up tents on the ground for
her husband's visits from Liendo
.. .!
79. being rowed around her backyard
lake in a bateau . . .!
80. wearing clothes not considered
appropriate for a woman, though
they allowed her freedom of move­ment
for her work.!
81. She soon became a legend ... as
much for her extraordinary behav­ior
and charismatic personality as
for her abilities as a sculptor.!
82. But this legendary woman was
unable to convince The University
of Texas at Austin to establish an
Academy of Fine Arts. It simply
wasn't yet timl".!
83. Perhaps this was because Texas was
still a frontier. Its citizens were too
busy settling their land, building
their fortunes . . .!
84. and establishing their political
system. The few people who had
time for art . . .!
85. were satisfied with established opin­ions,
resources and schools found
back East. It was a difficult time for
the arts in Texas.!
86. In fact, what little money a sculptor
could make usually came from com­missions
for large public monu­ments
honoring historic figures and
events.!
87. Most ofthese commissions went not
to Ney, but to simple stonecutters
_ .. or sculptors from the East.!
88. Ney was successful, however, in
receiving commissions for portrait
busts, including many great leaders
of the state, like William Lambdin
Prather .. .!
89. Governor Joseph D. Sayers .. .!
90. and Governor Lawrence Sullivan
Ross.!
91. Even visiting dignitaries such as
William Jennings Bryan took the
time to sit for Miss Ney.!
92. And, at the age of 68, Ney was
finally chosen . . .!
93. to sculpt a public monument to
Confederate General Albert Sidney
Johnston.!
94. While she and the committee for
this work often disagreed on the
approach and the specifics of the
piece .. .!
95. Ney exhibited extreme patience and
endurance and completed the com­mission
in her own competent
fashion'!
96. That spirit of independence and
confidence is the same spirit that
some condemned in the character
Elisabet Ney. Even today, some
consider her a success in her field;
others feel her potential remained
unrealized.!
97. But how did she see herself?!
98. Her letters to friends and acquain­tances
describe a multitude of
views.!
99. Th some, she portrayed herself as a
wronged or ignored artist living
among barbarians'!
100. Th others, she sounded full of devo­tion
to her adopted 'Iexas and self­confident
of its appreciation for her.!
101. But letters are written for other
people to read, just as commissioned
works of art are executed for others
to view.!
102. One of Ney's greatest works she
chose to do for herself. It was com-pleted
in 1906, just one year before
her death. Perhaps it speaks for her.
Lady Macbeth .. .!
103. a figure which threatens to walk
right off its earthly base.!
104. Her hands are clenched in pain . . .!
105. and the strain in her neck suggests
anguish.!
106. But is the anguish in Lady
Macbeth?!
107. or in Ney herself ... over her first­born
son's death . . .!
108. over her younger son's flight from
her grasp .. .!
109. over the frustrations of Liendo Plan­tation
.. .!
110. or over the monuments she was
never asked to do? She had these
heartbreaks and failures . . .!
111. but she had immortalized kings and
warriors .. .!
112. scientists and philosophers .. .!
113. and the great heroes of 'Iexas.!
114. She had carved out her own stan­dards
and fiercely lived by them.!
115. And she breathed life into clay and
stone that would last for genera­tions.!
116. music!
117. music!
118. music.
9
Learning Activities ___________________ _
'lb the present-day viewer, Elisabet Ney's person­ality
is elusive. Many of her personal papers have
been lost. Those that exist sometimes seem contra­dictory.
She did not write about the process of her
art in an explanatory way. Her biographers find
many missing links in the puzzle of her life. The
most tangible evidence of Elisabet Ney's creative
and cultural qualities is found in her artworks and
her artifacts. And they are telling.
As products of her creativity, Elisabet Ney's
sculpture contains more clues to her thoughts and
values than the bits and pieces of legend which color
her life story. The environment she chose to have
built for her work and the material things she
placed within it are artifacts rich in meaning about
her needs, wants and values.
This study guide aims to help students uncover
the person of Elisabet Ney by interpreting her
sculpture and her working environment. Students
are guided to do humanities detective work by
finding clues in artworks, letters and artifacts
which, when pieced together, offer answers to the
question: Who was Elisabet Ney? The activities
contained in this guide lead students through
experiences in guided seeing to encourage them to
make their own interpretations of what they find.
Perceptive seeing does not seem to be an innate
capability in humans. Even given normal vision,
natural or corrected, not all people see equally well.
What we discern in a yellowed letter, photograph,
painting or sculpture is determined by the percep­tual
tools we own and use. These tools are wrought
and refined through experiences in seeing the
wholes and parts of what we look at from different
perspectives. The major tools are the skills of
finding patterns, analyzing parts and seeking new
patterns in the subject in view. This involves
knowing how to recenter or redirect our attention
to search for clues that may offer answers to our
interpretive questions about the subject. It also
involves knowing how to synthesize our bits and
pieces of findings to see them in the larger context
of a meaningful pattern. When researching an
individual, the pattern is the person.
Although young people are exposed to many
visual forms of communication with increasing
frequency, especially through the media of tele­vision,
motion pictures and photography, many tend
to look at images, usually presented in rapid suc­cession,
without really seeing. Even though they are
experienced in viewing images, they often have not
had opportunities to study anyone for very long.
10
Without guidance in learning how to look in order
to see more than is apparent at first glance, it is
difficult for students to discover meanings in other
people's images or to develop their own imagery.
Imagery is the stuff of perception. It is the means
by which concepts are formed and developed. It has
been credited by Einstein, Kekule, and Watson and
Crick, among others, with enabling their respective
discoveries of the Theory of Relativity, the structure
of the benzene ring and the way amino acids com­prise
the DNA molecule. Imagery is as important
to inquiry in the humanities and the arts as it is
to the sciences. Indeed, it is central to creative prob­lem
solving in all fields of study and everyday living.
Our images enrich how and what we understand
and communicate. The phrase "Do you see what I
mean?" is illustrative.
Ability to form, hold and manipulate images in
the mind's eye is honed by guided concrete experi­ences
in seeing. Artforms and artifacts are visual
resources for learning how to see because they are
rich in meaning and varied in form and content.
The activities in this guide are intended to offer
students tools for seeing more fully and inter­preting
what they see. Elisabet Ney is the subject
of the complete set of learning activities. Each one
focuses on her artworks and artifacts to help
students detect what they tell about her. It is hoped
that students will apply the same type of interpre­tive
inquiry to humanities detective work into the
lives of other historic people and their times.
•••••••••••••••••••• Learning Activities
Instructional Goals and Methods
The main purpose of these learning activities is
to help students to interpret Ney's sculpture, pos­sessions,
and the architecture and interior design
of her studio to find answers to these questions:
What was Elisabet N ey communicating
through her art?
What do her sculpture and studio tell about
her values, her background and her person?
Defined in terms of studying Elisabet Ney's art­works
and artifacts, the specific instructional goals
of these activities are to develop students' skills of-
1. using imagery to place themselves in
Elisabet Ney's environment at the turn of
the 20th century.
2. interpreting Elisabet Ney's ideas about her
subjects by finding implied meanings in the
way she used the various principles of
design in her sculpture.
3. finding clues to Ney's thinking about her
sculpture of Sam Houston in her notebook
drafts of letters.
4. finding clues to Ney's aesthetic and per­sonal
values, needs and interests in her
sculpture and her studio.
Extended activities are offered to guide students
in viewing and interpreting-
5. their own image of people, additional
sculptures by Elisabet Ney; Ney's letters on
her Stephen F. Austin statue, the architec­ture
and interior design of buildings in
their environment, and comparative
studies of Ney and other Thxas women of
her era.
The audiovisual presentation on Elisabet N ey
introduces students to the artist by giving an
overview of her life and work. That presentation is
followed by supplementary frames in the filmstrip
or slide show and accompanying narration on the
audiotape to involve students in the first, second
and fourth learning activities in this study guide.
The narration raises questions to guide students'
thinking about the images projected on the screen.
It also offers some responses. All narration is repro­duced
in the guide for the teacher's reference. Dis­cussion
questions appear at the end of each activity
to promote students' reflection of their experience.
The teacher may conduct part or all of each learning
activity using the visuals without the narration.
The third activity is designed to promote class
Guided Imagery
discussion. Therefore, rather than provide taped
narration, the guide presents questions for the
teacher to ask. In this activity the focus is on inter­preting
drafts of letters which appear in Ney's
journal. Sample responses in italic appear imme­diately
after each question.
There is no required sequence for use of these
activities. Although the order in which they are
presented may be an appropriate one for many
classes, each activity is self-contained. Thachers are
encouraged to use those which are best suited to
the needs of their students and to modify and
sequence them accordingly.
Guided Imagery:
A Visit to Elisabet Ney's Studio
Good novels make characters come alive in the
mind's eye of the reader. Memorable presentations
of historical persons and events are distinguished
by their ability to guide our imagery. This is a
reason for the general appeal of well-written his­torical
fiction. It presents factual content in ways
that generate mental pictures which are clear,
sustained and often dynamic.
Everyone has imagination, but ability to imagine
develops through use. Our mental images increase
in clarity and completeness with practice. No mat­ter
how much help a writer or speaker offers to
guide our imagery, the images we generate will be
limited or enhanced by our abilities to form them.
Good readers and listeners can form images that
are rich in substance, detailed and vibrant. Poor
readers and listeners often cannot.
Experiences in guided imagery are capable of
increasing the power of the mind's eye to see and
to remember. Visual memory is lasting because
graphic recollections are stored like images on a
videotape. Those storage processes are mental skills
which can improve with practice.
Knowing a historic figure's name, birthdate, loca­tion
and achievements is useful, but that informa­tion
does not necessarily help us know the individ­ual's
person. Exercises in guided imagery help
students sense the humanness of people who lived
before them in the same way that a good novelist
makes characters come alive in the reader's imagi­nation.
Such exercises also teach students how to
use imagery to see, understand and remember
more of who and what they experience.
The following activity in guided imagery is
designed to help students imagine themselves
relocated in time and place so they can visit Elisabet
11
Learning Activities •••••••••••••••••••••
Guided Imagery
N ey in her studio on a special occasion: the time
she showed her sculpture of Sam Houston to the
general public.
Learning Activity
Introduce this experience in guided imagery by
telling the students that-
After Elisabet Ney had completed her statue
of Sam Houston for the 1893 World's Fair in
Chicago, she opened her studio to the public.
She wanted local people to view the work
before it was sent to Chicago.
Darken the room. Start the projector (at frame
#120) and taped narration.
Supplementary Frames
120/Austin, c. 1890
Imagine yourself in Austin in 1893. It is a
sunny and warm Sunday in May. Everyone in
town has been talking about Elisabet Ney's
sculpture of Houston because it will soon
stand in the 'Thxas Pavilion at the World's
Columbian Exposition in Chicago. People are
saying that the statue is important because
it will represent 'Thxas and 'Thxans to people
who visit the fair. Like others who will be
visiting Miss Ney's studio today, you are
dressed in your best attire. For days your
brothers and sister have talked about noth­ing
else.
121/Photo of girl, c. 1890
Your older sister has spent a great deal of
time daydreaming. She'll be riding with the
neighbors today, so that your father can take
the rest of the family in his buggy. You guess
that she's been wondering about whom she
might meet on the trip.
This morning she made a fuss about which
bonnet she should wear-the one with white
silk flowers or the plain straw bonnet. You're
glad she decided to wear the blue gingham
dress. Perhaps you like this dress best because
you know what great care your sister took in
making it.
122/Photo of bays, c. 1890
12
Your brothers are excited about the trip,
too. They've never visited an artist's studio,
and they wonder what they'll find today. You
watch your mother from across the room as
she straightens their black bows. And as she
passes along a last-minute warning to stay out
of mischief, you remember back a few years
when she used to say the same to you.
12S/Buggy, c. 1890
Your father has hitched the white mare to
the buggy and driven it out front where he
and your mother are waiting. He calls to the
house for you and your brothers to hurry on
out. Eagerly you climb into the buggy and find
a place beside your mother. Your father snaps
the reins, and you feel the buggy jerk forward
a bit as it pulls away from the house. You're
off to Elisabet Ney's studio-the place she
named Formosa.
You've heard that Formosa means beautiful.
You hope that what you find there fits the
name. You feel curious and excited to be doing
something besides chores and schoolwork.
The sun's rays warm your back. You catch the
sweet scent of honeysuckle on the breeze.
Everyone in the buggy is laughing and talking
about the pretty day and what you are about
to see. You wonder how Elisabet Ney will look
close up. You've only seen her from a distance.
Some of the stories people tell about her make
her sound strange. You daydream about her
during most of the 16-mile trek from your
home in the center of Austin to Ney's studio.
The hour and a half in the buggy passes
quickly.
124/Formosa, a distant view of the studio
It's about two dclock when you arrive at
Formosa. A few buggies are hitched to posts
outside the grounds. You see gnarled live oak
trees dotting the land in front of the building.
Their leaves rustle gently in the spring breeze.
The small building is set far back from the
road. From your seat in the buggy you can see
that it is very different from buildings in town.
The entryway looks like one of those Greek
temples you've seen in drawings. A mourning
dove calls from a high limb. It's followed by
a call from your father to hop out of the buggy.
Obediently, you join the other members of
your family.
People are standing outside Formosa. Your
parents recognize some and call to them. But
your attention is focused on the building. You
notice the rough texture of its limestone
blocks. The large front door is set back from
the pillars supporting the portico. You can see
•••••••••••••••••••• Learning Activities
niches built into the wall on each side of the
door. You guess that Miss Ney had them built
to hold statues.
"Well, let's see Sam Houston;' your father
says. You move forward, following as he
escorts your mother through the open front
door.
Just inside the entryway there's a table
holding a small basket where your father
deposits five quarters. Miss Ney is charging
each visitor 25¢ to see the statue. Your father
says that the money is for the Women's
Auxiliary that commissioned the work.
l 25/Interior of the studio with Sam Houston on display,
front view
Finally you're inside Formosa. The first
thing you notice is the brilliant light that
streams in from the row of hIgh windows
lining the wall directly opposite you. The room
seems large. There's little furniture in it,
mostly sculptures on pedestals along the
limestone walls.
This is a workroom, you can tell, because
there are boards and tools in view. It's differ­ent
from your home where the workroom is
outside and tools are not used in the house.
In the center of the room, standing on a
pedestal, a large white figure commands your
attention. It is the statue of Sam Houston. He
seems as large as life. You're surprised. You
expected a smaller statue. You look up at the
smooth white plaster face to see a firm jaw,
determined mouth and eyes that seem to be
looking for something, piercing the wall and
gazing over the countryside.
l26/Close-up of face
Still looking at the face, you walk around
the statue to see a side view. From the curly
hair swept back from his high forehead, your
eye traces the statue's profile over a slight
bump in his forehead, across thick eyebrows
that frame a long slender nose. A cleft chin
juts out from under a squarely set mouth. He
looks like a determined man, you think.
127/Ney, c. 1890
"And what do you think of my General
Houston?" A voice with a heavy German accent
breaks into your thoughts. You turn toward it.
There is a woman who seems older than your
mother. Her clear eyes look directly into yours.
The white lacey collar of her blouse is deco-
Guided Imagery
rated with a dark green velvet ribbon. The
color complements her auburn hair. You notice
it is curly and much shorter than your mother's
long tresses. ''Well, what do you think?" the
voice repeats.
l28/Houston statue, fu,lllength
You feel unsure and a little scared, but you
turn to look at the statue and mumble some­thing
about the statue looking like it could
come alive at any moment.
"Good;' Elisabet Ney responds. You detect
a twinkle in her eye as she leans toward you
to whisper: "You have a good sense of art. I
meant to make him live again. Some say that
I have made him too young. Others think that
he should not be dressed in buckskin. Do you
know why? Because it is the practice to make
statues of famous men showing them in long
frock coats and high collars, not their actual
clothes. But I have studied your General
Houston differently from the way you do in
school. I have studied his personality and his
times and his leadership. This is how I see
him-young and vital and heroic, dressed in
buckskin with an Indian blanket over his shoul­der.
He was a frontiersman before he served
as President of the 'Thxas Republic That is how
I see him:'
"But how do you know what he looked like
when he was young?" you ask.
"The same way you imagine how you will
look when you're older-only in reverse. I took
the basic shape of his features from portraits
that his daughter kindly loaned me. They were
made when he was an older man. I took away
wrinkles and shadows of age. But I kept the
characteristics of his personality as I under­stand
them. This statue is my image of General
Houston. It presents the picture I have of him.
What picture do you have of your parents or
your best friend when you think about them?
That picture is based on what you know and
how you feel about them. Every sculpture I
make tells of my feelings for the subject. Those
who know how to see will find my meanings.
I think that you can see'
You feel her gentle hand on your shoulder
as she turns to talk to another visitor. You look
up at Sam Houston and wonder if you really
can see as well as Miss N ey thinks you can.
Your father calls you back to the family
group. You hear the family talking about the
13
Learning Activities ••••••••••••••••••• _
Guided Imagery
sculpture all the way home. But your thoughts
are on the pictures of people you have in your
mind's eye: your mother, father, friends-and
yourself.
'fum tape off and room lights on.
Questions for Discussion
14
1. How did you see yourself in Austin in 1893?
2. How many people did you pretend were in
your imaginary family?
3. What was the ride to Formosa like?
4. What stands out in your mind about
Elisabet Ney's studio, Formosa?
5. What do you remember about the statue
of Sam Houston?
6. How would you describe Elisabet Ney?
7. How did you feel when Miss Ney was talk­ing
to you? Why?
8. What else would you have liked to talk with
Miss Ney about?
9. What do you think about her statement
that what you know about people and how
you feel about them influences how you see
them? (Discussion of this question should
solicit illustrations of the students' ideas.)
Extending Activities
1. Students may be asked to list questions
they would like to ask Elisabet Ney. A
composite list can be made for the class to
serve as guides for research. Individuals or
small groups can share their questions with
the whole class. Students may enjoy role
playing a conversation with Elisabet Ney
during which their questions are asked
and answered.
2. Class discussion can be focused on the
question: What influences our mental
images of people? Students can apply this
issue to their own imagery in a homework
assignment which instructs them to over­lay
an 8x10" studio portrait photograph of
a person they know well with a sheet of
tracing paper. Using soft colored pencils,
pastels, charcoal or other drawing medium,
students can trace the facial features that
are dominant in their own mental image
of the person. Students should be encour­aged
to abstract the image rather than
attempt to create a representational
drawing having photographic characteris­tics.
The essence of the person should be
sought in the drawing. The activity should
encourage the students to consider serious­ly
what influences our mental images of
other people.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Learning ~tiv"ies
Principles of Design
Interpreting Principles of Design
in Elisabet Ney's Sculpture
Sculpture is different from other types of art in
its form and the process of its making. Unlike two­dimensional
artforms, sculpture does not imply
mass and space: these are actual in the three­dimensional
work. We experience in sculpture many
visual elements which are also experienced in two­dimensional
artforms. But the sculptor can cause
available light in the place where the sculpture is
standing to highlight its features rather than
represent light with pencil or paint. The sculptor
can define the substance of line, shape and texture
in the material used, to mold or carve the form in
ways that we experience them in everyday life. The
viewer need not infer their three-dimensional pres­ence.
They can be felt directly because they are
actual. Sculpture physically intrudes into our space
more than two-dimensional artforms can. We must
walk around it and be aware of it even if we choose
not to give it much attention. Even so, its creation
is guided by the same principles of design that
apply to other types of expression in the visual arts.
The study of Elisabet Ney's works offers oppor­tunities
for students to heighten their awareness
of ways to look at sculpture and observe how Ney
used principles of design. A brief description of each
is given with specific reference to sculpture.*
Scale: the size of the statue or bust in relation to
the viewer.
Proportion: how the size of body or facial parts in
the sculpture complement one another, whether life
size, larger than life or somehow distorted.
Variety Within Unity: the main idea that the sculp­ture
communicates about the person depicted and
the separate parts of the work which help to convey
that idea.
Repetition and Rhythm: the lines and shapes which
are repeated so that the eye is drawn to them and
the viewer experiences the patterns they make.
Balance: the symmetrical or asymmetrical place­ment
of the parts of the sculpture to give a sense
of stability or movement.
Directional Forces: the lines that move the viewer's
eye in vertical, horizontal or diagonal directions to
communicate, respectively; poise, rest, tension.
• DefinititmS are adapted from Duane Preble, Artforrns (San Ji1rancisco: Canfield
Press, 1978), pp. 96·110.
Emphasis and Subordination: the shapes and lines
that capture, hold and direct the viewer's attention
toward some parts of the sculpture and away from
other parts.
Contrast: the presence of opposing lines and
shapes, light and dark areas, rough and smooth
textures, open and closed spaces that call attention
to one another because they contradict each other.
Learning Activity
The following activity is intended to draw
attention to the principles of design in Elisabet
Ney's sculpture and to guide the students in inter­preting
the meanings N ey communicates through
her art. The activity can be introduced by a
discussion of Shakespeare's Macbeth. Students who
are unfamiliar with the play and character of Lady
Macbeth may better understand Ney's sculpture if
given an introduction to viewing the artwork. Sug­gested
prefatory comments are offered here:
William Shakespeare's Macbeth is a play
about desire for power. Macbeth was a lord
in Scotland, related to King Duncan, in the
early 17th century. In the play; when he
returns home victorious from wars to protect
Scotland, he meets some witches who predict
he will become king. His ambitious wife Lady
Macbeth convinces him of the need to murder
King Duncan.
Knowing nothing of their plot, the king
visits their castle. Lady Macbeth, with knife
in hand, goes to the place where the king is
sleeping. Just as she is about to murder
Duncan, she notices that, in sleep, he looks like
her father. She can't carry out the plan and
returns to her husband.
Macbeth is now convinced the murder must
be committed, so he stabs Duncan. He returns
to Lady Macbeth with the bloody knife. She
takes it to the room where the king's guards
are still asleep and wipes the blood on them
to make them look guilty of the murder.
The scheme works, and Macbeth becomes
King of Scotland. But he and Lady Macbeth
are both plagued by guilt and the fear that the
truth will be found out.
In Act V of the play; Lady Macbeth enters
sleepwalking. She is having a nightmare about
the crime. She rubs her hands in an effort to
wipe the king's blood from them. The·lines she
speaks reveal her anguish, her disdain for
15
Learning Activities_ •••••••••••••••••• _
Principles of Design
Macbeth's earlier reluctance to kill the king,
and her recollection of the bloody deed:
"Out, damned spot! Out, I say! One,
two, why, then 'tis time to do it.
- Hell is murky! - Fie, my lord, fie!
A soldier, and afeerd? -What need
we fear who knows it, when none
can call our power to account?
- yet who would have thought the
old man to have had so much blood
in him?"
Darken the room. Start the projector (at frame
#129) and taped narration.
Supplementary Frames
l29/Full figure of Lady Macbeth
16
From her head to the base she walks on,
Lady Macbeth is 5 feet 101f2 inches tall. If you
stood next to this statue, how large would
Lady Macbeth seem to be in comparison to
you? Elisabet Ney was about 5 feet 2 inches
tall. How does the size of Lady Macbeth com­pare
to the size of Elisabet Ney? (Pause) Ney
made Lady Macbeth quite a bit larger than
herself. She seems to have wanted her Lady
Macbeth to be larger than life, more imposing
than she was.
Look at the statue's parts: head, arms,
hands, the length from her waist to the base
of the statue. Does she look like a normal per­son
might look? (Pause) Lady Macbeth's body
parts are in normal proportion for a woman
of her size. Notice the position of her hands.
They're clenched. Her head is tilted away from
her hands. Remember that, in Shakespeare's
play, Lady Macbeth walks in her sleep after
she helped kill King Duncan. She was troubled
by the murder. By tilting her head to one side
and the arms and clenched hands to the other,
Ney helps us feel a sense of tension.
By repeating lines and shapes, Ney rein­forced
that sense of tension in the figure.
Look for repeated lines and shapes in the
statue. (pause) Several are repeated, especially
the diagonal line of the left arm across the
body and the drape of Lady Macbeth's gar­ment
across her form. Another repetition is
in the vertical fall of her hair and the similar
drape of the folds in her skirt. Still another
is the tilt of her head and the line of her left
arm. Ney used these repetitions to direct the
eye to those body parts that most clearly con­vey
inner conflict and despair.
Lady Macbeth's right foot bears most of
her weight. Imagine that Lady Macbeth steps
off the base. How would she move? In which
direction? (pause) It's not hard to visualize her
moving, walking in a circle as she tries to rub
the blood of the murdered king off her hands.
Elisabet Ney created a sense of movement in
the statue by the way she positioned Lady
Macbeth's hands, arms, head and feet.
1 SO/Full figure of Sam Houston
Notice what a different feeling you get
when looking at Ney's statue of Sam Houston.
He stands straight and tall. Ney used vertical
lines in this work to give us a sense of poise
in the man.
131/Lady Macbeth's upper torso-face, hands
N ey aIso used contrasts to make us feel ten­sion
in the figure. How many contrasts can you
find? (Pause) See how the smooth areas of the
face, hands and torso call your attention to
them and to the tense position of the body's
upper part. The relatively rough texture of the
hair contrasts with the smooth skin to frame
the face. The open area between the wrists
contrasts with the closed area of the clenched
hands. The sculpture contains few open areas,
giving a closed, weighted, oppressed feeling.
Lady Macbeth seems to be anchored by the
weight of her troubles.
132/Ney's life mask and Macbeth's face
On the right is a life mask, made by
Elisabet Ney by encasing her: own face in
plaster. She left just enough space at the base
of her nose to breathe while the plaster was
hardening. After the mask was removed from
her face, she molded the tip of the nose.
In a letter to a friend, Ney once wrote
about her feelings toward the statue of Lady
Macbeth. She said,
Though I had not come to this
country to work in my art again,
I took it up at last as a consola­tion
- only I experienced deeper
and more cruel disappointment.
And my present work, Lady
Macbeth, comes as a result of these
experiences.
Can you describe some of the disappointing
experiences in Elisabet Ney's life? (Pause) Do
you see a physical resemblance between Lady
Macbeth's face and Elisabet Ney's life mask?
(Pause) Do you think Ney intended Lady
Macbeth to be a symbolic statue of the
sculptor herself?
'furn projector and recorder off and lights on for
discussion of the last question.
Extending Activity
Individual students or small groups may be
assigned sculptures by Elisabet Ney to analyze in
terms of her use of the principles of design referred
to in the introduction to the above activity. The
principles of design may be duplicated for distribu­tion.
Students may apply them to Ney's sculptures
to determine how and why she used them. Students
may also be asked to compare Ney's works with
statues by other sculptors based on an examination
of each artist's use of these principles of design. A
class visit to the Elisabet Ney Museum in Austin
would offer students first-hand experience with her
works for this purpose.
17
Learning Activities
Clues in Primary Sources
Mrs. Williams, Houstons' daughter.
Dear Madam,
No doubt you have followed with deep interest the
development of the proJ·ect of the L. Managers at Austin
in regard to a statue of your illustrious father and as
this is now decided and have promissed to execute the
statue, I beg for your kind assistance. I wish the various
portraits those considered good & less efficient; all will
tell me something; I wish to know if I can have his sword
and would like to know if you or some of the family keep
as relics some of his wearing apparel of the early Texas
time.- Could you collect all this for me? and what you can­not
conveniently get please tell me about it & how & when
to get it and could you have it send to me with as little
loss of time as possible. Time is so short & while the studio
at Austin is in progress of erection I must make the
sketches at once here.
Mrs. Williams
My dear Madame.
I suppose you have ere this expected to be reminded
of your kind promise to aid me to accomplish the beautiful
task I have undertaken in executing our great heroes
stature. The builders have so sadly disapointed me that
I am only now in regard to time prepared to comence
work on it. I decided to model your il. father's statue first.
My sketch has been finished sometime ago and I wish you
could see it. I have choose the age of 40 and hope to
characterise in him the statesman as well as the soldier.
If you will entrust now to me the sword, belt and all the
photographs which are originals, you will make me your
greatest debtor. Have you had opportunity to do something
in regard to the miniature in Galveston?
I particularly wish for good portraits of his middle
age or younger years.
Then I wish you would be so kind as to communicate
to your brothers that I have comenced the statue and
would like very much to have them visit my studio at H.P.,
while I am at work. I shall be at leisure after 4, in the
afternoon but also at an other time if a previous arrange­ment
can be made.
When I saw the other day Mr. McCarty I forgot to
inquire which resources he knows for getting aquainted
with the Cherokee costume and what for a Mexican
blanket. I wish the atire of my statue to be a combina­tion,
such as I think the original himself might have
choose.
Letters and anything else address Elisabet Ney Hyde
Park.
What do you think about the various articles written
by Daniel Clayborne? No doubt they will awake the
interest for our statues and before long Texas will have
to bear no longer reproach for such a neglect now true.
Very often appear before my minds eyes the few hours
I lived with you & yours in Independence. It is a harmo­nious,
lovely picture I carried with me, never to fade.
When may I hope to greet you here? I am sorry I can­not
offer to you the hospitality I received from you I have
18
no room to make you as comfortable, as my new building
is still damp?
Kindly let me have all you can procure for me soon;
and the sword as soon as possible.-Should you have dis­covered
the black umbrella I left at your house, if it is
not much trouble, you would oblige me by adding it to
the other articles.
His excelcy
Judge Terrell
Minister Plenipotentiary
Turkey
April 12
Since years it has been a wish of mine to meet you,
and to profit by the enjoyment of your culture but it never
so happened that during the few short visits at our mutual
friend Gov. Roberts you would be in reach.
I know you are now at the verge of leaving the country
for a series of years. & your time is measured.
And if I nevertheless write these lines with the hope
that you will give a few moments to me you will find in
my explanation the motive for to be important enough
to warrant this seeming intrusion.
You have personally known the hero whose statue is
nearly completed in clay General S.H. I had to work
entirely from pictures and I need the opinion of the most
cultured to be assured how near I succeeded with my task
to representing the pioneer of our great state, the daunt­less
soldier, the farseeing statesman. The unconventional
pioneer of our great state.
Of the few whose opinion I would value most none will
exceed yours.-
It is only a sho'l"t time before the statue will be molded
& with this disappear from view for some weeks.
If you therefore will make it possible to come to my
studio in Hyde Park before this week is ended, you confer
a great favor on me & the Lady managers of the W.F.A.
whose idia of honoring this the hero have been so indefat­ignable
at work to secure the execution of same
Sincerely yours
Elisabet Ney
B
•••••••••••••••••••• Learning Activities
Humanities Detective Work:
Finding Clues in Primary Sources
Artists are humanities researchers. Their works
are based on the synthesis of their human expe­riences.
When they work to create an image of a
historic person or event, they must research their
subject in ways similar to those used by historians.
Then, from factual data as well as inferencE; they
create their impressions of the subject's essence.
Their synthesized image is communicated through
their art.
When Elisabet Ney was commissioned to sculpt
Sam Houston, she sought information about the
man. Some of her letters and notebook entries con­tain
clues to her thinking about Sam Houston and
the creation of his statue.
The following learning activity offers students
an experience in interpreting primary source mate­rials:
letters, notebook entries and photographs.
Copies of the letters and notebook entries may be
distributed to students. A full-length view of the
Houston statue (supplementary frame number 130)
may be projected during class discussion.
The activity is presented as a teacher-led discus­sion
to encourage students to share their percep­tions
of the letters' contents.
IAlYrary of the Daughters of the Republic ofThxas at the Alamo
Clues in Primary Sources
Learning Activity
1. After reading the draft letters to Mrs.
Williams, students may look for and highlight parts
that offer answers to these questions. (Highlighted
parts may be numbered to correspond with ques­tions
for ready reference.)
1.1 What is Elisabet Ney asking Mrs.
Williams to send her?
(Portraits of Sam Houston, his sword, belt,
clothing worn at the time of the Texas Republic.)
1.2 How does she say she will characterize
Houston in the statue?
(At about age 40, as soldier and statesman.)
1.3 What does she say she will make before
beginning work on the statue?
(Sketches of the likeness.)
1.4 What is she concerned about?
(Time to meet her deadline.)
1.5 What did she forget to ask Mr. McCar­ty
for?
(Cherokee costume and Mexican blanket.)
1.6 How does she think Sam Houston would
have wanted to be dressed?
(In frontier clothing.)
1.7 Why does she think that the articles by
Daniel Clayborne are important?
(To generate interest in the statue she is creating
and because of the recognition of Texas heroes
which the articles reflect.)
1.8 Where was Elisabet Ney making her
sketches of the Houston statue?
(At Liendo.)
Why? (Her studio was not yet built.)
1.9 Were the sketches made before or after
she had the portraits and objects of
clothing she asked for? (Before.)
Why do you think she went to work
without them?
(Mrs. Williams seems to have delayed in sending
them; Elisabet N ey was experiencing a time press.)
1.10 What has distressed Miss Ney?
(The slowness of work on her studio and the limited
number of artifacts she has to refer to in construct­ing
the statue.)
1.11 Why do you think she views Sam
Houston as an older statesman?
(She seems to equate Houston's earlier years with
the development of the Republic, seeing him close
19
Learning Activities •••••••••••••••••••••
Clues in Architecture
to the common people and responsive to the mix
of Anglo, Mexican and Indian cultures on the
Texas frontier. There are many possible interpre­tations
students may offer. All should be examined
and evidence sought to support them.)
2. In the letter to Judge Terrell, Elisabet Ney
asks for an informed opinion of her work. Students
should be encouraged to read the letter to deter­mine
why Ney is asking for the Judges opinion.
After the letter is read it will be useful for
students to look at the photographs reproduced
here, which show the portraits of Houston that Ney
might have used in developing her conception of the
man. These questions may then be discussed:
20
2.1 What was different about Ney's sculp­ture
of Houston and these two portraits?
(Students should make note of the dijJerences in
age and facial expression.)
2.2 Why did Ney ask Judge Terrell to cri­tique
her work?
(Thrrell was considered a cultured Texan. Students
should surmise by the tone of her letter that
Elisabet Ney was seeking agreement with her
conception of Houston. Perhaps she was feeling
some dijJerence of opinion about whether Houston
should be depicted as a conventional elder states­man
rather than a frontier leader in fringed
buckskin with a sword at hand.)
2.3 N ey says the statue will be molded and
disappear for a few weeks. What does
she mean?
(The process of sculpting which Miss Ney used
involved modeling a clay form from measure­ments,
examinations and comparison of human
models. She often made sketches or small versions
of the sculpture first. For sculpture done post­humously,
she used measurements of clothing to
create a life-sized sculpture and studied photo­graphs
to check form and structures. When the
clay was modeled to her satisfaction, she made a
plaster mold from the clay statue. The white
plaster mold would then be used to cast the piece
into plaster. The plaster casts are the ones we see
in the filmstrip or slide show. We call these the
"plaster originals" of Ney's work. Bronze statues
can be made by artisans at afoundry who use the
plaster cast to make a mold. Marble statues are
cutfrom marble blocks by the sculptor or a stone­cutter
in the image of the original plaster cast
using special measuring devices and stonecutting
tools to duplicate the dimensions exactly.)
2.4 What do you think about the statue?
(This open-ended question should encourage
students to express their opinions about Ney's
sculpture of Sam Houston. Those who like to write
may prepare an art critic's review of the statue
to be read to the class for discussion.)
Extending Activity
A local sculptor may be willing to demonstrate
aspects of this process in the classroom. The tele­phone
book is a ready reference guide to artists'
organizations, art galleries, museums and art sup­ply
stores in local communities which may be able
to identify sculptors to contact.
Humanities Detective Work:
Finding Clues in Architecture
The places in which we live and work speak of
our personal values, needs and interests. The archi­tectural
style of the building we call home is an
indicator of our taste, wealth and status which, in
turn, are indicators of cultural influences on our life­styles.
Also indicative of our human preferences and
needs is the interior design of our living and working
spaces: the number, size and types of rooms; the
presence or absence of areas for working, entertain­ing,
storing and many other human activities. Our
household furnishings and personal possessions con­tain
clues to what we do, need and value. In fact,
each of us has living and working spaces that are
small exhibits about ourselves.
This activity guides students in detecting clues
to Elisabet Ney's aesthetic preferences and her
needs as a sculptor in the architecture and interior
design of her studio.
Extending activities are offered to encourage
students to apply their skills of finding personal
meanings in human traces in the built environments
of other people and themselves.
Learning Activity
Introduce this activity by telling the students
that Elisabet Ney had designed her own work­place-
her studio. The studio is now the Elisabet
Ney Museum, administered by the Austin Parks
and Recreation Department. The museum is open
to the public and allows visitors the opportunity to
view and study her human traces, an environment
she had built in a style that suggests her concept
of beauty or utility.
A building can be viewed from a number of
different perspectives:
•••••••••••••• Learning Activities
1. its main purposes
2. the movement it allows between its spaces
3. the needs of the person(s) occupying it
4. its provision for adaptation to the needs
and purposes of the person(s) working and
living within its walls
5. the aesthetic tastes of the maker and user.
Introduce the following activity in interpreting
Elisabet Ney's built environment by asking stu­dents
to view Formosa while keeping these ques­tions
in mind:
1. What does the building tell about Elisabet
Ney's idea of architectural beauty?
2. In what ways is Formosa a place for living
as well as sculpting?
Darken the room. Start the projector (at frame
#133) and taped narration. .
Supplementary Frames
133/Facade of Formosa
Elisabet Ney designed her own studio and
named it Formosa, which means beautiful.
She gave us some clues regarding her concept
of beauty. She had local limestone cut into
simple block shapes to construct the walls.
With little ornamentation present, we can see
the evidence of ancient Greek architecture
transplanted onto Texas soil.
1341Example of Classic Greek architecture
In April 1869 Elisabet Ney wrote these
comments in her journal giving us her feel­ings
on Classic Greek architecture:
. . . how majestic is their pure
grand simplicity of the early Greek
age! No richness of material. No
richness of ornament but con­structed
so as to impress you with
the utmost feeling of organic unity.
185/German-Texan Victorian house
The style of Formosa's facade is notably
different from that of the "gingerbread" trim
we find on Victorian-style houses in German­Texan
settlements. This style was extremely
popular when Ney built her studio.
186/Full view offacade, both wings
Note how different Formosa is from the
Victorian style, and how similar it is to Classic
Greek architecture. Ney had the wing with the
tower added some years after the section on
the viewer's left had been completed.
Clues In Architecture
Were going to look inside that later addi­tion.
Its living spaces hold clues to Elisabet
Ney's life-style. As you enter the vestibule of
the 1902 wing, there is a stairway that leads
to the second-story living quarters.
187/Stairway seen from second-floor landing
From this second-story landing we can see
the stairway itself. Notice the rough-hewn
logs that form the beams and the banister.
Why do you think Ney used logs instead of
finely finished wood for the stairway's beams
and banister? (Pause)
Ney seemed to enjoy her Texas environ­ment.
Perhaps she used logs to reflect her
appreciation of the natural characteristics of
her adopted land.
Note the niche in the corner of this landing.
Being a sculptor, Ney would have been
inclined to outfit her studids living quarters
with places designed to display statues.
138/Interior of bedroom area, second floor,
looking toward balcony
This area was intended to be a bedroom,
although Ney didn't sleep here. She preferred
to sleep outside, on the roof.
The room is fairly large. Its windows and
French doors allow for plenty of light and
cross ventilation.
The railing on the balcony just outside the
doors contains a clue to Ney's feelings about
Texas. Notice the star. It's the Texas Lone
Star. Why do you think she used this symbol
on her railing? (Pause) Ney was proud to be
a Texan. She seems to have had patriotic
feelings about her adopted homeland.
189/Interior of second floor showing spiral stairway to tower
This stairway leads from the second-story
landing up to the tower room. How do you
think it would feel to go up the tower stair­way?
(Pause) What does this stairway tell us
about Elisabet Ney? (Pause) The narrowness
of the stairwell and steps and the steepness
of the spiral stairway are clues to her practi­cal
nature, her toleration of discomfort and
her priority on space for art rather than for
living.
140/Tower room
Imagine yourself in this tower room. The
space is very small: about 10 feet by 10 feet.
Ney had a sensitivity to space and used it to
advantage. She had the bookcase built into the
21
Learning~tivHies~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Piecing the Puzzle
wall to reduce the need for furniture that
would effectively reduce the small area of the
room. There's a hook in the corner beam.
Another is fastened to the beam in the oppo­site
corner of the room. What might have been
strung across the room from those hooks?
(pause) Edmund Montgomery; Ney's husband,
often slept in the tower room on a hammock
strung diagonally from one corner to the
other.
What does Formosa tell us about Elisabet
Ney?
'furn projector off and lights on for discussion of
the last question.
Extending Activities
22
1. Students can examine the spaces of their own
homes by making a floor plan and noting on
it the characteristics of the house as they walk
through its rooms. They may apply these
questions to the house's spaces:
- What is the main purpose of each space?
-What type of movement between the spaces
is permitted by openings, doorways, halls
and walkways?
-What human needs are met by the parti­cular
spaces?
-What has influenced your family's choice of
the place where you live?
-What do the answers to the above questions
tell about you and your family?
2. Students who are interested in architecture
may explore the styles present in the build­ings
in their neighborhoods. An excellent and
easy-to-use reference for this architectural
treasure hunt is John J.G. Blumenson's
Identifying American Architecture (Nash­ville:
American Association for State and
Local History, 1981).
Piecing the Puzzle
After completing several or all of the activities
in this guide, students should be able to examine
the interrelationship of clues they've found to
Elisabet Ney's person and life in 'Texas. A class
discussion of these questions, introduced under
instructional goals in this guide, might help stu­dents
share and develop further their concepts of
Elisabet Ney:
What was Elisabet Ney communicating
through her art?
What do her sculpture and studio tell about
her values, her background and her person?
Some students may be interested in creating a
bulletin board to summarize the ideas about
Elisabet Ney that they formed while experiencing
the activities of this guide. Visuals can be selected
and reproduced from the filmstrip or slide show by
simply tracing the projected image on drawing
paper. The selection of materials to display should
be made in terms of a theme or main idea about
Ney which the students find most interesting.
Students may create symbols for the theme they
select and use one or more as logos for their display.
Expanding the Puzzle
This examination of the life of Elisabet Ney can
be enriched by comparing her life-style, attitudes,
personality and contributions to those of others in
her time. The following activities may help students
see how one person, Miss Ney, fit into the pattern
of 'Texans living in 1873-1906.
1. Students may study the times during which
Elisabet Ney was living in 'Texas (1873-1906) by
perusing early 'Texas newspapers. If the libraries in
your community hold back issues of newspapers
which date to the turn of the century, students may
complete the following assignment with the assis­tance
of reference librarians and/or local archivists:
Find a newspaper issue for the month and day
of your birth in a year between 1873-1906. Look for
J_
•••••••••••••••••••• Learning Activities
illustrations, advertisements, and/or articles about
homes, household items, clothing, tools, transporta­tion,
work and entertainment. What do they tell
about the life-styles of people during the time that
Elisabet Ney was living in Texas?
Some students might enjoy examining advertise­ments
to see what they can buy with $2.00. Others
may find editorials interesting to highlight the
issues of the day. Still others may examine classified
ads or letters to the editor. These varied sources
of information from the newspaper can help stu­dents
compare and contrast life at the turn of the
century with life in their own times.
2. Visit a local courthouse, city hall or church
where community records such as deeds, wills and
other legal papers (e.g., birth, death, marriage
certificates) are filed. Ask the students to find out
who was born, married and died in the month of
their birth in a year (or several years) between
1890-1910. Are those families still living in your
community? Can the students find that surname in
the community telephone directory? What land did
the family own? What possessions do wills record
for the family members who died or inherited
property and goods? Students who are interested
in this type of family study may extend the assign­ment
to tracing their own families who resided in
your community during the time Elisabet Ney was
living in Texas.
3. The study of Texan women is an especially
significant extension of studying Elisabet Ney. The
Texas Women's History Project published a catalog
in 1980 for its exhibit titled, Texas Women: A
Celebration of History. The Project also published
an extensive bibliography of literature on, about and
by Texas women. The Southwestern Historical
Quarterly has published diaries of frontier women.
Students may study a Texas woman whose personal
writings are available to them to gain knowledge
of her experiences and cultural background. It
would be particularly relevant to select a woman
of German origins who lived in Texas in the same
time period as Elisabet Ney. One such individual
who offers interesting comparisons and contrasts
with Ney is Ottilie Fuchs Goeth. Her memoirs have
been translated, edited and published by her grand­daughter,
Irma Goeth Guenther, under the title,
Memories of a Thxas Pioneer Grand'TfWther (Burnet,
Texas: Eakin Press, 1982). The memoirs span the
years 1805-1915 and present a German-Texan
woman's views and experiences. Students can com-
Expanding the Puzzle
pare and contrast Mrs. Goeth's views, interests and
activities with those of Elisabet Ney.
4. Students may compare Ney's living space to
other households. These may be found in the stu­dents'
local communities or in photographs con­tained
in references such as Glen E. Lich's The
German Texans (San Antonio: The Institute of
Texan Cultures, 1982).
5. Other comparative studies can focus on: the
life-styles of German, Mexican and Anglo women
on the Texas frontier, and the traditions and values
of German and German-Texan people that are
reflected in their legends, celebrations and rites of
life. Many other possibilities exist. Selection of a
theme should be determined by the questions stu­dents
raise when studying documents and objects
of Elisabet Ney and other persons. Research
findings can take the form of written reports, but,
wherever possible, small exhibits that can be
mounted on bulletin boards or on stacked boxes can
encourage students to present their findings in
visual ways and offer viewers opportunities to use
interpretive skills for humanities detective work.
23
I
Background Information on
Elisabet Ney
Ney's Childhood
Documented facts of Elisabet Ney's childhood
are few. Records show that she was born on January
26,1833, in Munster, Westphalia, to Johann Adam
and Anna Elisabeth Wernze Ney. Her father was
a stone carver who, as his will reveals, made a com­fortable
living at his trade fashioning statuary for
local churches and gravestones for cemeteries. All
the other stories of Ney's youth come from Ney
herself as she reminisced to her Austin friend and
biographer Bride Taylor some 60 years later.
According to Ney's memory, she was a rebellious
and strong-willed child. Despite her parents' deter­mined
efforts, she never acquired a taste for the
life-style enjoyed by her traditional Catholic com­munity.
As she was to continue to do, she styled her
own clothes independent of the day's fashions and
proudly wore them though the other children
laughed. She refused to master the domestic skills
of cooking, sewing and cleaning which were ex­pected
of middle-class girls. Rather, she spent her
time helping her father in his stoneyard.
At the age of 17 Ney announced to her parents
that she was going to be a sculptor and intended
to study in Berlin. When her astonished parents
refused to accept her proposal, Ney recalled she
staged a hunger strike. The Catholic bishop of
Munster was called in to reason with her, encour­aging
a compromise between her and her parents.
They relented to their daughter's wishes, but
insisted that she wait two years before leaving home
to study sculpture - in Catholic Munich, not in
Protestant Berlin. If she intended to ignore the
social conventions of her community, she would at
least not abandon its faith.
The Munich Academy of Art
When Ney arrived in Munich in 1852 she at first
met with disappointment. Although the Munich
Academy of Art had previously admitted a few
women to painting classes, none had ever enrolled
in the sculpture department. The study of nudes
was believed to be indecent for women. And the
modeling of large figures and the carving of stone
blocks were considered indelicate for women and
beyond their physical strength. But with persever­ance
and the promise that she would do nothing to
24
distract the male students, Ney eventually was
admitted November 12, 1852. Her work must have
been good, for upon graduating two years later she
received a diploma recommending her highly for
a scholarship at another institution.
During her student days Ney apparently made
a trip to Heidelberg, where she met a young
Scotsman, Edmund Montgomery, who was
pursuing a medical degree. The two young students
were attracted to each other and, as Montgomery
wrote a friend more than 50 years later, pledged
themselves "to lead an ideal life together:'
Ney's Early Career
They began this "ideal life together" with a move
to Berlin in 1854 after Ney's graduation from the
Munich Academy. Montgomery attended classes at
the university in Berlin, and together he and Ney
were introduced into a number of "interesting
intellectual circles:' Most important for N ey, how­ever,
was her desire to study with the sculptor
Christian Rauch, who was then approaching 80.
Nearing the end of his career, Rauch was reluc­tant
to take on more students. After seeing an
example of Ney's work, however, he consented and
even installed her in a studio next to his own. His
influence helped her tremendously. Not only did
Rauch aid her in gaining admittance to the Berlin
Academy, but he also introduced her to a number
of the great personages of Berlin, among them the
Prussian Empress Fredreich who was also a stu­dent
of Rauch.
Once when asked what impelled her to under­take
sculpture as a career, Ney expressed that she
"wished to meet the great persons of the world:'
That ambition was fulfilled during the 1850's and
1860's when she executed a number of portrait
busts, a genre popular in the 19th century because
of the rise of a wealthy middle class and the unsatis­factoriness
of portrait photography. Her first
important bust, that of the philosopher Arthur
Schopenhauer, was executed in 1859, but was not
a commissioned work. Rather, it was the result of
a dare from Montgomery who felt that the old man,
known for his dislike for women, should be taught
a lesson. The effect Ney had on Schopenhauer was
evident in his letters to others. "Very beautiful, and
inexpressibly charming:' he exclaimed to one cor­respondent.
"Perhaps you know the sculptress Ney;
if you do not you have lost a great deal:' he told
another friend.
After sculpting Schopenhauer Ney received
numerous commissions from the "great persons of
the world:' In late 1859 she traveled to Hanover,
Germany, to complete her first portrait of royalty - a
colossal bust of King George V. While there she also
executed a likeness of the famed court violinist
Joseph Joachim. In 1861 her native state, West­phalia,
recalled her to execute four statues for its
new parliament house in Miinster. Scrupulous about
obtaining a likeness of her subjects, Ney spent
nearly two years in Munster gathering portraits,
biographies and descriptions to model properly the
features of Westphalia's historic heroes.
Ney and MontgOmery
One aspect of the Ney legend which has received
great attention, both during her lifetime and after­wards,
was her relationship with Edmund Mont­gomery.
The two were married in 1863 in the office
of the British consulate on the island of Madeira,
where Montgomery, after several years in London,
was practicing medicine. Ney once told Bride Taylor
that she had been forced into marriage by Mont­gomery
whose practice among the wealthy; but very
proper, British colony of Madeira was suffering
because of their unconventional relationship.
Montgomery's biographer, Ira Stephens, on the
other hand, had evidence that the marriage was
planned and consented to many months prior to
Montgomery's arrival in Madeira. Whatever the
reason, both Montgomery and Ney considered their
marriage a private matter.
N ey Sculpts Political Leaders
In 1865 Ney became involved in artistic activities
that may have taken her into the world of political
intrigue. That year she made a trip to Caprera, the
Mediterranean island home of Giuseppe Garibaldi,
Italy's liberator and unifier. While sculpting a bust
and statuette of the hero, she apparently became
sympathetic to him and his ideas. After leaving
Caprera she met Montgomery in the Austrian 'lYrol
where she kept in close contact with the Italian
leader during his war with Austria. Later biogra­phers
believe that she may well have been spying
on the Austrians for Italy.
Ney's next major work was a bust of Baron Otto
von Bismarck, Chancellor of Prussia and the most
powerful man in Germany at that time. Bismarck,
who had backed Garibaldi in his struggle with
Austria, was seeking to unite the disparate states
of Germany into a single nation under the control
of Prussia. Ney said little about the time she spent
with Bismarck, but sculpting the "great persons of
the world" certainly put her in the middle of
important political events.
After a long absence Ney returned to Munich in
1867, when that city was at the height of its artistic
greatness. Ludwig II had ascended the throne three
years before at the age of 19 and immediately set
about supporting his major interests-art and
music. N ey was among those artists who enjoyed
his largess.
Upon her arrival Ney; with Montgomery, settled
into a large studio presumably put at her disposal
by the Bavarian Court. There she executed several
commissions for the Polytechnikum, one of the
many new buildings going up in Munich at the time.
She also began appealing, first to courtiers and then
to the king himself, for a chance to sculpt Ludwig.
Her campaign was ignored until 1869, when she
was finally allowed to begin a bust and then a life­size
statue of Ludwig. She moved into a makeshift
studio in the royal palace and apparently pleased
the king, who, according to Ney; sent her gifts of
flowers when she requested them instead of the
jewels he offered.
The Move to America
Something went wrong, however. Before the
plaster cast of Ludwig's statue was done in marble
and with several unfinished pieces lying in the royal
studio, N ey and Montgomery suddenly departed
Munich in December 1870. Although she had
obtained a passport for Spain and Africa on the
20th, Ney and her companions apparently traveled
north instead. On January 14, 1871, they sailed
from Bremen on the S.S. Main, landing in New
York on the 28th.
25
. I
No one knows exactly why Ney left Europe so
abruptly. But friends later generally accepted her
vague explanations that she and Montgomery
found themselves in "political difficulties:' Those
problems, Ira Stephens believes, stemmed from
Bismarck and his attempt to unify Germany.
Stephens speCUlates that after Ney sculpted
Bismarck, he sent her to Munich to ingratiate
herself with Ludwig. After gaining his confidence
she was to influence him to submit Bavaria to
Prussian domination. Whether Ney failed once she
gained access to Ludwig, or whether she sympa­thized
with the Bavarian king and decided not to
carry out Bismarck's orders, Stephens does not
know. Whatever her true motivation, Ney did not
return to her homeland for 25 years, and the uncer­tainty
which surrounds her departure has added an
aura of intrigue to her image.
According to Stephens, one reason for Ney's and
Montgomery's decision to come to America was
Montgomery's health. He had suffered from a
tubercular condition since the per~od he worked in
London and had gone through a very difficult
winter in 1868-1869. Thus, once they arrived in
America, rather than staying in New York or
Boston where they might have met persons of like
background and interest, they traveled south to
Thomasville, Georgia.
Thomasville, Georgia
Thomasville was at least as unprepared for Ney
and Montgomery as they were for it when they
arrived in February 1871. A wealthy, cotton­growing
community before the Civil War, the town
of 1,500 had undoubtedly never seen anyone like
Elisabet Ney. Acquaintances noted the sculptor
rode around town wearing ''bloomers and other
outre garments that she calls practical" and took
an unladylike interest in business affairs. In addi­tion,
she continued to go by "Miss Ney" and call
Montgomery "my best friend" even when she was
obviously pregnant.
If the local citizens were shocked, she probably
cared little. Ney and Montgomery had few contacts
with the town. Except to purchase supplies, they
usually remained on the property which Mont­gomery
had purchased just outside Thomasville.
One contact they did make with a townsman
occurred in the late spring or summer of 1871; they
called in Dr. James Reid to attend Ney at the birth
of her first child, a son named Arthur.
In June 1872 Ney and Montgomery decided it
was time to move on. Exactly where they wandered
after deciding to leave Thomasville is unknown.
Veterans Administration records show that their
second son, Lorne, was born October 9, 1872, in Red
Wing, Michigan, and Montgomery also later
26
recalled their having traveled to Maine during that
period. Stephens documents a visit to a fellow
liberal and highly cultured German, Theodore
Bayrhoffer, in Wisconsin. Bayrhoffer, however,
apparently discouraged them from settling near
him by reporting that his neighbors were no more
open and progressive than the citizens of Thomas­ville.
In addition, they believed the frigid winters
up north would be detrimental to Montgomery's
health. Thus, the tales they had been hearing about
settlements in the Southwest came to sound more
and more attractive. Ney and Montgomery appar­ently
returned to Thomasville, and then Ney struck
out on her own, leaving her sons behind with
Montgomery to see what she could find in 'Thxas.
The Purchase of Liendo
Ney's interest in Thxas at this time was a natural
one for several reasons. First, the state could pro­vide
a suitable climate for Montgomery. Second, it
promised prosperity. Like nearly everyone else in
the Old South, Ney had been reading and hearing
reports about the good life to be found there. The
Thomasville paper, for example, had recently pub­lished
a series of letters from a former resident
enumerating advantages of Thxas: cheap land, abun­dant
crops and a "neighborhood of good society."
Finally, she undoubtedly knew that a number of
Germans, many of whom were well educated, had
made their homes in 'Thxas.
Ney entered Thxas sometime in late 1872 or early
1873. Her first visit was to the office of acting
German consul, Julius Runge, who in turn directed
her to a cotton broker, Robert Leisewitz, who knew
something about real estate. Upon hearing Ney's
dream of settling in a beautiful plantation home
such as those she had seen around Thomasville, he
directed her to a property he knew was for sale not
far away in Waller County-Liendo Plantation.
At that time Liendo's reputation in Thxas history
was almost as legendary as Elisabet Ney's would
later be. The huge Greek Revival home had been
built in 1853 by Leonard Groce, one of early Thxas's
wealthiest and most influential planters. Sitting on
a red brick foundation, the white frame house con­tained
11 large rooms. Before the Civil War the
house was usually filled with guests who were
entertained lavishly. Sam Houston and other prom­inent
'Thxans made it a regular stopping place en
route between Austin and southeast Thxas. During
the Civil War it was a camp first for recruits and
then for prisoners of war. General George Custer
later made it his headquarters at the first of his
occupation during Reconstruction. With the end of
the Civil War and the freeing of its nearly 300
slaves, Liendo, which had once brought in yearly
revenues of $80,000 to $100,000, became impossible
,
to operate and an economic liability. Leonard Groce,
selling off all the furniture and deeding the planta­tion
to relatives, moved to Galveston and declared
bankruptcy in 1868.
Legend states that when Ney first visited
Liendo, she climbed to the second-story porch,
looked out over the beautiful landscape and flung
her arms wide, exclaiming, "Here is where I shall
live and die!" Whether or not that dramatic scene
ever occurred, the plantation attracted her so
strongly that she ignored Leisewitz's warning that
the property was a bad investment. On March 4,
1873, Ney and Montgomery signed a contract to
buy the house and its accompanying 1,100 acres for
$10,000. Through the years with additional mort­gages,
failing crops and undependable workers, it
would cost them much more.
Arthur's Death
Not long after their arrival, an event took place
which shocked the nearby town of Hempstead and
became part of its folklore. Little Arthur, not yet
two years old, contracted diphtheria and died.
According to local legend, his mother, rather than
holding a conventional funeral, placed the body in
a fireplace at Liendo and burned it herself. Another
story was that she burned the body in a field behind
the house. Arthur, in fact, probably was cremated
at Liendo at the request of the attending physician,
Conway Nutt of Houston, who feared an epidemic
of diphtheria if Arthur were buried. No evidence
exists, however, that the child's body was burned
in a fireplace or a field or even by N ey herself.
This unconventional method of disposing of the
body started the people of Hempstead talking about
the strange people who had settled in their midst.
Ensconced at Liendo, however, Ney and Mont­gomery
were as little concerned about their neigh­bors'
reaction to them as they had been in Thomas­ville.
As Ney later wrote her son Lorne, she and
Montgomery preferred "loneliness" to surrounding
themselves "with anybody who is animated by quite
a different spirit:' Thus, they had little to do with
the people of Hempstead whom even Montgomery,
always more tolerant than Ney, characterized as "all
uncultivated:' Instead, they busied themselves with
their work on the plantation. Montgomery, closeted
in the laboratory which he built shortly after their
arrival, turned out numerous scientific articles on
the physical nature of knowledge. N ey tended the
business affairs of the plantation which by 1887 had
more than doubled in size. Although a number of
black families now worked the fields as tenant
farmers, overseeing duties kept Ney out all day on
the property, astride her horse and wearing outre
costumes considered inappropriate for women.
Lorne and Liendo
In later years Ney claimed that while Lorne was
young she did not miss the artistic activity and the
fame she had enjoyed in Europe. Bride Taylor
quotes her as saying, "I was busy with a more
important art, the art of molding flesh and blood:'
Montgomery, too, testified to the intensity of her
commitment to Lorne, telling people she had been
a "wonderful mother" and "passionately devoted:'
Her devotion, however, eventually proved too much
for Lorne.
Sometime during the early 1880's, when Lorne
was in his teens, he began to rebel against his
mother and her ambitions for him. The situation
seems to have become so bad that finally in 1887,
when Lorne was 15, Montgomery stepped in. He
demanded that Lorne be sent away to school, an
action, he wrote one friend, he would have taken
earlier except for Ney's objections to parting with
her son. From that time on, Lorne's life was a disap­pointment
to his mother. He was in and out of
schools both in America and Europe, running up
debts, and even disappearing in Switzerland for
several weeks. Finally in 1892 their growing
estrangement became complete when Lorne, at the
age of 20, eloped with a girl from Hempstead whom
his mother believed beneath him. From that time
on, Ney rarely mentioned her son.
During the difficulties with Lorne Liendo was
little consolation; in fact, working it was becoming
more and more of a burden. Ney and Montgomery
had spent a small fortune and had a difficult time
securing workers for the additional land they
27
.1
unwisely kept purchasing. In the 1880's they, along
with everyone else in Waller County, had four
straight years of crop failure, and an attempt at
dairying was also unsuccessful. Ney began looking
for ways to leave the plantation and resume her
artistic career.
Texas at that time, however, was not the most
promising location for a professional sculptor.
Although a handful of professional painters had
resided in Texas since the mid-19th century, Texans
were not very concerned with the visual arts.
State Capitol Building
One promising opportunity for Ney did arise,
however, in 1882 when Governor Oran Roberts
called her to Austin to discuss plans for a new state
capitol building. Ney and Montgomery had met
Roberts four years prior when he had visited
Hempstead during his gubernatorial campaign. A
well-educated and intellectually inclined jurist,
Roberts recognized the achievements of Ney and
Montgomery, and had often asked their advice on
educational and cultural issues. Such was the case
with the new capitol building. This project gave Ney
the hope of resuming her career on a grand scale
with the sculpting of statuary and decorative friezes
called for in the original plan. But the plan was
discarded in favor of a simpler design using red
granite, which was unsuitable for sculpture.
Yet Ney did not give up hope of returning to
Austin, where the population was more interesting
and opportunities to meet "great persons" were
more likely to occur. Despite her efforts, however,
it was almost a decade before another opportunity
from Austin arose. This time, thanks again to
Roberts, she was summoned to advise a commit­tee
about a sculpture for the World's Columbian
Exposition to be opened in Chicago in 1893.
World's Columbian Exposition
That exposition, which had been officially
announced by Congress in 1890, was to be the
largest and most important of the 19th century's
world's fairs, and all the states were anxious to
erect the most elaborate buildings and exhibitions.
An organization of prominent men had formed to
solicit funds for an impressive building, while a
Women's Auxiliary committee was also organized
to help decorate the interior. They decided to com­mission
two statues, one of Sam Houston and
another of Stephen F. Austin, to be placed in the
Texas Pavilion.
At first the women's committee, led by Mrs.
Benedette Thbin of Austin, contacted several of
America's well-known sculptors, most of whom lived
on the East Coast. When the committee failed to
28
raise the $20,000 demanded by the likes of Augus­tus
Saint-Gaudens, Governor Roberts suggested
they look closer to home. When they contacted Ney
she jumped at the opportunity, agreeing to produce
two plaster statues at cost. Thus, with the money
they saved, the Women's Auxiliary was able to save
the plans for a building that the men's committee
had abandoned because of a lack of interest and
inability to raise funds.
Houston and Austin
Before she even signed an official contract, Ney
set about her task with great energy. First, she built
and moved into her studio, Formosa, on the edge
of Austin in Hyde Park in the fall of 1892. She also
began writing the descendants of Austin and
Houston, requesting "engravings, photographs or
the like," so that she could make the statues "real
likenesses:' Within several weeks her conception of
Houston, whom she decided to model first, was
complete. The end result was a figure only slightly
greater than Houston's actual large size. In its
stance and massiveness the statue resembles a
Roman general gazing over a battlefield with pur­pose
and confidence.
While Houston's statue was being unveiled in
Chicago, Ney was still busy in 'Thxas trying to com­plete
the Austin model. But she could not meet her
short deadline, and thus the Austin piece was never
exhibited at the fair. She continued modeling, how­ever,
and the result was a statue very like the
Houston in its use of costume and props, but more
delicate and graceful in pose and mood. Part of the
difference, N ey was quick to point out, lay in the
fact that Houston at 6 feet 2 inches was in reality
much larger than Austin who was 5 feet 7 inches.
Formosa
With the construction of Formosa, Ney spent
more and more time in Austin and fewer hours in
seclusion at Liendo. Designed by N ey specifically
as an artist's studio, Formosa contained only a large
modeling room with windows open to the northern
light, a loft with access to the roof for sleeping and
a small reception room. Later construction added
a stone-working room, as well as areas for study,
cooking and dining.
As pleasing as she found her studio; Ney also
delighted in the extensive grounds which sur­rounded
it. She frequently entertained the close
group of friends she had found in Austin with tea
underneath the trees. Ney's young attorney
Clarence Miller, for example, regularly brought his
wife and children to her home for an afternoon
repast of clabber and stale bread.
Continuing her dream of modeling "great per­sons:'
in 1900 Ney apparently induced William
Jennings Bryan, the Democratic populist and
unsuccessful presidential candidate, to visit her
studio by informing him that "some of the greatest
men of the last half century" inhabited it "in effigy.'
She also executed a number of portrait medallions,
a type of sculpture made popular in France in the
early 19th century. These pieces generally were
gifts to friends.
When Ney had signed the contract for the Austin
and Houston statues, she had agreed to produce
plaster models rather than marble sculptures. She
made this agreement in the interest of time and
money: not only was the opening of the fair near,
but the Auxiliary had little funding. Ney's under­standing,
as she later testified to numerous corre­spondents,
had been that after the Exposition was
over, Benedette Thbin would see that funds were
raised so that the models might be reproduced in
marble and placed in the State Capitol. However,
Thbin was either unable or unwilling to fulfill her
part of the agreement.
Five years had passed while the plaster models
remained "buried" in Ney's studio, "a useless gift:'
as Ney saw it, from herself "to 'Thxas and its people."
Thus, she began a campaign which was taken up
by the recently organized Daughters of the Republic
of 'Thxas who immediately started a fund drive to
place a marble version of Stephen F. Austin in
Statuary Hall in the National Capitol in Washing­ton,
D.C. The DRT also lobbied with the state
legislature to have both Houston and Austin placed
in the State Capitol Rotunda and Houston located
next to Austin in the National Capitol. Their efforts
paid off; the state legislature passed the needed
appropriations in 1901.
Albert Sidney Johnston
Also appropriated at this time was $10,000 for
the commission of the Albert Sidney Johnston
Memorial. Another women's organization, the
United Daughters of the Confederacy, seems to
have conceived the idea of honoring 'Thxas's illus­trious
Civil War hero. This time, however, the
women were more hindrance than help. Adelia
Dunovant, president of the Houston chapter of the
UD.C., wrote numerous letters to Ney, often
making ridiculous demands and suggestions about
Ney's conception of the work. On one occasion she
requested that Ney place a scroll in the hand of the
dead Johnston stating that the general had died for
the principles of the Constitution. The sculptor,
however, in an unusual display of tact, rejected
Dunovant's idea by explaining the difference
between a visual and a literary artist, and things
which one might do in print, but not in stone. With­out
a touch of sarcasm, N ey commented that she
was trying to make her sculpture as realistic as
possible and that she found it very unlikely that one
of Johnston's lieutenants would have placed a
Constitution in his hand at the moment of his death
on the Shiloh battlefield.
Lady Macbeth
If Ney weathered well the storm around the
Johnston memorial, perhaps it was because she was
deeply involved at the time with the completion of
a work she considered her masterpiece. Slightly
larger than life, Lady Macbeth is an amazing sculp­ture
for an artist who generally confined herself to
portraiture and executed few idealistic pieces. With
its obvious movement and emotion, Lady Macbeth
is certainly the most romantic and least classical
of the known pieces N ey produced.
Biographers have had different statements to
make about Lady Macbeth. Bride Taylor says Ney
first conceived it when she was modeling Ludwig's
statue. Vernon Loggins traces her interest in the
Shakespearean character to a performance by the
famed actress and patron of women sculptors,
Charlotte Cushman, which Ney supposedly saw in
New Orleans in 1872. Yet Ney's only clue to its
29
origin gives no indication that she had seen or even
read the play. In a note written to Madame
Schumann-Heink, the legendary German singer
whom Ney befriended when she performed in
Austin, N ey wrote that "in this country people are
(and I suppose well founded) full of mistrust
regarding motives. Being an artist myself this was
what met me when six years ago I conceived of a
similar mission. Though I had not come to this
country ever to work in my art again, I took it up
at last as a consolation - only I experienced deeper
and more cruel disappointment. And my present
work, Lady Macbeth, comes as a result of these
experiences?' Thus, the sculptor seems to have
conceived the character, not as a remorseful villain,
but as an agonized martyr, Elisabet Ney herself.
Ney's Final Years
In fact, as full as the last years of her life were,
Ney did suffer several cruel disappointments once
she resumed her career. Through a vigorous news­paper
campaign in Austin and the-development of
an organization made up of prominent Austin edu­cators,
Ney sought to bring Texas into "prominence
as an abode of culture?' Her idea was to establish
an academy of fine arts at either The University
of Texas or her own studio. Having not "the least
wish or hope of any material prosperity or benefit"
for herself, Ney also planned to offer her services
as instructor without compensation. But Ney's idea
met with no success. Neither the legislature nor
The University's Board of Regents sanctioned or
funded her proposed academy of fine arts, and she
had to abandon that dream.
Another crushing blow was dealt when the state
showed an interest in art by erecting large public
monuments, but never offered the commissions to
Ney. The most disappointing of these was the com­mission
of the Rosenberg Monument to the Heroes
of 1836 in Galveston. Ney had desperately wanted
that commission, but had refused to enter the com­petition
apparently believing she should have it on
the basis of her reputation. When the award was
given to Louis Amateis, she wrote one scathing
letter after another criticizing the monument and
the sculptor whose use of allegory and emphasis
on height she found both silly and inartistic.
If Ney failed to achieve all her goals in a single
lifetime, in a sense, her friends completed her tasks
after her death. Ney, whose heart and lungs had
been failing for several years, died at Formosa June
29, 1907. Not long after her burial at Liendo, Ella
Dancy Dibrell of Seguin, a woman who had been
one of Ney's greatest supporters during the final
years of her life, started working to see that Ney's
dream of developing the arts in Texas would not fail.
30
'Ib that end, in 1908 she purchased the Austin
studio and part of its surrounding grounds in order
to establish the Elisabet Ney Museum. She also
gathered together many of Ney's friends and sup­porters
to found the Texas Fine Arts Association
whose purpose was not only to maintain the muse­um,
but also to promote the growth of fine arts in
the state. Although most of the sculpture which had
been left in the studio was given by Montgomery
to The University of Texas, the Ney Museum and
the T.F.A.A. maintained it. Further, the T.F.A.A.
encouraged young artists by sponsoring annual
exhibitions at the museum, the first of which was
held in 1914, and later by offering instruction in the
arts. Although the T.F.A.A. and the Elisabet Ney
Museum have taken different paths and are no
longer associated, they both are still active in
Austin. Their continuity, perhaps, is the best monu­ment
Elisabet Ney could have.
Background Information on Texas,
1870-1910
Elisabet Ney reached Texas in 1873, having
immigrated from Germany. Texas was just emerg­ing
from a so-called Reconstruction period that
followed the American Civil War. The entire social
structure was being reconstituted, taking into
account a huge body of freed slave labor. Great
bitterness had been engendered during that time
by the willful action of Governor Edmund J. Davis's
widely hated State Police. Often they were them­selves
persons with criminal intent.
Economic times were hard as well. The entire
country suffered a prolonged depression following
the Panic of 1873. Land values declined, as did the
cotton market. Like the rest of the South, Texas
turned to the sharecropping system under which
landlords supplied tenants with housing, 'equipment
and seed in return for a substantial share of the
crop. Development of the range cattle industry
helped offset some of the losses from the ailing
cotton trade. Railroads were being chartered, coun­ties
were being organized by the legislature, and
schools were being opened. The Reconstruction
government had laid the groundwork for a free
public school system, making attendance compul­sory
and levying taxes. The government had also
tried to provide a public roads system. Frontier
defense was strengthened.
What was life like for the average Texan of that
day? The legends of cotton plantations, steamboats
and elegant Southern life-styles were now largely
supplanted by the realities of toil, sweat and misery.
Texas was a land of small towns with muddy streets,
board sidewalks and false-fronted store buildings.
At the edge of these communities were small farms
where tillers subsisted on cotton and corn, plus a
few head of livestock and some poultry.
The culture itself was largely isolated - not only
from the rest of the United States, but communities
were isolated from one another. By land a traveler
from the East had to traverse the Louisiana bayous
and the foreboding piney woods. By sea the trip
from New Orleans to Galveston was quick, but not
without risk of storm and shipwreck. Houston, the
jumping-off point for the interior, was reached by
crossing a wide, shallow bay and then proceeding
by steamer up Buffalo Bayou. Beyond Houston
began a wide strip of lowland known to Texans as
the "wet prairies:' Hempstead was at the northern
edge of these prairies.
Beyond this barrier were farms and widely scat­tered
villages consisting of not much more than a
store, a church and a blacksmith shop. The roads
between Texas towns and villages were ill-suited for
travel by anything but horses. Cotton farmers relied
on mule- or horse-drawn wagons to move their cot­ton
to the docks at Houston and Galveston. Along
the larger river arteries, cotton was moved by rafts
or barges, and sometimes by steamboat. Intrastate
isolation did not really end until railroads began
blanketing Texas in the 1880's.
Larger communities were, of course, more diver­sified
and more self-contained than the small cotton
centers. Historian Lonn Taylor describes the town
of Round Thp, a Fayette County community that
provided the material needs of farms and planta­tions
in a ten-mile radius.
In 1860 it was not ten years old; yet it
had an academy, a church, a post office,
and several stores, and there were thirty­seven
different professions and occupa­tions
represented on its census return ..
.. There were also five merchants, their
shelves stocked with "store goods" .. ..
The neighboring farmers and planters
drove their wagons to town on Saturday
to buy their essentials from local arti­sans:
wagons from the wagon-maker,
plows and harrows from the blacksmith,
harnesses from the saddler, furniture
from the chairmaker, and shoes from the
shoemaker.
Historian Taylor goes on to note that west of the
Colorado River lay another Texas, quite different
from that into which Elisabet Ney and Edmund
Montgomery had moved. This other Texas was
Mexican Texas, with its spiritual center at San
Antonio. It was a land of mesquite and cactus, of
limestone and adobe, a land where cattle and sheep
were raised in preference to cotton and corn. This
was a Texas which was considerably isolated by lan­guage,
religion, customs and social mores. The
Hispanic influence was most pronounced, but, as
in east Texas, there were pockets of other ethnic
groups. An enclave of Norwegians took root in
Bosque County, for example. And to the west of San
Antonio there were several vigorous Alsatian set­tlements
in Medina County. After Anglos, Hispan­ics
and blacks, the strongest minority, however,
were the Germans with principal colonies at New
Braunfels and Fredericksburg. They, like Texans
generally, earned their livelihoods as farmers, store­keepers,
clerks, artisans and hired hands.
More importantly, these German settlers planted
the elements of musical, artistic, literary and theat­rical
culture in the barren Texas soil. Actually, it was
31
,[
more than barren; at times it was downright violent.
For at least 20 years after the Civil War, Texas was
plagued by an incredible number of criminals who
defied the law, and robbed and murdered at will.
It was all the vigilantes and the Texas Rangers
could do to turn the tide. In 1876 the Rangers began
hunting outlaws more than Indians. The state adju­tant
general compiled a list containing the names
of more than 3,000 fugitives.
In such surroundings religion played a major role
in people's lives. Those who practiced an organized
religion spent most of their leisure time in churches
or involved in church activities. The Hispanic popu­lation
of Texas was predominantly Roman Catholic.
The biggest part of the non-Hispanic population
was Protestant: the Methodist and Baptist influence
was the strongest, followed closely by the Presby­terian,
with the Lutheran and Episcopalian trailing
at some distance. The Lutheran congregations were
particularly strong in the German settlements.
In the beginning cultural events were imported,
and they seldom came further inland than Galves­ton
and Houston. German settlers had music as an
integral part of their home life. Many were quite
accomplished as stringed instrument players and
32
would play for their own pleasure in one another's
homes. They organized the first singing society at
New Braunfels in 1850. During this same decade
residents of Galveston were treated to occasional
performances by the New Orleans Opera of master­pieces
by Donizetti, Verdi, Gounod, Rossini and
others. A German-born impresario named Henry
Greenwall restored a theater in Galveston and
found an appreciative audience for the plays of
Shakespeare. By 1890 Greenwall had established
theaters in Houston, San Antonio, Austin, Fort
Worth and Dallas.
The more talented and more enduring Texas
artists of that era were of German origin - Richard
Petri, Carl von Iwonski and Hermann Lungkwitz.
But, in the same way that musicians performed for
themselves and a few friends, so the painters
painted. There was no extended audience to
applaud their achievement. There were no galleries
or museums in which to showcase their work. Few
Texans had sufficient wealth to act as patrons of the
arts. Those who had the means by and large lacked
the interest. This was the environment in which
Elisabet Ney arrived in 1873 from the established
cultural centers of Europe.
Vocabulary
acknowledged - declared or cited as true.
barbarians - rude and uncultured persons.
bateau - a light, flat-bottomed boat.
charismatic - having a special quality which mptures the
interest, devotion and confidence of others.
commission - an order to perform a particular task or
mrry out work (as a work of art).
contagious - the characteristic of a disease to spread
from one person to another.
cremation - burning a dead body until it is reduced to
ashes; often done to keep contagious diseases from
spreading further.
dignitaries - persons having important positions or
offices.
diphtheria - a contagious disease mused by infection in
the throat area and characterized by difficulty in breath­ing,
high fever and weakness.
exemplified - illustrated by example.
idealistic -living according to fixed ideas of what is good
rather than practiml considerations; characteristic of a
person who continually seeks perfection.
immortalize - to muse to be remembered; to give endur­ing
(lasting) fame.
intellectual- having a high degree of reasoning ability
and knowledge.
lavish - elaborate, luxurious.
liberator - one who frees others from bondage or slavery.
midst-in the middle, or center, of.
pavilions - open buildings often connected to more per­manent
structures.
philosophical- searching for wisdom or understanding
using a set of well-defined rules.
prestigious - having importance based on success, fame
or wealth.
rendered - represented or illustrated by artistic means;
executed in an artistic medium (e.g., rendered in marble).
sculpture - the art of fashioning three-dimensional
figures; specifically by modeling clay or plaster, or by cut­ting
stone.
seH-portrait-an image created by an artist of himself
(e.g., a self-portrait in clay).
stipulation - an agreement or contract or any term or
condition in an agreement that expresses a demand or
makes a provision.
unifier - one who brings together.
33
Bibliography
European Culture, Art and History
Blunt, William. The Dream King. New York: Viking
Press, 1976. Helpful reading on King Ludwig II.
Novotny, Fritz. The Pelican History of Art: Painting and
Sculpture in Europe, 1780-1880. Middlesex: Penguin
Books, 1978. The basic text on European art during
the time Ney lived in Europe.
Pinson, Koppel S. Modern Germany: Its History and
Civilization. 2nd ed. New York: The Macmillan Co.,
1966. An excellent and readable text on the political,
social and cultural background of Ney's life in Europe.
Rheims, Maurice. Nineteenth Century Sculpture. New
York: Harry N. Abrams, 1977. A basic text on Euro­pean
sculpture during Ney's lifetime.
American Culture and Art
The American Renaissance 1876-1917. Brooklyn: The
Brooklyn Museum, 1979. One of the best sources for
information on American culture around the turn of
the century.
Butler, Ruth. Western Sculpture: Definition of Man.
Boston: New York Graphic Society, 1975. A descrip­tion
of the making and meaning of sculpture by a
professional sculptor.
Harris, Neil. The Artist in American Society: The Forma­tive
Years, 1790-1860. New York: Clarion Books, 1966.
Deals with an earlier time period than the one in which
Ney lived in the United States. Its observations about
the artist in a developing society are relevant to 'Thxas,
which in the 1890's was several generations behind the
East Coast in artistic awareness.
Preble, Duane. Artforms. San Francisco: Canfield Press,
1978. Contains principles of design.
Studies on Women
Goeth, Ottilie Fuchs. Memories of a Thxas Pioneer Grand­mother.
Irma Goeth Guenther, ed. Burnet, Thxas:
Eakin Press, 1982. A German-Thxan woman's recollec­tions
of life in 'Iexas during the time Ney lived here.
Harris, Ann Sutherland, and Linda Nochlin. Women
Artists: 1550-1950. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1976.
About women artists in general, but its introductory
essays to the catalog give important information on
general trends in the history of women artists.
Luchetti, Cathy. Women of the West. St. George, Utah:
Antelope Island Press, 1982. Presents the stories of
11 pioneer women, taken from their letters, diaries
and journals.
Nochlin, Linda. "Why Have There Been No Great Women
Artists?" in Art and Sexual Politics, Thomas B. Hess
34
and Elizabeth C. Baker, eds. New York: MacMillan &
Co., 1971, pp. 1-37. One of the most important pioneer­ing
essays on women artists; discusses not only the
environmental detriments to women, but the problems
of art history and the study of women artists.
Rutland, Willie B. SursurnJ Elisahet N ey in Texas. Austin:
Hart Graphics and Office Centers, 1977. A collection
of Elisabet Ney's letters.
Thxas Foundation for Women's Resources. Texas Women:
A Celebration of History. Ruthe Winegarten, ed.;
Mary Beth Rogers, project director. Austin, 1980. An
extensive bibliography of literature on, about and by
Thxas women.
Germans in Texas
Lich, Glen E. The German Texans. San Antonio: The
Institute of Thxan Cultures, 1981. An interesting and
helpful introduction to the German emigration and
colonization of Thxas; but perhaps most useful for its
extensive bibliography.
Stephens, Ira K. The Hermit Philosopher of Liendo.
Dallas: SMU Press, 1951. Perhaps the best source, to
date, for biographical information on Ney's husband.
Architecture as a Learning Resource
Blumenson, John J.G. Identifying AmericanA'rchitecture.
Rev. ed. Nashville, Thnn: American Association for
State and Local History, 1981. Excellent reference for
exploring styles in architecture.
Ellsworth, Linda. "The History of a House: How to Trace
It:' American Association for State and Local History
Thchnical Leaflet 89, History News, 31 (9), September
1976.
Schlereth, Thomas J. "Historic Houses as Learning
Laboratories: Seven 'leaching Strategies:' American
Association for State and Local History Thchnical
Leaflet 105, History News, 33 (4), April 1978.
Exhibit Design
Shroeder, Fred. "Designing Your Exhibits: Seven Ways
to Look at an Artifact:' American Association for
State and Local History Thchnical Leaflet 91, History
News, 31 (11), November 1976.
Welsh, Peter C. "Exhibit Planning: Ordering Your Arti­facts
Interpretively." American Association for State
and Local History Thchnical Leaflet 73, History News,
29 (4), April 1974.
Research
Barzun, Jacques, and Henry F. Graff. The Modern
Researcher. Rev. ed. New York: Harcourt, Brace and
World, 1970. An excellent step-by-step manual on
research in writing.
1
Photo Credits
Pictures not noted were produced by the staff of The Institute
of Texan Cultures.
2. Elisabet Ney-*
3. Elisabet Ney-*
4. Elisabet Ney-*
5. Family and buggy-photograph. Nora Lee Thndre,
Castroville.
7. Urban house with buggy-photograph, 1915. Mrs. J.M.
Kosh, Hempstead.
8. Blacksmith shop - photograph. Mrs. Ira H. Roberts, San
Antonio.
9. Blacksmith - photograph. Library of Congress, Prints and
Photo Division, Washington, D.C.
10. Ney, full-length portrait-photograph. Archives Division
of the Texas State Library, Austin.
11. Liendo - photograph. Archives Division of the Texas State
Library, Austin.
12. Liendo, side view-photograph. Archives Bivision of the
Texas State Library, Austin.
13. Ney-Detail of #10.
14. Montgomery, 40 years old-photograph. Archives Division
of the Texas State Library, Austin.
15. Ney astride a horse-Sandy Brown, colored pencil draw­ing,
1983. The Institute of Texan Cultures, San Antonio.
16. Quilting bee - engraving, 1861. Harper's Weekly, April 13,
1861. p. 233.
17. Quilting bee-Detail of #16.
18. Sick child-Gabriel Metsu, oil painting, 1660. "The Sick
Child:' Rijksmuseum-Stichting, Amsterdam; in Giorgio T.
Faggin, et aI, Great Museums of the World. New York:
Newsweek, 1969. p. 113
19. Quilting bee-Detail of #16.
20. Liendo-Same as #12.
21. Munich-D. Willmann, engraving. "Heidelberg:' Paris,
France: Goupil & Company.
22. Adam Ney-photograph. Elisabet Ney Museum, Austin.
23. Ney, mid-20's-photograph. Austin History Center, Austin
Public Library.
24. Ney-Detail of #23.
25. Munich Academy of Art certificate-original certificate.
Manuscript Collection, Humanities Research Center, The
University of Texas at Austin.
26. Christian Rauch - electrostatic copy. Elisabet Ney
Museum, Austin.
27. Arthur Schopenhauer-*
28. N ey working on King George - painting. Archives Division
of the Texas State Library, Austin.
29. King George V medallion-*
30. Joseph Joachim-*
31. Jakob Grimm-*
32. Montgomery, early years-photograph. Archives Division
of the Texas State Library, Austin.
33. Marriage certificate-electrostatic copy. Elisabet Ney
Museum, Austin.
35. Formosa, exterior-photograph. Elisabet Ney Museum,
Austin.
36. Sursum-photograph. Elisabet Ney Museum, Austin.
37. Ney, age 30 - photograph. Manuscript Collection, Human-ities
Research Center, The University of Texas at Austin.
38. Giuseppe Garibaldi-*
39. Otto von Bismarck-*
40. King Ludwig's palace - photograph, 1870. Photography
Collection, Humanities Research Center, The University
of Texas at Austin.
41. Close-up of King Ludwig-*
42. Ney's studio in Munich-photograph. Elisabet Ney
Museum, Austin.
43. King Ludwig-*
44. New York-color lithograph. American Views. New York:
T. Nelson & Sons. Drake Collection Art Collection
Humanities Research Center, The Uni;ersity of Texas at
Austin.
45. Liendo-Same as #12.
47. Ney-Same as #10.
48. Lorne Montgomery as a boy-Barr & Wright, photograph.
Elisabet Ney Museum, Austin.
49. Lorne Montgomery-*
50. Oran M. Roberts - drawing. O.M. Roberts, A Description
of Texas. St. Louis: Gilbert Book Co., 1881.
51. Oran Roberts-*
52. Oran Roberts-'
53. Texas State Capitol-watercolor, c. 1881. Texas State
Library, Archives Division. Austin.
54. Texas State Capitol- Detail of #53.
56. Lome Montgomery-photograph. Elisabet Ney Museum,
Austin.
57. World's Columbian Exposition-GD. Arnold, photograph,
1893. "Looking S.E. from Illinois Bldg:' Photography
Collection, Humanities Research Center, The University
of Texas at Austin.
58. New York building-C.D. Arnold, photograph, 1893.
Photography Collection, Humanities Research Center, The
University of Texas at Austin.
59. World's Columbian Exposition-Detail of #57.
60. Women's Committee-original letterhead. Manuscript
Collection, Humanities Research Center, The University
of Texas at Austin.
61. Augustus Saint-Gaudens-Kenyon Cox, oil painting, 1908.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, gift of friends of the
sculptor, New York.
62. Oran Roberts-*
63. Women's Committee-Detail of #60.
64. Sam Houston-*
65. Stephen F. Austin-*
66. Houston and Austin-* (Texas State Capitol rotunda.)
67. Ney's letter-manuscript letter. Manuscript Collection,
Humanities Research Center, The University of Texas at
Austin.
68. Ney and Mrs. Williams-photograph, c. 1904. Austin
History Center, Austin Public Library.
69. Ney holding statuette-photograph. Manuscript Collection,
Humanities Research Center, The University of Texas at
Austin.
70. Formosa exterior- photograph, c. 1898. Archives Division
of the Texas State Library, Austin.
74. Neywith Mr. Miller-photograph. Virginia Miller Holden,
San Antonio.
75. Ney and Bickler family-photograph. Archives Division
of the Texas State Library, Austin.
35
76. Ney with Mrs. Miller- photograph. Virginia Miller Holden,
San Antonio.
78. Montgomery in front of tent - photograph. Photography
Collection, Humanities Research Center, The University
of Texas at Austin.
79. Lake and boat - photograph. "Partial view of Glen Lake."
Photography Collection, Humanities Research Center, The
University of Texas at Austin.
80. Ney working on Bryan-photograph. Elisabet Ney
Museum, Austin.
81. N ey outdoors - photograph. Archives Division of the 'Thxas
State Library, Austin.
82. Statesman article-reprint of newspaper article, 1894.
Manuscript Collection, Humanities Research Center, The
University of Texas at Austin.
83. Farmers in field-photograph, c. 1917. Mrs. Homer
Verstuyft, San Antonio.
84. Legislative hall- H.A. Ogden, sketch, 1880. Frank Leslie's
Illustrated Newspaper, May 22, 1880, vol. 50. p. 196.
85. Academy certificate-facsimile reproduction of Pennsyl­vania
Academy of Fine Arts certificate. McNay Art
Institute, San Antonio.
88. Dr. William Lambdin Prather-*
89. Gov. Joseph D. Sayers-*
90. Gov. Lawrence Sullivan Ross-*
91. Ney working on Bryan-photograph. Elisabet Ney
Museum, Austin.
92. William Jennings Bryan-*
93. Albert Sidney Johnston-Charles B. Hall, engraving, 1898;
in Charles B, Hall, Military Records of General Officers
of the Confederate States of America. New York: The
Lockwood Press, 1898. Facsimile reproduction, Austin:
The Steck Co., 1963. p. 4.
94. Albert Sidney Johnston -* Texas State Cemetery, Austin.
95. Ney at memorial-photograph. Elisabet Ney Museum,
Austin.
96. Ney, right profile-photograph. Austin History Center,
Austin Public Library.
97. Life mask of Elisabet Ney-*
101. Lady Macbeth-·
102. Lady Macbeth-*
103. Lady Macbeth-*
104. Lady Macbeth-·
105. Lady Macbeth-*
106. Lady Macbeth-*
107. Elisabet Ney-·
108. Lome Montgomery-·
109. Liendo-Same as #12.
111. Four busts-·
112. '!\vo busts-·
113. Three statues-·
114. Elisabet Ney-·
120. Austin with view of Capitol-photograph, c. 1890. The
University of Texas, Barker Texas History Center, Austin.
121. Young lady- Barr, photograph, c. 1890-1910. The Institute
of Texan Cultures, San Antonio.
122. Young boys - Paris & Rothwell, photograph. San Antonio
Conservation Society.
123. Family in buggy-photograph, 1905. Beatrice Masterson
Richards, San Antonio.
124. Formosa, exterior-Same as #70.
125. Sam Houston-*
126. Sam Houston-·
36
127. Ney-Same as #96.
128. Sam Houston-·
129. Lady Macbeth-*
130. Sam Houston-*
131. Lady Macbeth-*
132. Macbeth and Ney's life mask-·
"Denotes sculpture by E/isabet Ney at the E/isabet Ney Museum in Austin unless
otherwise noted.
The University of Te~as
Institute of Texan Cultures at San Antonio
801 S. Bowie at Durango I P.O. Box 1226
San Antonio, Texas 78294