Mary S. Washburn

Mary Washburn was born in Star City, Indiana, in 1868, and grew up in Rensselaer, Indiana.[1] She was deafened after a bout of scarlet fever at age sixteen.[2]

Washburn returned to her public high school and graduated with her class.[1] She attended Butler College in Indianapolis through her sophomore year in 1889.[3] She struggled to adjust to college life and communicate with teachers and other students; she took lessons in lipreading and learned to use her residual hearing to the best of her ability.[1]

Washburn took courses in drawing and commercial art in Cincinnati, then moved to Chicago.[1] After traveling to Europe to study artistic classics, she began attending the Art Institute of Chicago.[1] At the Art Institute, she studied under Lorado Taft and Charles Mulligan.[4][1] She spent many evenings practicing anatomy drawings in the library and sketching skeletons and musculature models in the art studios.[1]

Her first commissioned work was a sculpture of Union Civil War general Robert H. Milroy in her hometown of Rensselaer; the statue stands at the former site of his homestead.[5][1] Many exhibits followed at the Art Institute and at exhibitions in Chicago, Indianapolis, Philadelphia, and other cities.[1] Washburn decided to resign from taking commercial art orders so she could focus on sculpture.[1]

Washburn created the Waite Memorial for Charles Burlingame Waite and Catharine Van Valkenburg Waite after his death in 1909.[4] Located at Rock Creek Cemetery in Washington, D.C., the memorial features a bronze bust of Charles and a circular bronze relief portrait of Catharine.[4] During a third visit to Paris, Washburn studied under master sculptor Edwin Sawyer, learning to sculpt medals and medallions.[1] One of her sketches was accepted at the Old Salon of Paris in 1913, and she exhibited her works at the Paris Allied Artists Association.[1]

At the 1915 Panama–Pacific International Exposition, Washburn received an award.[1] She also exhibited at the Oakland Art Gallery in 1927.[6] Her artwork can be found in multiple institutions across the United States, including the Carnegie Institute.[1]

She died in October 1932.[1]