The Shipcarvers' Art: Figureheads and Cigar-Store Indians in Nineteenth-Century America

Among the most popular and ubiquitous sculptures in nineteenth-century America were the ship's figurehead and the cigar-store Indian. The vast majority of these engaging human figures were created by shipcarvers-highly skilled artists celebrated for their masterful figureheads but who collectively made tens of thousands of shop figures as well, from fanciful representations of American Indians to firemen, baseball players, and fashionable women.

Shaped by nineteenth-century Anglo-American values, this artwork reflects the tenor of the times, including racial and gender stereotyping, America's emerging popular culture, and the birth of modern advertising techniques.

The Shipcarvers' Art is the first book to assess the artistry and history of these two closely related genres in a single volume. Richly illustrated and elegantly written, it reveals the intertwining of art, commerce, and shipcarving in nineteenth-century America. On March 22, 1856, for example, only four months after Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's poem Hiawatha was first published, the clipper Minehaha was launched at an East Boston shipyard. Its figurehead depicted a renowned English actress in her role as Hiawatha's wife, Minehaha. Central to the festivities surrounding the event were poet, actress, and shipbuilder--and a fictional image of the Native American.

Ralph Sessions not only highlights the work of shipcarvers throughout the eastern United States and Canada but also presents new information on carving workshops in New York City, America's key shipbuilding center from around 1820 until after the Civil War.

Just as they were vanishing from the bows of ships and city streets around the turn of the twentieth century, figureheads and shop figures began to experience renewed interest as museum pieces and collector's items. Representing a milestone in scholarship on the subject, The Shipcarvers' Art magnificently brings them alive once more for art lovers of the twenty-first century.