Meredith Bergmann, NSS is the sculptor for the Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony Statue, the first statue in NYC’s Central Park to depict real women. The statue commemorates the largest nonviolent revolution in our nation’s history — the movement for women’s right to vote.

“I’m honored to have been chosen to make this monument to a movement that transformed our democracy so profoundly from within, and without bloodshed, and that began with two women writing together, composing the most powerful arguments they could imagine. It’s a great subject for a sculpture,” says Bergmann.

Past examples of Bergmann’s work include the Boston Women’s Memorial (Boston, MA); FDR Hope Memorial (Roosevelt Island, NYC); and Marian Anderson (Spartanburg, SC). Her September 11^th Memorial is on view at the Cathedral Church of Saint John the Divine (NYC) and her bust of Ruth Bader Ginsburg is in the collections of Justice Ginsburg and Columbia University (NYC). Bergmann’s work has been in several of National Sculpture Society’s exhibitions; in 2017, she received the Proskauer Prize for her bas-relief Mother & Child with a Glock.

The announcement of Bergmann’s selection was made on July 19th, the 170^th anniversary of the opening day of the Seneca Falls Women’s Rights Convention. The Statue Fund Design Competition Jury reviewed a total of 91 submissions from artists across the country. The three other finalists for Central Park’s women’s suffrage monument were:

Jane DeDecker, FNSS – Examples of past work: Amelia Earhart (Alameda, CA); Emily Dickinson, (Spartanburg, SC); Sister Catherine McAuley (St. Louis, MO); Harriet Tubman (Little Rock, AK); and Sherlock Holmes (Edmond, OK)

Victoria Guerina and Lloyd Lillie, FNSS – Examples of past work: The First Wave, Women’s Rights Convention of 1848 project (Seneca Falls, NY); Martin Richard Memorial (Bridgewater, MA); and Katherine Lee Bates (Falmouth, MA)

Ann Hirsch – Examples of past work: Anna Bissell (Grand Rapids, MI); Bill Russell Legacy Project (Boston, MA); St. Ignatius of Loyola (Cuyahoga Falls, OH); Home (Sarasota, FL); and Stanley Ketchel (Grand Rapids, MI)

The Statue Fund Design Competition Jury included NSS’ 1st Vice President, Amy Kann, as well as:

Dr. Jennifer Chi, Deputy Director and Chief Curator, Brooklyn Museum

Kinshasha Holman Conwill, Deputy Director, National Museum of African American History and Culture

Pam Elam, President, The Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony Statue Fund, Inc.

Amy Freitag, Executive Director, The J. M. Kaplan Foundation

Coline Jenkins, Vice President, The Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony Statue Fund, Inc.

Dr. Harriet F. Senie, Professor of Art History and Director of the M.A. Program in Art History and Art Museum Studies Program, City College of New York

Commissioner Mitchell Silver, New York City Parks Department

Bergmann’s winning design will be on exhibit at the New York Historical Society until the end of July. Donations to the statue can be made online or payable to The Stanton and Anthony Statue Fund, PO Box 150-074, Van Brunt Station, Brooklyn, NY 11215.

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