Bessie Potter studied at the Art Institute of Chicago under Lorado Taft and assisted him in the execution of decorative sculpture for Chicago's Columbian Exposition in 1893. On her own, Potter created a monumental allegorical figure, Art, for the Illinois Building. At the Chicago fair she saw the sculpture of Russian artist Paul Troubetzkoy which, according to Taft, inspired her to pursue an interest in genre sculpture.
The following year, Potter and her mother traveled to France in the company of Mr. and Mrs. Lorado Taft and, while there, visited the studio of Auguste Rodin. On her return to Chicago, she modeled Young Mother (see below), the first in a series of depictions of mothers with infants, and several portrait busts including one of Susan B. Anthony. She became a member of the Society of American Artists in New York and began exhibiting in that organization's annual shows in 1895. These exhibitions were fundamental to her attracting her first serious critical attention and to the development of her career. She won the Julia A. Shaw Memorial Prize here in 1904 for Enthroned (cat. no. 397; example in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York), the first sculpture to receive an Academy prize. Her associate membership in the National Academy was automatic with the merger of the Society of American Artists and the Academy in 1906 and she thereby became the first woman sculptor to attain such status. She exhibited frequently at the Academy during the first two decades of the century and won the Elizabeth N. Watrous Gold Medal here in the winter of 1921 for Allgresse (cat. no. 453; Detroit Institute of Arts).
In 1899, Potter married the American painter Robert Vonnoh and moved to New York. The following year, the couple attended the Paris Exposition where the sculptor showed two works and won a bronze medal.
In 1904, she won a gold medal at the St. Louis world's fairand, in 1915, took a silver medal at the Panama-Pacific Exposition in San Francisco. In 1916, the Vonnohs were honored with a joint exhibition of paintings and sculpture at the City Art Museum in Saint Louis.
Bessie Vonnoh continued to pursue her interest in small sculpture with a series of dancing figures executed in the first two decades of the twentieth century, a few of which were exhibited at the Academy in 1910. She also designed the fountain figure Waterlilies (Brookgreen Gardens, South Carolin) in 1913, the first of several such projects, another of which is the Frances Hodgson Burnett Fountain in Central Park, New York City. She was a member of the National Sculpture Society and the Lyme Art Association, Old Lyme, Connecticut.
After the death of Robert Vonnoh in 1933, Bessie more-or-less retired from sculpting. She married a second time in 1948 to Dr. Edward L. Keyes.
