Bessie Potter Vonnoh enjoyed a long and successful career at a time when it was still unusual for an American woman to make sculpture. A native of St. Louis, Potter suffered a series of baffling illnesses that kept her partially paralyzed from the ages of two through 10. She recovered but remained physically small, reaching a height of just four feet, eight inches.

Potter was raised in Chicago, where her family had moved in 1874. She so enjoyed the clay-modeling classes at school that, by 14, she had decided to become a sculptor. As a teenager she studied at the Art Institute of Chicago under Lorado Taft, a noted, Paris-trained, American sculptor who later employed Potter as one of his assistants making sculpture for the World's Columbian Exposition of 1893. This experience enabled the 22-year-old Potter to open her own Chicago studio, where she began modeling small, delicately tinted plaster portraits of her friends. These proved so popular that Potter was able to take her first trip to Europe in 1895, during which she met Auguste Rodin, who was to become an important influence.

On her return to Chicago the following year, Potter achieved fame with Young Mother, a tabletop-size image of a woman cradling her infant. This work received enthusiastic reviews and became one of Potter's most sought-after sculptures. As the artist's reputation continued to grow, she also received several commissions for monumental public art.

In 1899 Potter married the painter Robert Vonnoh and moved with him to New York City, where they resided until his death in 1933. Her career continued to prosper. She received many medals, had important one-woman exhibitions, and in the 1920s, expanded her oeuvre to include large sculptural fountains and decorative garden figures.