Career
She was part of a generation of second-wave feminist artists who incorporated ancient myths and goddess imagery into their work, depicting the woman as a dominant player in a new societal order. Twenty years before her death, Stewart moved to Albuquerque, New Mexico to live in seclusion. She continued to produce sculptures, primarily in bronze, until her death in 2010.
Stewart was born in Birmingham, Alabama.
She grew up in a family of wealthy socialites, but quickly shed this identity upon leaving home. After getting her graduate degree from the Cranbrook Academy of Art, she moved to Houston.
There she received a public art commission for a sculpture in Hermann Park, an unlikely honor for an abstract female sculptor at the time and the first of many monumental works she would produce throughout her career. The artist was inspired by both mythology and science.
In a handwritten statement discovered in her personal files after her death she wrote:
Breaking from religious expressions in which the male principle acts as a form of oppressive domination, a number of women artists.. turned for inspiration to goddess imagery and ancient female deities.
In sculpture, painting, and ritual, they revived the image of woman as shaman, deity, powerful creator and generator of life.
