Bavarian Mother and Child (Primary Title)
Antoinette Hollister, American, 1873 - 1943 (Artist)
The Chicago native Antoinette Hollister studied at the Art Institute of Chicago and under Auguste Rodin in Paris. She exhibited in the Paris Salon in 1917 and was awarded the Shaffer Prize at the Annual Exhibition of Works by Chicago Artists in 1919 at the Art Institute of Chicago. Bavarian Mother and Child (perhaps the VMFA cast) won her an honorable mention at the Panama-Pacific Exposition in San Francisco in 1915.
Hollister addressed themes of poverty, immigration, and other social concerns in works such as this bronze. In April 1913 a ceramic version appeared on the cover of the reform-minded magazine The Survey, accompanying the poem “Immigrant Motherhood.” She moved to Richmond in the mid- 1920s to teach sculpture at the School of Social Work and Public Health. She was also director of the Craig House Art Center, now Adam Craig House, in Shockoe Bottom, where art classes for African Americans were held.
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