Chisel & Razor: The Artistic Legacies of Edmonia & Samuel Lewis An Exhibition in Two Acts, Opening in Summer 2026
BOZEMAN – In 2026, Tinworks Art will present Chisel & Razor: The Artistic Legacies of Edmonia & Samuel Lewis. This two-part exhibition unites, for the first time, the stories of Mary Edmonia Lewis, the first internationally acclaimed Black and Anishinaabe sculptor, and that of her brother, Samuel W. Lewis—a Bozeman-based performer, entrepreneur, and community leader who was central to Edmonia’s success.
Portrait of the American sculptor, Mary Edmonia Lewis, also known as "Wildfire" (1844-1907)
Featuring artists responding to the Lewis siblings’ lives, work, travels, and cultural worlds, Chisel & Razor explores how creativity, ambition, and collaboration can shape communities and endure across generations. It includes new commissions by Edgar Arceneaux and Auriea Harvey as well as works by Sanford Biggers, Sonya Clark, Andrea Carlson, Athena LaTocha and others.
The Tinworks exhibition will foreground contemporary artists inspired by the biography and historical context of the Lewis siblings through a wide range of media, revealing the ongoing relevance of their lives and creative practice. Both Edmonia and Samuel expertly navigated the first wave of American identity politics in the nineteenth century and its reactionary aftermath, by using art, self-fashioning, and entertainment to build communities across difference. A master of the neo-classical style, Edmonia upended many artistic and cultural norms. She infused American themes of freedom and individuality in her practice, sculpting subjects ranging from literary figures to her abolitionist peers. Her most famous sculptural subjects—Cleopatra and the biblical figure of Hagar—countered the era’s figurative stereotypes and connected these foundational stories of Western culture to the Black diaspora.
Chisel & Razor contributes to Edmonia’s growing art historical recognition by including Samuel, a foundational but largely forgotten figure in Montana’s past. Arriving to Montana in 1866, Samuel was a founding member of a Black settler community that flourished in Bozeman after the Civil War. A skilled barber and developer who became a prominent, respected community figure, Samuel was also an entertainer, who performed as a musician and magician delighting local audiences across the state. Tinworks is the first art institution to bring Samuel’s story to light, engaging contemporary artistic voices in dialogue with Montana’s local histories.
“Although an ocean apart—Edmonia in Rome and Samuel in Bozeman—the intertwined stories of these two figures reflect the creative resilience, migration histories, and cultural exchanges that shaped 19th-century America. Chisel & Razor will mark the first time the combined legacies of the Lewis siblings are explored on such a large scale,” shared Dr. Melissa Ragain, Special Project Curator at Tinworks and Professor at Montana State University. “By bringing Edmonia’s story into conversation with Samuel’s, this show repositions Montana within a global history of art, while underscoring art’s capacity to forge bonds of community and belonging. To this end, the exhibition aligns with Tinworks’ mission to support contemporary art while illuminating stories of the American West.”
Chisel & Razor, Act I
June 19, 2026 – October 31, 2026
The first installation of this two-part show brings together a selection of work, some newly commissioned, that celebrates the life and legacy of Samuel W. Lewis, who served as his sister’s benefactor and support system. Samuel’s life in Bozeman between 1868 and 1896 reveals a West shaped by the ideology of Manifest Destiny. The presence of Black settlers, whose participation in westward expansion has yet to be fully recognized, undermined the racial justifications for appropriating Native land. At the same time, Black settlers shared their neighbors’ aspirations to freedom and social mobility.
Los Angeles-based artist Edgar Arceneaux will present a theatrical reconstruction of the siblings’ lives, developed with local Bozeman actors over the course of two days during the opening weekend, June 20-21. His commission encourages audiences to reflect upon and imagine the lives of these adventurous figures and to consider broader Black histories of the West. After its presentation, the play will be reconfigured into an installation of painting and video, which will remain on view in the Warehouse space at Tinworks.
Additional artists whose work will be presented in the Tinworks Warehouse space, including Terry Adkins, Sonya Clark, Maud Sulter, and Nate Young, explore how the stories we tell about the past shape present realities.
Chisel & Razor, Act II
Oct 1, 2026 – April 4, 2027
The second exhibition installment centers on the life and work of Edmonia Lewis. Inaugurating Tinworks’ newly restored Mill Building on the Ida campus is a major commission by Auriea Harvey who, like Edmonia Lewis, is a Black, Catholic, expatriate artist living in Rome. Harvey’s immersive installation, Edmonia Triumphalis, memorializes an imaginary journey by Edmonia to visit her brother in Bozeman, a journey she was never able to make in her lifetime.
The work features a triumphal arch constructed from local rammed earth and a monumental fountain inspired by Edmonia Lewis’s classical and baroque influences. Through research- based storytelling and sculptural innovation, Harvey bridges Rome and Montana, illuminating the global networks that underpinned the siblings’ lives.
Other artists whose work will be presented in the Mill building, including Sanford Biggers, Andrea Carlson, Kelly Church, and Athena LaTocha, likewise consider how ancient traditions from North America, Northern Africa, and the Mediterranean remain vital to the practices of contemporary artists.
The exhibition is curated by Dr. Melissa Ragain in collaboration with a group of advisors, including Dr. Tiya Miles, 2011 MacArthur Fellow, author, and Professor of History at Harvard University who also serves on Tinworks Art’s Board of Directors; MSU Professor of Native American Studies Dr. Anita Moore-Nall; Montana-based filmmaker Nnamdi Kanaga; MSU professor in Sociology & Anthropology Dr. Jelani Mahiri; Montana-based artist Emily Gonzales; Montana-based writer Dr. Betsy Quammen; and Montana-based writer Dr. Anthony W. Wood.
Support
Tinworks Art gratefully acknowledges the generous support of VIA Art Fund for the production and exhibition of Edmonia Triumphalis by Auriea Harvey, and the Vilcek Foundation for their support of Sunflowers, to follow the wheat by Agnes Denes, an ongoing ecological intervention in Tinworks’ field. Major program support for Tinworks Art is provided by The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts and Tinworks Founding Director’s Council. Additional support is provided by coal tax revenues allocated to Montana’s Cultural and Aesthetic Projects Trust Fund.
Related Programs
In addition to the works on view at Tinworks Art’s campus, Chisel & Razor will be a citywide celebration in partnership with Montana State University College of Arts & Architecture, who will present additional public programs including:
Exhibition: “Chisel & Razor: Art, Entrepreneurship, and the Lewis Family” Oct 12, 2026 – Sept 12, 2027, Museum of the Rockies
Featuring original artworks by Edmonia Lewis and historical artifacts related to both Lewis siblings, the exhibition tracks the movement of Black migrants abroad and to the American West in the 1860s. With a special focus on entrepreneurship and creativity, the show considers the shared goals of full citizenship and national belonging for those living on America’s geographic and social margins at the time. An exhibition copy of Edmonia Lewis’s celebrated centennial sculpture, The Death of Cleopatra, created in collaboration with students at Montana Technological University, will be a highlight of the exhibition and will be the first time Edmonia Lewis’s sculptures will be displayed in Montana.
