Artwork Details
- Title
- Pioneer Woman
- Artist
- Founder
- Roman Bronze Works, Inc.
- Date
- modeled 1927, cast 1968
- Location
- Not on view
- Dimensions
- 32 x 15 x 16 1⁄8 in. (81.3 x 38.1 x 41.1 cm)
- Credit Line
- Gift of the artist
- Mediums
- Mediums Description
- bronze
- Classifications
- Keywords
- Recreation — leisure — strolling
- Figure group — female and child
- History — United States — westward expansion
- Dress — historic — pioneer dress
- Object Number
- 1968.126
Artwork Description
In 1926, Bryant Baker won a competition to sculpt a seventeen-foot-high bronze monument in Ponca City, Oklahoma. He crafted this smaller version of Pioneer Woman before unveiling the monument on April 22, 1930, to a crowd that included President Herbert Hoover, humorist Will Rogers, and oil magnate E. W. Marland, who had funded the project. The monument's plaque stated that Baker created it "in appreciation of the heroic character of the women who braved the dangers and endured the hardships incident to the daily life of the pioneer and homesteader in this country." According to the sculptor, the boy personifies the future of the American West and the woman's bundle symbolizes the burden of life. The book under her right arm is the Bible, which Baker believed was "a vital factor in building up this country" ("Bryant Baker, Sculptor, Dies; Executed Busts of 5 Presidents," New York Times, March 31, 1970).