Peabody‑Essex: sculpture milestone
Alongside the Lewis retrospective, the Peabody‑Essex is positioning sculpture and material storytelling front‑and‑center — 30 works collected to highlight underrepresented 19th‑century practice and transatlantic exchange Edmonia Lewis: Said in Stone at Peabody-Essex Museum. If you travel for deep‑dive museum narratives, this exhibition is curated to reveal technique and provenance details.
Edmonia Lewis: Said in Stone debuts at the Peabody‑Essex from February 14 to June 7, 2026 and is billed by the museum as the first major retrospective of the sculptor. pem.org Curators Jeffrey Richmond‑Moll and Shawnya L. Harris organized the exhibition. georgiamuseum.org The catalogue, co‑authored by Richmond‑Moll and Harris, is a 272‑page, heavily illustrated volume published by the University of Chicago Press. press.uchicago.edu A portrait bust at Bowdoin College was recently reattributed to Edmonia Lewis and is slated to travel with the show, illustrating active provenance work behind the scenes. bowdoin.edu PEM also notes the presentation features newly conserved and never‑before‑publicly‑exhibited pieces that entered the project through institutional loans and research. pem.org The tour schedule lists the Georgia Museum of Art (Aug 8, 2026–Jan 3, 2027) and the North Carolina Museum of Art (Apr 3–Jul 11, 2027) as subsequent venues. pem.org Previews and collection records name notable loans such as Howard University’s Forever Free and the Smithsonian American Art Museum’s The Death of Cleopatra, while major funding comes from the Terra Foundation for American Art and the Henry Luce Foundation. howard.emuseum.com
