Louisville, Kentucky, is celebrating hometown sculptor Enid Yandell (1870-1934) with a series of events in 2019. The Louisville native, who studied under Auguste Rodin and Frederick MacMonnies, contributed several notable works to the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago.

Yandell sculpted the four caryatids supporting the railing of the roof garden of the Woman’s Building. She was selected for the job for Bertha Palmer, President of the Board of Lady Managers and herself a Kentucky native. The artist also created a statue of Daniel Boone for the Kentucky Building. After the Fair, the sculpture was cast in bronze and currently stands in Cherokee Park in Louisville.

With Jean Loughborough and Laura Hayes, Yandell wrote Three Girls in a Flat (Knight, Leonard & Co., 1892) a semi-autobiographical account of her work as a sculptor on the Fairgrounds and the life of young women in Chicago as the White City was being built.

Enid Yandell’s caryatids for the Women’s Building at the 1893 World’s Fair. [Image from Unsere Weltausstellung. Eine Beschreibung der Columbischen Weltausstellung in Chicago, 1893. Fred. Klein Co. 1894.]

Since 2002 the Greater Louisville Pride Foundation has recognized more than 30 significant Louisville natives with a “Hometown Hero” banner hung in locations around the city; others laureates have included boxer Muhammad Ali, actress Jennifer Lawrence, restauranteur Colonel Sanders, writer Sue Grafton, and journalist Diane Sawyer. In a public ceremony on March 31, 2019, Yandell’s “Hometown Heroes” banner was hung on the Harbison Building in Ft. Nelson Park at 7th and Main Streets.

Other events in Louisville to celebrate Yandell include:

  • “Interwoven: A Tribute to Enid Yandell” at 21c Museum Hotel through Oct. 6.
  • “Olmsted’s Louisville: 1891 to Present” exhibit with special events featuring historical interpreters as Enid Yandell at the Frazier History Museum from April through September.
  • “Breaking the Mold: Sculptor Enid Yandell’s Early Life” exhibit at the Filson Historical Society from June 7 through Dec. 27.
  • “Enid Exhibit” at the Speed Art Museum from July 17 through Jan. 12.
  • “ENID: Generations of Women Sculptors” exhibit at the Louisville Free Public Library from Aug. 17 through Oct. 8.
  • “ENID: Generations of Women Sculptors” exhibit at Bellarmine University from Sept. 7 through Oct. 5.
  • “France For Me: Enid Yandell in World War I Paris” at the Louisville Free Public Library on Sept. 12.
  • Enid Yandell bus tour sponsored by the Filson Historical Society on Sept. 27.
  • Enid Yandell Lecture & Birthday Bash, featuring a talk from Dr. Juilee Decker, author of a forthcoming book Enid Yandell: Kentucky’s Pioneer Sculptor at the Filson Historical Society on Oct. 3.
  • Speed Reading Book Club discusses Three Girls in a Flat at the Speed Art Museum on Nov. 12

Information for this article came from Insider Louisville and the Louisville Courier-Journal.