You Dare Touch My Child

Abastenia St. Leger Eberle sculpted small bronze figures of poor immigrants on New York's Lower East Side, infusing her work with explicit social and political conviction. Her energetic compositions documented the urban poor with documentary precision while advancing a formal modernism rooted in observed life rather than idealization. Her 1913 Armory Show entry, The White Slave, addressed child prostitution and sparked immediate controversy, establishing sculpture as a vehicle for social critique. Throughout her career, Eberle remained committed to equal rights for women and to art's obligation to engage pressing contemporary issues.

Iowa, USA