Alice Morgan Wright

Alice Morgan Wright (October 10, 1881 – April 8, 1975) was an American sculptor, suffragist, and animal welfare activist. She was one of the first American artists to embrace Cubism and Futurism.

Early life and education Alice Morgan Wright Papers. Alice Morgan Wright (seated third from left) with other students and models in art class

Wright came from an old Albany, New York family. She was born October 10, 1881, in Albany, to Henry Romeyn Wright, a prosperous wholesale grocer, and Emma Jane Morgan.

A student at St. Agnes School in Albany (now Doane Stuart School), Wright graduated from Smith College in 1904 and continued her studies, in sculpture, at the Art Students League of New York.

In 1909, Wright went to Paris, where she attended the École des Beaux-Arts and the Académie Colarossi. In Paris she was a pupil of Injalbert and in New York she studied with Gutzon Borglum, James Earle Fraser and Hermon Atkins MacNeil.

Career Artist

She exhibited domestically at the Art Institute of Chicago and the Art Institute of Philadelphia, and her work appeared in Europe at the Royal Academy of Arts (London) and the Salon des Beaux Arts (Paris). She was a member of the National Association of Women Painters and Sculptors as well as a founding member and director of the Society of Independent Artists.

"The Fist," perhaps her best known sculpture, shows the modernist influence of Auguste Rodin; other works, like "Medea" (1920), integrated avant-garde Cubist and even Futurist elements. It is likely influenced by the struggle for women's voting rights. Wright also produced more conventional pieces throughout her career. Wright worked slowly and often moved back and forth between a conservative and a more experimental style. She exhibited two pieces, Wind Figure, a stone carving and Young Faun, a bronze statuette, at the Societies 1923 exhibition. Her very abstracted work Medea was shown at the 1929 exhibition.

Betsy Fahlman curated a retrospective exhibit of Wright's work in 1978 at the Albany Institute of History & Art titled Sculpture and Suffrage: The Art and Life of Alice Morgan Wright (1881–1975).

By 1945, Wright had abandoned art in favor of her animal rights activism. She and over 60 other prisoners embroidered their signature on The Suffragette Handkerchief under the noses of the prison guards. Wright also used smuggled plasteline to model a portrait bust of her fellow prisoner, Pankhurst. Wright continued her suffrage activism after her return to the United States in 1914. She was Recording Secretary of the Woman's Suffrage Party of New York during the winning campaign. Wright only returned to sculpture full-time after the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment. In 1920, Wright returned to Albany and gradually turned away from art to focus on animal rights. Wright was a benefactress to the National Humane Education Society; in 1950, with Wright's help, the NHES established its first animal care facility, called the Peace Plantation Animal Sanctuary. Wright also wrote the organization's 12 Guiding Principles, which is still in use.

Personal life Wright and Edith J. Goode were lifetime companions. Goode attended Sidwell Friends, at that time a small Quaker School, then attended Smith College (like Wright, graduating in 1904) where the two women met, and together they worked tirelessly for peace and justice.

Wright served as a delegate to the 1948 United Nations assembly in Paris. Around the same time, Wright also served as an organizer for United Nationals Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).

Death and legacy Wright died in Albany at the age of 93, on April 8, 1975. Emmeline Pankhurst (1912), Sewall-Belmont House and Museum, Washington, D.C. Faun (1915) Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C. Dancing Figure (1915) The Fist (1921), Albany Institute of History and Art, Albany, N.Y. The Off-Shore Wind (1921) Medea, Albany Institute of History and Art The Trojan Women Albany Institute of History and Art Mme. Breshkovskya (Russian Revolutionary), Albany Institute of History and Art Edith J. Goode, Albany Institute of History and Art