Tomb Effigy of Margaret Corbin
Battle Hill, Green-Wood Cemetery, Brooklyn, NYC
On view Now-August 2023 (previously at Fort Tryon Park)
This tomb commemorates Margaret Corbin, the first woman to fight for the US, who was wounded in the Battle of Mount Washington at or near the site of the sculpture in 1776. The form copies the tomb effigies at The Met Cloisters, figuratively and aesthetically stitching together the Revolutionary War battlefield and the ahistorical, relocated medieval French abbeys that comprise the The Cloisters. The result has the gravitas of medieval European history, but with an American claim.
In the wake of the Women’s Suffrage Movement, The Daughters of the American Revolution in 1926 pushed for her legacy to be recognized. They reinterred (what they believed to be) her remains at the US Military Academy at West Point and commemorated it with a monument. In 2017, an archeological study revealed the remains that were buried were not actually Corbin’s, leaving the location of her actual body unknown.
Full artist statement here
This installation made possible by NYC Parks' Clare Weiss Emerging Artist Award