Howard Roberts was born on April 9, 1843 in the family of Edward Roberts, merchant, and Mary Elizabeth Reford, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He was the last of nine children. He was descended from ancestors who emigrated from North Wales and settled in Merion, Pa. , in 1683. His grandfather, Algernon Roberts, was an officer in the Pennsylvania militia in the Revolution, while earlier members of the family were prominent in affairs of the provincial government.
Howard Roberts attended the Classical Institute of the Rev. John W. Faires in Philadelphia and began to study art under J. A. Bailly at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. At the age of twenty-three he entered the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris working under Dumont and Gumery.
After completing his European studies he returned to America in 1871 and established a studio in Philadelphia where in the following year he modeled his first important work, a statuette of Hester and Pearl based upon Hawthorne's Scarlet Letter.
His "Hypatia" (now at the Pennsylvania Academy) and "Lot's Wife" were considered bold compositions in their day.
As the result of a competition for the life-size statue of Robert Fulton for the Rotunda of the National Capitol, Washington, D. C. , Roberts won a national reputation, having been selected from among thirty leading sculptors.
The statue was erected in 1883.
An ideal head, "Eleanor, " acquired by Henry C. Gibson for his collection, has passed through bequest to the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts.
Pennsylvania Academy, sculptor membership. Roberts had joined the Sketch Club in 1861 and served that organization variously through succeeding years as treasurer, vice-president, and president.
Member of the Pennsylvania Club.
On June 1, 1876, he married Helen Pauline Davis Lewis (1853–1938). They had two children: Howard Radclyffe Roberts (1877–1924) and Helen Pauline Roberts (1880–1889). In 1900, with his wife and son, he went to Paris expecting to remain three years, but his career was abruptly terminated by his sudden death.
