The Elisabet Ney Musuem

Here Her Legacy Lives On

Image Taken by Author | Elisabet Ney Museum in Austin, TX

If you ever make it to Austin, check out the Elisabet Ney Museum in Hyde Park. It is a free exhibit open Wednesday through Sunday, located inside her final home that she named Formosa — Portuguese for beautiful.

Image Taken by Author | Busts of Prominent Texas Figures

At the top of this photo is Jacob Bickler, a dear friend of Ney and a local scholar who founded the Bickler Academy in 1892. The bust on the bottom left is Governor Joseph Sayers. He appropriated the state funds that paid Ney for her statues of Stephen F. Austin and Sam Houston at the Texas Capitol. Also among these important men is William Prather (top row where the walls meet), President of the University of Texas (1900–1905).

Bust of Christ | Image by Author

The bust of Jesus Christ is significantly larger than the others.

Stephen F. Austin | Image Taken by Author

This is Stephen F. Austin (1793–1836). Nicknamed “The Father of Texas,” he brought the first 300 families to Texas to populate the settlement he founded, known as Austin Colony. In 1836, Sam Houston appointed him as the first secretary of state of the Republic of Texas. He died shortly after taking office.

Lady Macbeth plaster completed 1902 | Final marble version from 1905 is currently in Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, DC.

Here we see Lady Macbeth. The final marble version was Elisabet’s last major work. If you’re wondering who is photobombing her, that would be Julius Runge (1851–1906). The son of German immigrants, Julias was a prominent merchant, financier, and public official in Galveston, TX. He helped Ney acquire the Liendo Plantation in Hempstead, near Houston.

About Elisabet Ney

Elisabet Ney hard at work in her studio, Formosa, circa 1898 | Image of a photograph taken by Author

Prussian-born sculptor Elisabet Ney was born on January 26th, 1833. Her father Johann Adam Ney, a successful stonecutter, is often regarded as the catalyst for her interest in sculpture. The first woman to be accepted into the school of sculpture at the Royal Bavarian Academy of Fine Arts in Munich, Germany, Elisabet quickly established a reputation as a bright and talented sculptor.

This reputation earned her the opportunity to study with the great German sculptor, Christian Daniel Rauch, a dream come true for Elisabet. Elisabet first exhibited her work at the Berlin Exposition of 1856. Her fame was launched by her busts of philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer, and King George V of Hanover.

In 1863, Elisabet married Edmund Duncan Montgomery, an ambitious medical student who would become a doctor with his own practice on the island of Madeira. Elisabet and her husband immigrated to the United States in 1870. After a three-year stint in Georgia, they settled on a plantation near Houston, Texas.

After a nearly 20-year hiatus, while raising her son, Elisabet resumed her career in 1890, sculpting prominent Texas figures such as Sam Houston in 1892 and Stephen F. Austin in 1893.

With the money she earned from sculpting these figures, Elisabet purchased four and a half acres in the Austin, Texas Hyde Park suburb. On her new land, she built a Greek-inspired temple named Formosa (Portuguese for beautiful) where she could keep her creative juices flowing and continue sculpting until her death on June 29th, 1907.

Sources Cited

I obtained info regarding the busts in a gallery guide that I picked up at the Museum. The rest of my sources are listed below.

Elisabet Ney | American sculptor | Britannica

CHILDHOOD (austintexas.gov)