Bergmann's bust of Ruth Bader Ginsburg (2020 cast of 2013 original), National Portrait Gallery, Washington, D.C.

Meredith Bergmann is an American sculptor, poet, and essayist^[1] whose work is said to "forge enriching links between the past and the concerns of the present."^[2] She studied at Wesleyan University and graduated from The Cooper Union with a BFA. While at Cooper Union she discovered sculpture and spent several years traveling around Europe and studying in Pietrasanta, Italy. Her memorial to Countee Cullen is in the collection of the New York Public Library. In 2003, she unveiled the Boston Women's Memorial on Commonwealth Avenue Mall in Boston which includes statues of Phillis Wheatley, Abigail Adams, and Lucy Stone.^[3] In 2006, Bergmann's statue of the famous contralto Marian Anderson was unveiled on the campus of Converse College in Spartanburg, South Carolina.^[4] In 2010, Bergmann created a sculpture of a slave girl named Sally Maria Diggs, or "Pinky," whose freedom was purchased for $900 in 1860.^[5] Bergmann also completed a commission commemorating the events of September 11, 2001 for New York City's Cathedral of St. John the Divine entitled Memorial to September 11.^[6]

Women's Rights Pioneers Monument

On August 26, 2020, the 100th anniversary of the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution granting women the right to vote, her Women's Rights Pioneers Monument was dedicated in Central Park, New York City. Commissioned by Monumental Women, it portrays and honors suffragists Sojourner Truth, Susan B. Anthony, and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. It is Central Park's first statue depicting historical, and not fictional, female figures. The foundry responsible in delivering the work is UAP (formerly named Polich Tallix.) ^[7]

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