Anna Vaughn Hyatt Huntington, 1876-1973

An award-winning sculptress, who was the first woman to create and erect a public sculpture in New York City.

Influenced by her Harvard zoology professor father to be interested in animals, and found artistic inspiration in her mother and two grandmothers, Anna expressed her passion by making sculptures.
 
She moved to New York City in her mid-twenties and built an impressive career in the market of small sculptures: participated in exhibitions, was commissioned by prestigious art institutions, won awards, and sold many art pieces. One of her most popular sculptures was “Yawning Tiger” which was bought in hundreds of copies.
 
Hyatt Huntington invested in long visits to Paris to gain the recognition of the Europe-facing art world. In 1910 she exhibited a monumental sculpture of Joan of Arc at the Paris Salon. She was later commissioned to reproduce the sculpture – placing Joan of Arc on Riverside Drive and 93rd Street. It was the first public sculpture of a real woman to be erected in New York City and a first-ever monument created by a female artist in the city.
 
In her thirties, she was considered among the highest-paid professional women in the country. At the age of 47, she married cultural tycoon Archer Huntington, changing her name from Anna Vaughn Hyatt to Anna Hyatt Huntington. Together the couple was active in the national art world. Among their many initiatives, the two established South Carolina’s Brookgreen Gardens, the first public sculpture garden in the United States. Anna continued working until a few years before her death, at the age of 97.
 

More Interesting Anecdotes:

• She regularly exchanged letters with her mother, sometimes more than once a week, until her mother’s death.
• From 1927 until 1937 she contracted and survived tuberculosis.
• In February 1917 she dressed up as the subject of her statue – Joan of Arc – arriving at a medieval-themed pageant of the Architectural League of New York in full armor on a white horse.