New York museum celebrates boundary-pushing artist behind Central Park’s Bethesda Fountain

The Heckscher Museum of Art in Huntington, New York, has opened "Carving Out History," the first-ever exhibition dedicated solely to 19th-century sculptor Emma Stebbins, creator of Central Park's iconic Bethesda Fountain. Curator Karli Wurzelbacher spent over five years assembling 14 marble sculptures from around the world, including pieces from Oregon, Rome, and Belfast, after a descendant of the artist contacted the museum in 2021. The exhibition is accompanied by a 256-page book and aims to establish Stebbins among the canon of great Neo-Classical sculptors.