Theo Kitson

I’m away this week on a writing spree so SCAD art history professor Christine Neal graciously stepped in. Enjoy her offering below.

Although it’s not Women’s History Month, this week’s Historical Rumination highlights one of Savannah’s favorite sculptors, The Hiker, at the south of Forsyth Park. While the sculpture is familiar to many, the women sculptor is not.

Many artists spend their careers working in obscurity, receiving recognition only after their deaths. For Theodora Alice Ruggles Kitson [1871-1932], just the opposite is true. Honors, awards, commissions, and critical praise were bestowed on Kitson during her lifetime.  Kitson’s talent was heralded as early as 1895, when she was just 24 years old, as a reporter for Harper’s Weekly wrote, ”Though one of the youngest women who are known through their work in the art world, Mrs. Kitson has had the most successful career of any woman who has undertaken the profession of sculpture.” In 1902, for example, The Boston Globe printed a headline describing Kitson as having “Great Genius,” and highlighting the fact that she was the “First of Her Sex to Execute a Soldier’s Monument.” Unfortunately, accolades such as these were insufficient to guarantee Kitson’s inclusion in the art historical canon of women sculptors along with some of her contemporaries. 

By all accounts, Kitson was that “revolt against nature: a woman genius.”  The label “genius,” usually applied to a man and intended as a compliment, was used to describe Kitson from very early in her life. Yet in the context of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, a woman genius was a complete aberration from the norm, both in Europe and in this country. A female with such prodigious talent was such a rarity that the label often had negative connotations.

Born in 1871 in Brookline Massachusetts, Kitson’s ability was recognized early in her life when she sculpted a recumbent horse in snow. Boston architect Edward Cabot saw the sculpture and encouraged the Ruggles to nurture the fourteen-year-old’s skill. Unlike her male peers, Kitson had difficulty obtaining an education, as she was refused admittance to the Boston Museum of Fine Arts school because of her youth. Undeterred, Kitson’s mother sought private instruction for her daughter from a young British sculptor named Henry Hudson Kitson [1865-1947] whom Kitson would marry in 1893. When Henry went to Paris, young Theo, chaperoned by her mother, pursued further training with him there, in the summer of 1897.

Kitson became immersed in her work and the opportunities available in Paris. In 1888, Kitson exhibited a plaster work entitled Shepherd Lad as well as a bronze bust, Italian Girl, at the Paris Salon. Only 17 years old, Kitson became the youngest sculptor whose work was accepted to the prestigious Salon exhibition. Unfortunately, the young artist’s achievement was attributed to “Mr. Ruggles” in an article about the show, the obvious assumption being that a woman, let alone a girl still in her teens, would not be able to execute such an accomplished sculpture.

Kitson’s European studies continued to bring her acclaim. The following year, 1889, On the Banks of the Oise, a plaster model that was one of two works [simply described a bust of a child] accepted for exhibition, was awarded an honorable mention at the Paris Universal Exposition. Here, it was rumored that the United States Commissioner of the Fine Arts, General Rush C. Hawkins, used Kitson’s model of a child’s head as the standard by which to judge other works.  Young Orpheus earned another honorable mention for Kitson at the 1890 Paris Salon while her teacher won a gold medal. Significantly, Kitson was the first American woman sculptor to be recognized with this distinction.

Kitson’s Hiker, a memorial to the foot soldiers of the Spanish American War, is thought to be found in all 50 states, is used in some instances to test acid rain and pollution, and is conjectured to be one of the most replicated sculptures in this country. Yet, Kitson’s oeuvre has largely been overlooked by scholars and the public. At age 22 Kitson was admitted to the National Sculpture Society as its first female member; she and Henry were inaugural members, joining in 1893.  She broke ground by creating military sculptures acceptable to veterans yet inserting her own interpretation in the most subtle way. As a very young woman, Kitson received awards both in this country and abroad. Five years before her death in 1927, Kitson was recognized by the Sunday Telegram in their headline “Mrs. Theo Ruggles Kitson Regarded by Many as American’s Foremost Woman Sculptor.” Sadly, achieving critical success and being labeled a “genius” did not insure, in Kitson’s case, a place in the canon.

The original Hiker at the University of Minnesota.

Theodora Alice Ruggles Kitson (1871-1932)