A sculptor known for her depictions of graceful, serene, female figures with gently sweeping garments, Bessie Vonnoh became one of the female assistant's to Lorado Taft with a group nicknamed the "White Rabbits*." They assisted him with large-scale pieces at the 1893 Chicago World's Fair Exhibition*.

Vonnoh was born in St. Louis, Missouri and moved with her family to Chicago where at age twenty one, she enrolled in Taft's sculpture class at the Art Institute of Chicago*. At the World's Fair, she was much influenced by the small bronze figures of Russian sculptor Paul Troubetzkoy, and after the Fair, she began doing her own small bronze figures, which became very popular.

Encouraged by Taft, she went to P...