Nancy elizabeth prophet biography of williams
•
RISD MUSEUM ANNOUNCES NANCY ELIZABETH PROPHET: I WILL NOT BEND AN INCH
PROVIDENCE, RI November 17, 2023 – The RISD Museum announces Nancy Elizabeth Prophet: I Will Not Bend an Inch will be on view at the RISD Museum from February 17, 2024 through August 4, 2024. The exhibition will then travel to the Brooklyn Museum and the Spelman College Museum of Fine Art in 2025.
This comprehensive exhibition and its accompanying catalog, published by Yale University Press, is the first major museum presentation to celebrate the work and legacy of Nancy Elizabeth Prophet (1890-1960), an underrecognized 20th-century sculptor best known for her contributions to expatriate culture in Paris during the interwar period. Prophet was one of the first known women of color to graduate from the Rhode Island School of Design and her work reflects skills developed through academic training with a distinctly Modernist sensibility. This survey will feature three-dimensional sculptures of marble and wood
•
Prophet, Nancy Elizabeth 1890–1960
Sculptor
Family Discouraged Ambitions
Exile and Poverty in Paris
Relationship with W.E.B. Du Bois
Taught at Spelman
Decline and Artistic Legacy
Sources
The first African American to graduate from the prestigious Rhode Island School of Design, Nancy Elizabeth Prophet struggled to achieve success as a sculptor. She spent much of her career in exile and endured periods of extreme poverty before gaining international recognition. Returning to the United States, she taught at Spelman College and continued to sculpt, but igen fell into obscurity. Though consistent fame eluded profet in her own lifetime, subsequent generations have begun to recognize her importance as a brilliant, if troubled, artist.
Family Discouraged Ambitions
Prophet was born on March 19, 1890, in Warwick, Rhode Island, to a family with deep roots in the region. She described her mother, Rosa E. Walker Profitt, as a “mixed Negro.” Her father, William H. Pr
•
Nancy Elizabeth Prophet: I Will Not Bend an Inch
As an Afro-Indigenous woman artist, Nancy Elizabeth Prophet (American, 1890–1960) pursued her practice in the face of entrenched racism and sexism. Her sculpture is unmatched in its emotional nuance and technical virtuosity, and her story is a model of unshakable determination. I Will Not Bend an Inch—the first museum examination of this underrecognized sculptor—honors Prophet’s remarkable work and legacy with timely new scholarship. Twenty rare works and historical documentation reveal how she navigated an unwelcoming art world.
Born in Rhode Island to a Narragansett father and a Black mother, Prophet became the first known woman of color to graduate from the prestigious Rhode Island School of Design. She then spent time in New York before moving to Paris. Despite earning critical acclaim in this period, the pinnacle of her career, she struggled with poverty and isolation, and several times found herself o