American Female Sculptors

Leslie Stefanson is an American model, artist, and actress. She achieved popularity after playing important roles in popular films, such as The General's Daughter. A multi-talented personality, Leslie Stefanson also makes terracotta and bronze sculptures in New York City and Los Angeles.

Edmonia Lewis was an American sculptor who worked in Rome for most of her career. The first African-American sculptor to gain international prominence, Lewis was also the only Black female artist to have participated and recognized by the American artistic mainstream until the end of the 19th century. Molefi Kete Asante included Lewis in his 100 Greatest African Americans list.

Louise Bourgeois was a French-American artist best remembered for her large-scale installation art and sculpture. Also a prolific printmaker and painter, Bourgeois explored a variety of themes, such as sexuality and death. In 1997, she was awarded the National Medal of Arts. In 2009, she was inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame.

Jenny Holzer is an American artist best known for her association with neo-conceptual art. Her work focuses on conveying ideas and messages in public spaces with the help of large-scale installations, illuminated electronic displays, projections on buildings, and advertising billboards. Over the course of her career, Holzer has received several awards like the Golden Lion at the 1990 Venice Biennale.

Niki de Saint Phalle was a French-American painter, sculptor, and filmmaker. She gained prominence as a monumental sculptor as not many women were renowned for their skills as monumental sculptors. Also remembered for her social work, Niki was one of the earliest artists to spread awareness about AIDS through art. She also wrote extensively in English and French.

Beatrice Wood was an American studio potter and artist best remembered for her association with the Avant-Garde movement. Wood is credited with founding Rongwrong and The Blind Man magazines along with Henri-Pierre Roché and Marcel Duchamp. Beatrice Wood's autobiography inspired the creation of Rose DeWitt Bukater's character in the 1997 epic romance and disaster film Titanic. 

Kiki Smith is a German American artist who lives and works in New York State. Smith's work focuses on themes like regeneration, sex, and birth. An influential artist, Smith's work also discusses subjects like gender and AIDS. Over the years, she has won several prestigious awards, such as the Nelson A. Rockefeller Award and Women in the Arts Award.

Louise Nevelson was an American sculptor best remembered for her monochromatic outdoor sculptures and wooden wall pieces. Although she was not a feminist, Nevelson's work played a major role in the development of the feminist art movement in the United States. Louise Nevelson is widely regarded as one of the 20th-century's most prominent American sculptors.

Emilie Benes Brzezinski is a Swiss American sculptor best known for her sculptures made out of wood. Her monumental work Lintel, which was made from cut cherry trees, is currently preserved in a sculpture park named Grounds For Sculpture in Hamilton, New Jersey. Over the years, Emilie Benes has displayed her work at several art exhibitions, including the Florence Biennale.

Ginger Gilmour is an American sculptor, author, artist, and former model. Best known for her work featuring angels, Gilmour has had her work exhibited in several venues and galleries, including Arundel Castle, Mall Galleries, London, and the Embassy of Germany in London. Apart from being an artist, Gilmour also teaches art and Mental Color Healing, a form of esoteric healing.   

Remembered for her surrealist paintings, sculptor and painter Dorothea Margaret Tanning seemed to have recreated her visions and dreams through her art. Most of her works showcase unreal situations, with motifs such as gigantic flowers and doors. Her iconic installation Hôtel du Pavot, Chambre 202 showcases her sculpting skills.

Augusta Savage was an American sculptor best remembered for her association with the Harlem Renaissance. Savage also worked as a teacher and her studio served as an important tool to the development of the careers of several artists who went on to achieve national prominence. In 2008, Augusta Savage was inducted into the Florida Artist Hall of Fame. 

Ruth Asawa was an American sculptor best remembered for her wire sculptures, some of which are preserved in the tower of the M. H. de Young Memorial Museum in San Francisco, California. An arts education advocate, Asawa played an important role in the establishment of the San Francisco School of the Arts.

Cécilia Rodhe is a Swedish sculptor and former model who lives and works in Brooklyn, New York, USA. She achieved popularity in 1978 when she won the Miss Sweden pageant. She went on to compete in the Miss Universe pageant the same year where she finished fifth.

Sarah Sze is an American contemporary artist best known for her installation works and sculptures. She uses everyday materials to explore the role of technology in contemporary life for which she has received several awards like the Louise Blouin Foundation Award and Louis Comfort Tiffany Award. Apart from being an artist, Sarah also works as a professor at Columbia University.

Vanessa Beecroft is a contemporary performance artist who often works with professional models to stage tableaux vivants. In 2018, she used Kim Kardashian as her model for the release of the latter's perfume brand. A controversial personality, Vanessa Beecroft's unsuccessful attempt to adopt Sudanese twins inspired a derogative documentary titled The Art Star and the Sudanese Twins by Pietra Brettkelly.

American-Canadian artist Miriam Schapiro experimented with minimalism, abstraction, and geometry and often expressed her own feminist thoughts though her art. Her best-known works include Anatomy of a Kimono, the sculpture Dollhouse, and her art inspired by Jewish heritage, such as Mother Russia. She was also skilled in creating femmage art.

Dutch-American sculptor Coosje van Bruggen is best known for her collaborations with her sculptor husband, Claes Oldenburg. Their works include Shuttlecocks at the Donald J. Hall Sculpture Park and Flashlight at the University of Nevada. She has also penned several books and been a sculpture critic at Yale University.

The daughter of English pianist Richard Hoffman, Malvina Hoffman was initially trained in painting but later deviated toward sculpting. She specialized in bronze sculptures and life-size figures of eminent personalities such as ballerina Anna Pavlova and poet John Keats. Her iconic works have adorned the Field Museum of Natural History.

Award-winning American sculptor and painter Janet Scudder is most-noted for her bas-relief portraiture, portrait medallions, memorial sculptures, garden sculptures and fountains. Some of her noted works include designing a seal for New York Bar Association, her first major commission; the Frog Fountain that paved way for several other sculptures and fountains; and a Congressional Gold Medal honouring Domício da Gama.