Howard Roberts (sculptor)

He was an exact contemporary of fellow Philadelphian Thomas Eakins, and both entered the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris in 1866, and studied under sculptor Augustin-Alexandre Dumont.

Eakins did not consider Roberts a friend, calling him "a rich disagreeable young man from Philadelphia, one who has without any apparent reason seen fit to be my enemy.

Roberts's first major work was a two-thirds-life-size marble statue of Hester Prynne (1869–72), the heroine of Nathaniel Hawthorne's novel The Scarlet Letter, which was exhibited at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in 1872.

In addition, he began a new work, completing in marble La Premiere Pose (1873–76),[7] and brought it back to Philadelphia to be exhibited at the 1876 Centennial Exposition.

As the critic William J. Clark described it: In the United States Department there was no piece of sculpture which was marked by such high technical qualities as the Premiere Pose of Howard Roberts.

[11] Howard Roberts (1845-1900) exhibited a figure called La Première Pose at the Centennial Exposition in 1876, which aroused great interest, as it was the first notable example of the modern French style in American sculpture.

A few ideal busts and statues or statuettes, Hester Prynne, Hypathia, Lot's Wife, Eleanor, make up the sum of Roberts' works, but he has the honor of having introduced the French style.