Alice Morgan Wright was an American sculptor, suffragist, and animal welfare activist. She was one of the first American artists to embrace Cubism and Futurism.
Early life and education
Wright came from an old Albany family. She was born October 10, 1881 to Henry Romeyn Wright, a prosperous wholesale grocer, and Emma Jane Morgan. A student at St. Agnes School in Albany, Wright graduated from Smith College in 1904 and continued her studies, in sculpture, at the Art Students League of New York. The League awarded Wright both the Gutzon Borglum and the Augustus Saint-Gaudens prizes for her outstanding art work. Prohibited from attending life studies while attending the Art Students League, Wright watched local boxing and wrestling competitions in order to study the human form. In 1909, Wright went to Paris, where she attended the École des Beaux-Arts and the Académie Colarossi. In Paris she was a pupil of Injalbert and in New York she studied with Gutzon Borglum, James Earle Fraser and Hermon Atkins MacNeil.
Career
Artist
She exhibited domestically at the Art Institute of Chicago and the Art Institute of Philadelphia, and her work appeared in Europe at the Royal Academy of Arts and the Salon des Beaux Arts. She was a member of the National Association of Women Painters and Sculptors as well as a founding member and director of the Society of Independent Artists. perhaps her best known sculpture, shows the modernist influence of Auguste Rodin; other works, like "Medea", integrated avant-garde Cubist and even Futurist elements. It is likely influenced by the struggle for women's voting rights. Wright also produced more conventional pieces throughout her career. Wright worked slowly and often moved back and forth between a conservative and a more experimental style. Wright was a member of the National Sculpture Society. She exhibited two pieces, Wind Figure, a stone carving and Young Faun, a bronze statuette, at the Societies 1923 exhibition. Her very abstracted work Medea was shown at the 1929 exhibition. Betsy Fahlman curated a retrospective exhibit of Wright's work in 1978 at the Albany Institute of History & Art titled Sculpture and Suffrage: The Art and Life of Alice Morgan Wright . By 1945, Wright had abandoned art in favor of her animal rights activism.
Suffragist
Wright was also an ardent suffragist. She worked for the Collegiate Equal Suffrage League. While studying art in Europe, Wright involved herself in both the British and French suffrage movements; notably, Wright organized a meeting in Paris where English suffragist Emmeline Pankhurst spoke. Wright also arranged for Pankhurst to make an appearance in Albany during her tour of the United States in 1911. With the National Women's Social and Political Union, she participated in militant demonstrations in England. She was incarcerated for two months in Holloway Prison, London. With other suffragettes, she protested her treatment by participating in a hunger strike. Wright used uneaten food to create models of her fellow prisoners, using sugar cubes as bases, rather than let it go to waste. She also used smuggled plasteline to model a portrait bust of her fellow prisoner, Pankhurst. Wright continued her suffrage activism after her return to the United States in 1914. She was Recording Secretary of the Woman's Suffrage Party of New York during the winning campaign. Wright only returned to sculpture full-time after the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment. In 1921, she helped to create the League of Women Voters of New York State.
Political activist
In 1920, Wright returned to Albany and gradually turned away from art to focus on political activism, especially animal rights. Wright was a benefactress to the National Humane Education Society; in 1950, with Wright's help, the NHES established its first animal care facility, called the Peace Plantation Animal Sanctuary. Wright also wrote the organization's 12 Guiding Principles, which is still in use. In 1957, Wright lobbied President Eisenhower against using animals in medical testing and scientific research; in 1958, Congress passed the Humane Slaughter Act. Wright served as a delegate to the 1948 United Nations assembly in Paris. Around the same time, Wright also served as an organizer for United Nationals Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization.
Wright died in Albany at the age of 93, on April 8, 1975. Wright and Goode created the Alice Morgan Wright-Edith Goode Fund, an endowed trust that supports animal welfare organizations.
