Hiawatha and Minnehaha by Edmonia Lewis Hiawatha and Minnehaha by Edmonia Lewis Hiawatha and Minnehaha are 1868 sculptures by Edmonia Lewis. They are in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art on view in gallery 759. African-American, Haitian and Chippewa (Ojibwa) artist, Lewis, developed her neoclassical style of marble sculpture while working in Rome. Lewis was an admirer of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's poetry, and in 1869 Longfellow visited her studio where he posed for one of her portraits which was shortly afterward acquired by Harvard University. Often working in themes that intersected her identity, Lewis focused a series of marble sculptures based on Longfellow’s much-referenced
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Memorial For the statue in Washington, an association was founded to raise money for the effort, ultimately earning $21,000 by subscribers. Additionally, Congress offered another $4,000 and the site. Members of the organization included Andrew Carnegie, Henry Cabot Lodge, Charles William Eliot, Edward Everett Hale, Julia Ward Howe, and Curtis Guild. Theodore Roosevelt served as Honorary Regent. It was unveiled in 1909 by the poet's granddaughter Erica Thorp in the presence of Chief Justice Melville Fuller and the United States Marine Band. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Memorial Henry Wadsworth Longfellow is a bronze statue, by William Couper, and Thomas Ball. The statue