Deafness in art history isn’t being shared enough.

When looking into the history of deaf artists, Sarah Taylor Adams is one of many cases I found. Let’s dive a bit deeper in her background and explore the connections she had throughout her life.

Sarah Taylor Adams, born April 7, 1869, likely in Hannibal, New York, was one of the earliest known successful deaf artists in America. Her father was a minister and she had a younger brother and a younger sister.

When she was three, she became deaf from spinal meningitis. In 1877, at the age of six, she enrolled at the Rochester School for the Deaf (RSD,) which was formerly known as the Western New York School or the Western New York Institution for Deaf Mutes. Thanks to the RSD’s school daily newspaper, with many entries involving Sarah’s life and her art, we get some idea of what her life was like.

Here’s a fun fact: You would never guess which odd pet she owned. A freakin’ alligator! Yup, you heard (or read) me right. RSD’s school paper wrote about the alligator not once, but at least thrice! Crazy. And yes, it did bite, but I digress.

Her classmate, Rosa Halpen, described Sarah as a bright and attentive student. At the age of thirteen, Sarah’s parents felt that she would be able to take her place in a hearing school. So she enrolled there and was successful in the first year. However, at the end of the third year, she found that her speech and speech-reading skills were not strong enough for more difficult courses like Latin and French, so she ended up returning to RSD.

In 1887, Sarah, along with another deaf young man, Delos Birdsell, began taking drawing courses at the Rochester Institute of Technology, formerly known as the Mechanics Institute.

By the way, I couldn’t find any additional information on Delos Birdsell, so I cannot really confirm its accuracy. It makes me wonder how much information is missing or lost. And we are only getting started here.

Back at the Rochester Institute of Technology, Sarah was encouraged to develop her skills as an art teacher. Keep that in mind as we proceed further.

During that period, she painted two portraits: one of Mozart and another one of Rev. Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet. They both are hanging in the hallway of RSD’s main building, Perkins Hall.

In 1889, Sarah announced she was going to the New York City Art Students’ League. It was considered an impressive accomplishment for a deaf student and a real recognition of her skill. At the Art Students’ League, she studied under a Mr. Flagg. It’s possible he is the same person as George Wharton Flagg, from the same time period, but I couldn’t find any credible source of him teaching at the Art Students’ League, so take that with a grain of salt. More importantly, Sarah studied under Robert B. Brandegee and Augustus Saint-Gaudens.

This is where it gets interesting.

Augustus had experience communicating with Deaf people because his wife, also an artist, was also deaf! So, I went to Augustus Saint-Gaudens’ page on Wikipedia to check any mention of his wife, Augusta Fisher Homer. There I found that he met her, a deaf American art student, in Rome during their art study. They married on June 1, 1877.

What I find sad is that there’s no Wikipedia page dedicated to Augusta Fisher Homer. Not only that, her artwork was challenging to find. I only managed to find one painting at Google Arts & Culture and another one on Augustus Saint-Gaudens’ Wikipedia page. On the americanwomenartists.org page about her, they (I cannot find who wrote this; I will edit this once I get more info) mentioned that thirty of her paintings survive in Cornish, but I can’t seem to find it online anywhere. It made me wonder what happened or how much is missing. Of course, there’s more to Augusta’s life, but let’s not trail off too far and save that for another time.

When a principal of a seminary for young ladies at St. Margaret’s in Waterbury, Connecticut, came to the Art Students’ League to find a teacher of art, Augustus Saint-Gaudens glowingly recommended Sarah Taylor Adams. When the lady was stunned at his suggesting a deaf teacher for her hearing pupils, he pressed on and convinced her that Sarah was perfectly capable and highly qualified.

She then was hired to teach art in 1892. However, after two years of teaching, in Nov. 1894, she fell ill and died on November 23 at the age of 25. The nature of her illness was never revealed.

One year after her death, her father wrote a book, “Story Sermons from Les Miserable,” which included Sarah’s illustrations.

Her accomplishments as a female deaf artist (which is incredible considering the time period she was in):

- One of the earliest students to attend the Rochester School for the Deaf.
- One of the first students from RSD who attended the Rochester Institute of Technology.
- Most likely one of the first Deaf individuals to attend the New York Art Students’ League.
- First student from RSD who became an art teacher in an all-hearing school.

I’m now left wondering how much information about deaf artists has been lost and how often their contributions are still overlooked. Because of deaf-art.org, deafwomeninhistory.wordpress.com, and asllingea.org, I learned about the existence of Sarah Taylor Adams and her connections to people like Augustus Saint-Gaudens. That discovery sent me down a rabbit hole. If I had searched on Wikipedia or Google Arts & Culture, none of that would have shown up. I also noticed that some artists listed on deaf-art.org, both historical and contemporary, have no online presence elsewhere. That absence is deeply concerning.

Anyway, I’m pretty sure if Sarah Taylor Adams didn’t die so young, she would have been a lot more famous. Her artwork from what I could see was already fabulous. She was a skilled artist, deaf or not. All thanks to her brightness and making the right connections.

As a deaf (capitalized D or not, doesn’t matter) artist myself, I believe art is a powerful medium. It heals and is fully accessible, serving as a bridge between both hearing and deaf individuals through metaphors and symbols. And not only that, deaf artists have the potential to offer a rare and unique window to their inner space, a visual world of silence. There’s no need to speak the same language for this connection to happen. And that definitely deserves more recognition and acknowledgment.