Artist Index, 1893 – 1914
The women artists in this index lived, worked, or visited the American Girls' Art Club between 1893 and 1914. Some occupied studios at the Club, many showed their work at the frequent American Woman's Art Association exhibitions, and others simply enjoyed the hallowed tradition of daily afternoon tea with their fellow artists and students. While a number of women on this list enjoyed prominent careers and their art can still be viewed today in many of the world's foremost museums, the vast majority were forgotten, their lives and artistic achievements relegated to obscurity. Our comprehensive index seeks to restore their names to the art historical canon and to rediscover the extraordinary works of art that once graced the walls of 4 rue de Chevreuse.
Abbott - Curtis
A-C
Born in Lincoln, Maine in 1875, Elenore Plaisted Abbott was a painter, illustrator, and scenic designer. After studying at the Philadelphia School of Design for Women and the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, she traveled to Paris and enrolled at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts. Although she moved back to Philadelphia to continue her studies with Howard Pyle around 1899, she still exhibited at the 1902 annual AWAA show at 4 rue de Chevreuse. Abbott designed the exhibition poster and showed a painting, “The Broken Toy.” A member of the Plastic Club and the Philadelphia Water Color Club, Abbott was among the professional women artists at the turn of the 20th century who believed in art for art’s sake. Her career as an illustrator was particularly successful. In addition to producing illustrations for Harper’s, Scribner’s, and the Saturday Evening Post, she also illustrated early editions of canonical books like Kidnapped, Grimm’s Fairy Tales, and Robinson Crusoe. She was married to lawyer C. Yarnall Abbott and had one daughter. Abbott died in 1935.
Born in Zanesville, Ohio, Katherine Gilbert Abbott (1867-1936) studied in New York with H. Siddons Mowbray and William Merritt Chase before continuing her training in Paris with Luc-Olivier Merson and Paul-Louis Delance. Known primarily for her portraits, Abbott was among a select group of women artists invited to represent the United States in the 1900 Exposition Universelle at the Grand Palais. Her Salon debut had been at the 1894 Salon des artistes francais, when she showed one painting. At the 1895 Salon des artistes francais, her residence was listed in the catalogue as 4 rue de Chevreuse and Abbott exhibited two paintings, including a portrait of Alice Yandell, sister of sculptor Enid Yandell, with whom Abbott shared a studio at this time. Her last Salon appearance came in 1901, when she showed a painting at that year’s Salon des Beaux Arts. She married prominent American architect Allen Howard Cox in 1904. They remained in Boston for the rest of their lives, where her husband designed a number of now-historic buildings.
Inez Eleanor Bate Addams (dates unknown) was an American painter. She exhibited her work at the 1897 and 1898 Salons des Beaux Arts. Her artistic education had begun in Belgium and by 1899 she was working as an apprentice for Whistler in Paris. Bate had been one of the first students at Whistler’s short-lived Académie Carmen (1899-1901), and she even became Massière of the Académie. Enid Yandell, a noted American sculptor studying in Paris at this time, executed a portrait bust of a “Miss Baker,” Whistler’s massière—this is most likely Inez Bate. She met her future husband, Clifford Addams, through Whistler, and the two were married in June 1900. Later that year, Inez Addams taught her own life class for women at the Académie Carmen. In addition to her Salon appearances, Inez also exhibited her work at the 1902 AWAA show and for many years in Glasgow and the U.K. In 1915, she won a medal at the Panama-Pacific Exposition, San Francisco. She and Clifford had four children together though they separated in the 1920s and were granted a divorce in Reno, Nevada in 1932.
Supposedly an exhibitor at the annual AWAA exhibition in February 1914. No further details on who she was or what she exhibited.
Born in Albany, New York in 1868, Jessie Allen moved to San Francisco with her brother in 1886 after the death of their parents. She first studied at the Mark Hopkins Institute of Art (1888-1890) and was a member of the Art Students’ League and the Sketch Club (1894). Allen traveled to Paris in September 1895 in the company of a certain Miss Woodward (possibly artist Anna Woodward), where she lived until her untimely death in 1899 at the age of 28. Allen had begun to achieve success as an artist, exhibiting paintings of Venice at the 1897 AWAA show at 4 rue de Chevreuse as well as a painting and miniature at the 1899 Salon des artistes francais, just a few months before her life was tragically cut short.
Henriette Amiard Oberteuffer (1878-1962) was born in Le Havre, France and studied in Paris at the Académie Julian. She exhibited a number of times at the Salon des artistes francais from 1900-1910. Amiard married fellow artist George Oberteuffer, an American Impressionist painter, and the couple moved to the United States after World War I. In 1913, Mrs. Oberteuffer was listed among the exhibitors of watercolors, etchings, and woodcuts at the AWAA show. She became an art teacher in the United States but did not seem to work professionally as an artist, particularly after her husband's death in 1940.
A native of Lexington, Virginia, painter, illustrator, and caricaturist Ellen Graham Anderson (1885-1970) was another American artist who studied in Paris just before WWI. Along with her friend and Girls' Club artist Anne Goldthwaite, Anderson was among the students who trained with Charles Guérin at the so-called Académie Moderne, located in a studio that had once belonged to Whistler. Anderson also studied with E.A. Taylor during her time abroad from 1913-1914 and lived on the rue Notre-Dame-des-Champs. In her letters to her mother, she described taking tea at the Girls' Art Club. She also spent time with her relative, Cubist painter Patrick Henry Bruce, who married yet another Girls' Club artist, Helen Kibbey, while in Paris. Anderson hailed from a prominent Virginia family and was proud of her Southern heritage, even as she embraced radical modern and Impressionist styles of art. Before going to Europe, Anderson had studied at the Art Students League in New York, and she returned to New York when war drove her home, remaining there until the mid-1920s. As an illustrator in New York, Anderson executed fashionable pen-and-ink drawings, many of which were published in The New York Tribune, The New York Times Book Review and Magazine, and The International. Her archival papers, like those of her family, can be accessed at the University of Virginia.
Danish artist Ingeborg Andreasen-Lindborg, also known as Elna Ingeborg Andreasen, was a painter and printmaker born in 1875. She studied in Chicago at the Art Institute around 1896-1897 and also in Copenhagen at the Academy of Fine Arts around 1900-1907. During several study trips throughout Europe, Andreasen spent time in Paris, exhibiting at the 1907 AWAA show. She was among the exhibitors praised in a NYH review of the show for her 5 sketches, including some of babies’ heads. She also exhibited pieces of jewelry and a painting, “Spring Morning.” Andreasen spent most of her career in Stockholm, where she trained under Axel Tallberg in etching. Her paintings and etchings focused mostly on landscapes, still life, and depictions of animals, though she began producing miniature portraits on ivory around 1918. She died in 1950.
Painter and miniaturist Mary-Louise Arrington (dates unknown) lived at 4 rue de Chevreuse from at least 1896-1900. She was listed as a Club resident in the 1896 Indicateur guide to artists in Paris and that was still her address in 1898 when she exhibited a painting and a portrait miniature at that year's Salon des artistes francais. The 1898 Salon catalogue identifies her as a student of Raphael Collin. She also exhibited a Dutch interior at the 1897 AWAA exhibition at the Girls' Art Club. According to The Daily Leader, she married artist and illustrator Clarence Herbert Rowe in early September 1900 and went to live in Philadelphia (September 6, 1900, p. 6. Nothing more has yet surfaced on either artist.
Missouri native Amanda P. Austin (1859-1917) was a sculptor who studied at the University of Missouri. Her artistic education was funded by a wealthy uncle who enabled her to study first in California and then for several years in Paris at the Académies Delécluse and Colarossi. While in Paris, Austin exhibited a sculpture at the 1909 Salon des Beaux-Arts and a painting at the 1911 Salon des artistes francais. Her work was also shown at the 1910 AWAA exhibition at 4 rue de Chevreuse. She died of cancer in 1917.
A painter originally from Cincinnati, Ohio, Louise Bachman specialized in landscapes and figure painting. Though she spent most of her life in Indiana, Bachman did study at the Art Students League in New York with Frank Du Mond as well as in Paris at the Académies Vitti and Colarossi. She was listed as an exhibitor at an 1896 sketch show hosted at the Girls’ Art Club by the AWAA. Bachman exhibited river scenes and drawings of heads. In 1897, she exhibited a painting, “Nocturne,” at the Salon des artistes français. Like her fellow American artists studying in Europe in the late-19th century, Bachman spent summers outside of Paris, observing and painting working people in France and in Holland. Around 1898, Bachman married Dr. C.T. Zaring. They moved to Florida in the 1920s, where Louise cofounded and taught at the Miami Art Association. She died in 1970 in Broward, Florida.
Kenosha, Wisconsin artist Harriet Frary Bain was born in 1866 or 1867 and died in 1945. Bain was a painter who studied at the Art Institute of Chicago and at the Art Students League in New York. She then went to Paris, training under Raphael Collin, where she also exhibited at the 1895 AWAA show at the Girls’ Art Club. A brief review of the AWAA exhibition published in the NYH praised her “sunny watercolors of Barbizon courtyards.” Known mostly for post-Impressionist landscapes, Bain later became a member of the Provincetown Art Association in Massachusetts. Like her own mother and so many other women artists affiliated with the AWAA, Harriet Frary Bain was a proud suffragist who fought for the right to vote. She never married but continued painting and traveling until she died.
Originally from Fairfield, New York, Ellen Kendall Baker was born in 1839 and died in 1913. Known for painting and engraving, she married her teacher, British artist Harry Thompson, in 1896 and they lived mostly in France. She trained under Charles L.L. Muller and Paul C. Soyer. Ellen was a frequent exhibitor at the Paris Salons beginning in 1879 and she received an honorable mention at the 1901 Pan-American Exposition. As an elder stateswoman in the American colony in Paris, she lent her name to the newly-formed AWAA in 1893, serving on the first exhibition jury along with fellow artists Elizabeth Nourse and Kathleen Greatorex. It is unclear if Baker continued to exhibit or be affiliated with the AWAA after its inaugural show. Baker and Thompson lived for many years on rue Lemaitre in Puteaux. She died in December 1913 in St. Giles, England.
Painter, muralist, miniaturist, and teacher Martha Susan Baker (1871-1911) spent most of her career in Chicago. For a comprehensive overview of her life and career, see here.
Boston native Alice Worthington was a painter born in 1869 who lived most of her adult life in Baltimore. As a young artist, she studied first in Boston with Tarbell and then in Paris at the Académie Colarossi with Collin and Courtois. She exhibited “Precious Heirlooms” at the 1907 AWAA show at the Girls’ Art Club. The next year, she exhibited a painting of a peddler’s cart at the annual AWAA show. Ball also had a painting accepted into the 1905 Salon des artistes français, “Moulin aux capucines.” She was known mostly for her landscapes and had been inspired after studying in Holland with George Hitchcock. Ball was the founder of “Six and One,” a group of women’s painters in Baltimore, and a member of the National Association of Women Painters and Sculptors as well as several other arts organizations. She died in July 1929 in East Gloucester, Massachusetts, her long-time summer home (and the inspiration for many of her later paintings). Interestingly, Ball was a direct descendant of William Ball, great-grandfather of George Washington, making her one of a number of Girls’ Art Club affiliates who could trace their lineage back to the founding of the United States.
Not much is known about this painter from Springfield, Massachusetts. Alice H. Barri (1870-1950) exhibited a drawing in crayon at the 1904 Salon des Beaux Arts and her address in the Salon catalogue is listed as 4 rue de Chevreuse. Tufts Family History tells us that Barri met her future husband, Columbia University physics professor Dr. Frank Leo Tufts, in Paris, and they were married around 1905. He died tragically at the age of 35 in 1909 while testing electrical wires in Bayonne, NJ. The couple's only child, a son named John, died at the age of 8 in 1915.
Born in Philadelphia in 1883, Mary C. Barringer was likely educated in Pennsylvania and then spent a few years (ca. 1899-1901) training at the Mark Hopkins Art Institute in San Francisco. She was in Paris in 1903, listed among the Americans from Philadelphia currently studying abroad in the 1903 American Students’ Census, Paris. Barringer also served on the hanging committee for the 1902 and 1903 AWAA exhibitions at 4 rue de Chevreuse, though it is not clear if she was among the exhibitors either year. After her travels in Europe, Barringer returned to California, dying of an embolus in 1924 in Santa Clara.
A miniaturist originally from Alabama, Malotte Bartleson studied in Paris in 1905 with famed teacher Mme. Debillemont-Chardon and with Laforge and Castelucho at the Académie Julian. She was one of the miniaturists at the 1905 AWAA exhibition, showing a portrait of a French woman. Bartleson also exhibited a miniature, perhaps this same portrait, at the 1905 Salon des artistes français. Her address in the Salon catalogue was listed as 3 rue d’Alençon.
Painter and miniaturist Martha Wheeler Baxter was born in Castleton, Vermont in 1869. She studied at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts and at the Art Students’ League in New York before going abroad to continue her training. While in Paris, Baxter studied miniature painting with Mme Debillemont-Chardon and Noemie Schmitt; she also trained under fellow AWAA artist Katherine Behenna in London. Baxter was a pupil at the Académie Délécluse and at Académie Julian. In 1898, she exhibited a miniature portrait at the Salon des artistes français and she showed a miniature of a baby at the 1899 AWAA exhibition at the Girls’ Art Club. Baxter was also among the artists who represented the United States at the 1900 Exposition Universelle, where she showed a miniature “Portrait of Miss T.” After her time in Paris and London, Baxter returned to the United States, first working in New York and then moving to Santa Barbara, California in 1920. She remained active in the Southern California art scene until her death in Los Angeles in 1955.
Alice Beard (1867-1949) was a painter and illustrator who exhibited two paintings at the 1914 Salon des artistes français: "La Dryade" and "Dans le jardin." She was a resident at 4 rue de Chevreuse at the time. Born in Cincinnati, Ohio, Beard had studied with Howard Pyle in Wilmington, Delaware and began her career illustrating magazine stories and covers. Her friend and collaborator, Frances Rogers, was also a resident at the Girls' Art Club and a Salon exhibitor- the two artists wrote and illustrated nine books together in the 1940s.
Katherine Arthur Behenna (1860-1926), also known as Kathleen Arthur Behenna, was a Scottish portrait miniaturist, poet, spiritualist, and suffragist. She studied at the Art Students League in New York and then at the Académie Julian in Paris. Most of her miniature portraits were executed on ivory and her subjects were wealthy socialites. In 1904, Behenna exhibited her work at the AWAA show at 4 rue de Chevreuse. Nearly a decade earlier, her miniatures had been shown at the 1895 Salon des artistes francais.
Canadian artist Dorothy Betts (1890-1964) exhibited 3 miniatures at the 1913 Salon des Beaux Arts. Her address in the official catalogue is 4 rue de Chevreuse but her name is incorrectly printed as Mary-Dorothea Bette. The 1913 Salon des artistes français catalogue spells her name correctly and indicates that she exhibited 2 miniatures: "La danseuse" and "Victor." She was a student of Mme Laforge. Originally from London, Ontario, Betts studied in Canada and then in New York before going to Paris. She was a friend of fellow Canadian artist, Florence Carlyle, who studied in Paris around the same time. After the outbreak of WWI, Betts returned to Ontario and married Colonel E.A. Seeley-Smith in 1924. She continued exhibiting her art, now under the name Dorothy Seeley-Smith, in various Canadian venues, and was painting in retirement until her death in 1964.
Constance Bigelow (ca. 1873-?) was an American painter. The catalogues of several Paris Salons shed light on the work she exhibited as a resident at 4 rue de Chevreuse from at least 1910-1913 (though she perhaps arrived earlier and stayed later). Bigelow, later Constance Williston, was born in New York but became a longtime Cambridge, Massachusetts resident. She had graduated from Smith College and then studied in New York at the Art Students League before continuing her artistic education in Paris with Simon, Menard, and Miller. Bigelow also showed her work at the 1910 AWAA exhibition (a portrait sketch) and again in 1911 (works unknown). In the 1920s, she was a teacher at private schools in Cambridge and Boston.
There is no information about an artist named E. Blackburn, listed among the exhibitors at the 1910 AWAA show at 4 rue de Chevreuse.
Harriet Blackstone (1864-1939) began her career as a society portraitist but eventually grew tired of this kind of art and began to explore mysticism and visions. She came to art later in life, after working for many years as a teacher of drama and elocution, and traveled to Paris in her late thirties to study at the Académie Julian with J.P. Laurens from 1906-1908. Her 1907 painting "Soldat da Crimée" was exhibited at the Salon des artistes français and is now in the collection of the Smithsonian American Art Museum. While in Paris, Blackstone was a member of the AWAA but it is unknown if she ever participated in the exhibitions held at 4 rue de Chevreuse. From 1920 until her death in 1939, Blackstone lived and worked in New York City.
Born in 1866, Florence Blood was an Anglo-American painter who lived much of her life in Florence, Italy with her partner, Romanian princess Jeanne Ghyka. Ghyka and Blood bought and restored the magnificent 15th-century Florentine Villa Gamberaia around 1895 and lived there together for three decades. Blood spent time in Paris in the 1890s and the 1900s, exhibiting at the 1895 and 1906 Salons des Beaux-Arts. In 1895, she showed 4 works: a charcoal “Portrait de Mme G” and 3 pastels, “Portrait de Mme G,” “Portrait de Mme T,” “Portrait de Sa Majesté la reine Nathalie” (Queen Natalia of Serbia, sister of Jeanne Ghyka). In 1906, Blood exhibited a painting of her home, Villa Gamberaia. She was also an exhibitor at the 1907 AWAA show at 4 rue de Chevreuse; she apparently showed several works, most notably a painting, “The Garden.” Blood and Ghyka were part of the elite Anglo-American expatriate circles in Florence in the early 20th century and the two women bonded over their love of art and sculpture. Blood died in 1925 and the villa was sold to another aristocrat, Baroness Maud Ledyard von Ketteler.
Born in 1878 in Dardanelle, Arkansas, Christina “Ina” Mae Boles Morton was a painter, illustrator, and one of the five founders of the Chi Omega fraternity, established in 1895 at the University of Arkansas. She left college early to pursue her training as an artist, first at the Art Institute of Chicago and the Art Students League in New York, then in Paris, where she lived for a year at the Girls’ Art Club between 1900 and 1901. Boles traveled in Italy, Spain, England, Germany, and Holland while abroad. Upon returning to the United States, she studied and taught at the University of Oklahoma and at a normal school in Alva, Oklahoma. In June 1906, Boles married lawyer Ben Morton, who supported her dream of a successful painting career. The Mortons made their home in New York City, where Christina (frequently identified by her nickname, Ina) established the NYC alumnae chapter of Chi Omega in 1907. She continued painting and exhibiting her work throughout her life, notably illustrating her husband’s 1923 book, The Veiled Empress, an exoticized imagining of the life of Aimée du Buc de Rivéry, a French heiress who supposedly ended up on Martinique. Ina’s illustrations are exquisitely drawn and vividly colored, even if the perspectives are clearly Orientalist. The Mortons never had children. He died in New York in 1955; she in Dardanelle in 1963.
Alice M. Boner was a painter from Landsdowne, Pennsylvania. In 1903, she was studying in Paris, where she exhibited a colorful sketch of a fountain in Luxembourg Gardens with a view of the Panthéon in the background at the annual AWAA show. Fellow Girls’ Club artist Clare Pfeifer, a sculptor, exhibited a bas-relief portrait of Alice Boner at the same 1903 AWAA show. Boner had previously shown her work at the 1900 and 1902 Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts exhibits and was affiliated with the Philadelphia School of Design for Women. In 1905, the school’s director Emily Sartain commissioned 5 murals by women artists to present to a public school in Philadelphia named after her father, John Sartain, the great artist and prominent teacher. Boner was one of the five artists chosen for this commission; she painted the largest canvas, 19 feet long and 9 feet high, depicting “The Early Age of Teaching.” Plato and his disciples were shown in the garden of the academy in this erudite mural. Two other Girls’ Art Club painters were chosen for this commission: Nancy Maybin Ferguson painted “The Early Age of Music” and Alice Mumford executed “The Early Age of Metallurgy.” Boner married Henry Sellers Pennock around 1905 and they had two children. The Pennocks eventually retired to Florida, where Alice died in 1940.
Originally from Elgin, Illinois, Winifred Bosworth was born in 1885 and died in 1972. A graphic artist, Bosworth produced etchings of cities and landscapes throughout her career. She exhibited a pastel, "Femmes sur la plage," at the 1913 Salon des artistes français, and her address in the official catalogue was 4 rue de Chevreuse. She was a student of E.S. Tarbell. Etchings by Bosworth can be seen at the Smithsonian American Art Museum.
Jeanie L. Boyd was a portrait painter and art instructor who began her career in New York. She was among the first resident artists at the Van Dyck Studios, a mixed-use building opened at 939 Eighth Avenue in 1889 (which soon spawned another mixed-use residence, the Carnegie Hall Studios, opened in 1894). Boyd trained with J. Carroll Beckwith in New York and had spent time in the late-19th century studying in Paris with Carolus Duran, Benjamin Constant, Jules Joseph Lefebvre, and Julian Dupré. In May 1894, she escorted a group of women art students on a study trip from New York to Holland and Belgium. She was a one-time resident at the Girls’ Art Club in Paris and later had her own studio on Boulevard Raspail. It was reported that Boyd had recently returned to Paris from a visit to Japan in February 1902, when she exhibited two paintings at the annual AWAA show. Both depicted Dutch subjects and “What the Stork Brought,” showing a happy mother leaning over her firstborn’s cradle, was considered particularly accomplished. One of Boyd’s students, May Bell Koll, exhibited her own work at the 1903 AWAA show, a watercolor of two Japanese dolls “reading” a book.
Elizabeth Wheldon Brain was a painter and pottery designer at the famed Rookwood Pottery who was born in November 1870 in Springfield, Ohio. She studied at the Art Academy of Cincinnati from 1890-1892, likely with Frank Duveneck, and was briefly in Paris and London at the end of the 19th century. In Paris, she studied at Whistler’s studio and in London at the Kensington School of Design. Brain was among the exhibitors who showed her work, two pastels, at the 1899 annual AWAA show at the Girls’ Art Club. Most notably, Brain worked as a decorator at Rookwood for one year and the works she produced are all dated 1899. Brain married Charles Burr Beach in 1902 and had three children, likely ending her artistic career. She was known by friends and family as “Bessie” and worked briefly as an art teacher in the Springfield public schools before going abroad. Brain died in Massachusetts in 1960.
Edith Browning Brand was an artist and successful book illustrator born in Oberlin, Ohio in 1875. Brand graduated from Oberlin College in 1897 before studying for a year in New York at the Cooper Union. Like many of her peers, Brand taught art in public and private schools, first in Wisconsin and then in Great Barrington, Massachusetts. She went abroad in 1901, spending a year in Paris refining her skills. Brand was listed among the exhibitors at the annual 1902 AWAA show at 4 rue de Chevreuse but no details about her work are extant. Upon returning to the United States, Brand took up a career as an illustrator of books for children and adults in Boston. There, she married British academic Ian Campbell Hannah and the couple then lived in Canada, Oberlin, and, eventually, the Hannah family estate near Edinburgh, Scotland. Though she was also a renowned portrait painter, Brand won acclaim for illustrating a number of her husband’s books including Sussex (1912), Berwick and the Lothians (1913), and Capitals of the Northlands (1914). Their most successful collaboration was 1934’s The Story of Scotland in Stone, internationally hailed for its erudition and Brand’s exquisite illustrations. While living in Scotland, Brand was honored with several opportunities to exhibit her portraits at the Royal Scottish Academy. She died in 1947 in Sussex, England.
Though originally trained as a painter and sculptor, Wyoming native St. Clair Breckons (1892-1961) earned her fame as a designer whose work was published in Pall Mall Magazine and used in advertising for Wanamaker's department store. Breckons also was selected to design one of the posters for the 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exposition in San Francisco. As a young art student in Paris, Breckons exhibited her paintings at the 1910 and 1911 AWAA shows at the Girls' Art Club. She befriended Maude Miriam Noel while in Paris- Noel was to become architect Frank Lloyd's second wife and she was a sculptor who exhibited at the 1914 AWAA show. In 1916, St. Clair Breckons married Stanley V. LaDow in Washington, D.C.
Born in Columbus, Ohio in 1878, Marie Louise Brent (sometimes her name is spelled Mary) was a sculptor who spent most of her adult life in Paris. Though she was a 1900 graduate of Vassar College and had also studied in Italy and in Switzerland, Brent was primarily trained at the Académie Colarossi by Jean-Antoine Injalbert and Paul Bartlett. Married to French historian and archivist Albert Depréaux, authority on military and colonial costumes, she began publicly exhibiting her sculptures under his name around WWI, leading to some confusion in the art historical record (he is erroneously listed as a male sculptor born in Columbus, Ohio in many reference works, including the Benezit Dictionary of Artists). Brent exhibited her sculptures at the 1913 and 1914 AWAA exhibitions at 4 rue de Chevreuse. We don’t know what she showed in 1913 but her statuette of a woman was praised at the 1914 show and was likely the same work she exhibited at that year’s Salon des artistes français. Her address in 1914 was 9 rue Campagne-Première. In the 1920s, Brent exhibited a number of her sculptures at the Salon des Independants, mostly terra cotta nudes of women for which she became known. During World War I, Brent worked in Anna Ladd’s Red Cross studio creating portrait masks and other prosthetics for the hideously-wounded men returning from the front.
Mrs. C. Briggs was one of the artists praised for her submission to the 1898 American Woman's Art Association exhibit at the Club. Her black and white "Study of a Head" was one of a handful of works singled out for its merits by the Quartier Latin reviewer. Nothing else is known about this artist.
Born in Buffalo, Kansas in 1873, Adele Richards Brooks was a painter, miniaturist, and jewelry designer, who also produced many landscapes and scenes of Native Americans. Brooks was trained at the Art Institute of Chicago, the Pratt Institute, and the New York School of Fine and Applied Arts before studying in Paris at the Académie Colarossi and the Académie de la Grande Chaumière. Her teachers were Lucien Simon, the noted miniaturist, Mme La Forge, Richard Miller, Henry Snell, and Hugh Breckenridge. While in Paris, Brooks exhibited at the 1913 and 1914 AWAA shows at the Girls’ Art Club. It is unclear what she exhibited in 1913 but the March 1914 AWAA show featured a leather purse and some small pieces of jewelry by Brooks in the objets d’art section. She eventually returned to the United States, serving as an art teacher and art director at a number of institutions, including the Monticello Seminary in Godfrey, Illinois, Stanton College in Natchez, Mississippi, and the Hosmer Hall School for Girls in St. Louis, Missouri. Brooks died in Godfrey in 1926.
Ethel Pennewil Brown (1878-1960) was a Wilmington, Delaware native who specialized in illustrations, landscapes/seascapes, and interiors. Brown and her husband, William Leach, were two of the most prominent figures in Delaware's Rehoboth Beach artists' colony beginning in the 1930s. Brown spent a year studying in Paris and lived at the American Girls' Art Club from 1912-1913. Her aquarelle, "La voiture blanche," was exhibited at the 1913 Salon des artistes français.
New York painter and portraitist Matilda Auchincloss Brownell (1871-1966) came from a wealthy, upper class family. Her father, Silas B. Brownell, was the secretary of the New York City Bar Association and could trace his lineage to early 17th-century English settlers in America. Matilda studied at the Art Students League with William Merritt Chase, spending summers at his Shinnecock Hills Summer School of Art. She struck up a friendship with famed Impressionist painter, Mary Cassatt, with whom she exchanged many letters over the years. Matilda went to Paris in the 1890s, studying with Frederick MacMonnies at the Académie Colarossi, where she met sculptor Janet Scudder. The two became good friends and Matilda's father even helped secure one of Scudder's first major commissions, the seal for the New York City Bar Association. After a period in New York, Brownell and Scudder returned to Paris together, sharing a home on Boulevard Raspail and once more studying at the Académie Colarossi. Scudder remained in Paris for nearly the rest of her life; Brownell returned to New York, exhibiting her work at many of the major art shows of the early 20th century. An exhibition at the Knoedler Gallery in New York in 1920 led to the purchase of her portrait of Virginia Gildersleeve, gifted to Barnard College by four generous donors. It is unclear if the painting remains in Barnard's possession.
Artist, suffragist, and philanthropist Laura Sutton Bruce was born in 1853 in Lexington, Kentucky. She was in Paris at the end of the 19th century, and exhibited her work at the 1897 AWAA show at 4 rue de Chevreuse. Sutton Bruce also showed several portrait miniatures at the 1899 Salon des artistes français. The Salon catalogue identifies her as a student of MM. Humber, Thirion, and J. Blanc.
Katherine Cotheal Budd (1860-1951) as the first woman architect to be admitted to the New York Chapter of the AIA in 1924. She was living at the Club in 1896, when Julia Morgan met her. She, Fay Kellog, and Julia Morgan worked in the atelier of Marcel Pérouse de Monclos.
Mary Hess Buehr was a well-regarded painter, miniaturist, and teacher who was born in Chicago in 1871. She likely studied at the Art Institute of Chicago, where she would have met her future husband, German artist Karl Albert Buehr, whom she married in 1899. The Buehrs went abroad together, studying and painting in France and Holland. They were living in Paris on rue Boissonade in 1901 and 1902 when Mary exhibited her miniatures at the 1901 and 1902 Salons des artistes français. Karl Buehr, a student of Raphael Collin, showed two paintings at the 1902 Salon des artistes français, “Les joueurs aux cartes” and “Reverie.” Mary, who was studying with Mme Van Deveer, also exhibited two miniatures at the 1902 annual AWAA show, “A Little Dutch Girl” and “Volendam Baby.” She and Karl returned to the United States after a decade in Europe, and they settled in Chicago, where both taught at the Art Institute for many years. Mary served for 13 years as the Chicago Board of Education’s official docent at the Art Institute. The Buehrs had two children, George and Mary, both of whom became landscape artists. She died in 1962, ten years after her husband.
Painter and set designer Mabel Alice Buell was the only woman to work as an artist for New York's Broadway theaters in the 1920s. Before her career in the theater took off, she studied art in Europe and was listed among the exhibitors at the AWAA exhibition in 1911.
Known for her paintings of Parisian street scenes, Caroline Currie Burnett (dates unknown) was a member of the Société nationale des Beaux Arts and showed a "Portrait of Miss D" in the 1898 Salon des Beaux-Arts; the catalogue listed her address for that year as 4 rue de Chevreuse.
Lucile Hitt was a painter and teacher born in Augusta, Georgia in 1877. Not much is known about her early life and education. She was in Paris in 1914, exhibiting at that year’s February AWAA show at the Girls’ Art Club. In 1914 she also exhibited three paintings at the Salon des Independants, “Fleurs du soleil,” “Bédouines,” and “Pivoines.” While studying in Paris, Lucile met her future husband, fellow painter Cameron Burnside, who became an associate of the Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts and an artist for the Red Cross during World War I. They were married on July 30, 1908 at St. Luke's Chapel. The Burnsides remained in Paris for fifteen years before moving to Washington, D.C. in 1924. They opened the School of Modern Painting in D.C. and ran it together, both teaching landscape, still life, and figure painting. Lucile died a few years later in 1927 but her husband continued teaching, painting, and exhibiting his work until his death in 1952.
Painter Mildred Giddings Burrage (1890-1983), a native of Portland, Maine, studied art as a child before continuing her education in Paris at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière. Initially influenced by Impressionism, Burrage's style evolved throughout her life so her later work, including collages, is more abstract. In Paris, Burrage lived at 4 rue de Chevreuse, and exhibited her work at the 1911 AWAA show as well as at the 1911 Salon des Independants.
A versatile artist and an exponent of Arts and Crafts, Elizabeth Eaton Burton made color woodcuts, watercolors, book bindings, and stained glass. Her father was an artist who trained her, though she also spent time in Paris refining her skills. In 1899, she was among the exhibitors praised for her work at the annual AWAA show at 4 rue de Chevreuse.
An artist identified as Mary A.L. Burton was among the exhibitors at the December 1913 AWAA show at the Girls' Art Club. She is possibly the Mary A L Burton who is buried in Portland, Maine and lived from 1852-1939. No other details about this artist have surfaced.
Born in August 1873 in Kansas City, Missouri, Floy Campbell was an artist, teacher, published author, and an illustrator. Her early years were spent in Kansas City but then Campbell enrolled for formal training at the Art Students League in New York. She then traveled to Paris in the last years of the 19th century and was a student at the Académie Colarossi, in the ateliers of Garrido, Cottet, and Lucien Simon. While in Paris, Campbell lived at the Girls' Art Club. In October 1904, she wrote a charming article about life in Montparnasse called "Sunday on the South Side of Paris" for the Official Monthly Magazine, a publication for artists in trade unions. Campbell described eating breakfast at chez Henriette, attending mass led by Rev. Van Winkle at St. Luke's Chapel, strolling in the Luxembourg Gardens, and then finishing the day with evening "Atelier services" at the Academie Vitti. Upon returning to the United States, Campbell became an art teacher in Kansas City until she was offered the position of Supervisor of Art and Professor of Drawing at the University of Puerto Rico in 1913. She remained there for several years, eventually becoming head of the Department of Art Instruction. She published many essays for art and art education journals but her most notable work was Camp Arcady: The Story of Four Girls and Some Others, Who Kept House in a New York Flat. It was a huge success when first released in 1899. In the 1920s and 1930s, Campbell lived and exhibited in Kansas City, eventually retiring to Boulder, Colorado around 1938. She continued painting until her death in Boulder in August 1945.
Delaware artist Ethel Poyntell Canby (1877-1955) was already well-known when she traveled to Paris to continue her studies at the age of 35 from 1912-1913. While in Paris, Canby met fellow artist, Orville Huntington Peets, whom she would marry in 1914. His portrait of her won an honorable mention at the 1913 Salon des artistes français. Canby lived at the Girls' Art Club and won an honorable mention for her etchings at the 1913 AWAA exhibition; she also exhibited an etching at the 1914 Salon des Beaux-Arts.
Among the artists who exhibited their work at the 1909 AWAA show was Virginia Canfield. Though it is not clear what she showed, she was featured in the objets d’art section of the exhibit. Nothing else is known about this artist.
M.M. Cathcart exhibited miniatures at the annual 1909 AWAA show at the Girls’ Art Club. She is probably Malleville M. Cathcart, whose obituary was printed on March 3, 1931 in The Central New Jersey Home News. No other details about her life or career are extant.
Painter Emma Löwstädt-Chadwick was born in Sweden in 1855 and began her training at the Swedish Royal Academy of Fine Arts. She moved to Paris around 1881 and enrolled at the Académie Julian, where she became friends with famed Russian artist Marie Bashkirtseff. Emma also met Francis (Frank) Brooks Chadwick, an American artist whom she would marry in 1882. They lived mostly in France, but spent time at artists’ colonies in Grez sur Loing, Cornwall, England, and in Holland. Emma Chadwick was a prolific Salon exhibitor, showing her work nearly every year from 1883-1906 at the Salon des artistes français or the Salon des Beaux-Arts. Her paintings were also exhibited at the February 1914 AWAA show at the Girls’ Art Club. In 1887, the Chadwicks bought an inn at Grez sur Loing, which became a popular residence and meeting ground for expatriate artists in France. Later in her career, around 1910, she all but gave up painting and took up etching. One of the most renowned women artists of her day, Chadwick died in 1932, about ten years before her husband.
An accomplished miniaturist and 1896 Vassar College graduate originally from Deerfield, Massachusetts, Marie Champney Humphreys (ca. 1877-1906) studied at the Art Institute of Chicago under Mrs. Virginia Reynolds. Both Reynolds and Champney lived in Paris at the turn of the 20th century, exhibiting their fine miniatures at the Paris Salons and also at the Girls' Art Club's annual exhibitions. Both of her parents were accomplished Americans: her father was a well-regarded painter and her mother an author of popular book series (which her father illustrated). Marie tragically died at the age of 29 in December 1906 in New Rochelle, NY.
Lucy Grosvenor Chapin was born on January 18, 1873 in Syracuse, New York. Best known as a portrait artist and educator, she was the daughter of Edward Livingston Chapin and Mary Grosvenor Allen Chapin. She studied at the College of Fine Arts at Syracuse University between 1894 and 1898. As the recipient of the University’s Hiram Gee Fellowship, Chapin studied in France for two years and resided a few months at the Girls’ Art Club.
She summarized her years in Paris in a small article in the The Alpha phi quarterly, v. 24-25, 1912-13:
[...] Flora Williams and I were there together for a few weeks, before she returned to America. It was Flo with Mabel and Bess Willard (Kappa Kappa Gamma girls who were there studying at that time and living with their mother in a cozy apartment in rue Leopold Robert) who gave me my first introduction to life in the student quarter (that old section of the city where the simple life of the people remains unchanged) – to the ateliers – the Louvre and the Luxembourg.
Our home life was fascinating. I enjoyed many pleasant hours with my friends in rue Leopold Robert--we spent many evenings studying French, our progress guided by an excellent tutor. The pension de famille was my abiding place for a time and during the last few months I lived in the interesting American Girls' Club in the rue de Chevreuse.
The fall and winter months I devoted to study in the ateliers and attended anatomy lectures in the Ecole des Beaux Arts; and every day of the three spring months found me in the Louvre at work upon the copies of the Raphael and the Rembrandt which were to go to the University.
What an experience for a student! Every day, for nearly a year, this seeking more knowledge of how to draw, how to paint, through the criticisms by the masters in the Academies Julian du Montparnasse and Colarossi-such masters as Merson, Collin, Prinet; through association in the ateliers with a cosmopolitan company of art students of every nationality; through the study of paintings and sculptures in the galleries, in the Salon and other exhibitions ; through visiting as often as possible such architectural wonders as the churches of Notre Dame, Sainte Chapelle or St. Sulpice; or taking a trip to Barbizon, near Paris, the home and workshop of Millet, or that exquisitely charming little village Ville d'Avray.where “Papa Corot" (as he was lovingly called by the students of his day) lived and painted to perpetuate his revelations of sunlight and air in his incomparable pictures.
All this association—this touching, everywhere we went, the simple life of the Parisians of the student quarter and the monuments of history on all sides (for they say there lies not a stone in all Paris that does not have its history); all had an influence upon us students which can never be effaced or forgotten[. ..] (133-134).
Throughout her life, Chapin maintained close ties to Syracuse University, especially as a member of the Alpha Phi sorority. She died in Syracuse, New York in 1939. The Maine State Museum (Augusta, Maine) acquired two of her oil paintings in 1903 and 1904 respectively: Portrait of Prentiss Mellen; Portrait of Ezekiel Whitman.
An artist incorrectly identified as Margaret Chapin was listed among the exhibitors at the 1913 AWAA show at 4 rue de Chevreuse. She is actually Margaret Chaplin Wetterau, a painter from Illinois. Chaplin married fellow artist Rudolf Wetterau around 1915, the young couple likely having met in Paris. They lived predominantly in New York City and in Bronxville, where he worked as a commercial artist and illustrator. They eventually retired to Woodstock, New York. It is unclear if Margaret Chaplin continued her art career after marrying and having children.
Minerva J. Chapman (1858-1947) was an American painter who specialized in miniature portraits, still life, and landscapes. She studied at the University of Chicago and Mount Holyoke College before moving to Europe to learn from atelier masters in Munich and Paris. Chapman exhibited regularly at the AWAA exhibitions and also at the Paris Salons. She became a member of the Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts in 1906 and served as the president of the International Art Union from 1910-1914.
Althea Chase (1870-1959) was an artist of watercolors, oil paintings, and etchings. Born in Iowa, Chase studied at the Art Institute of Chicago and then in Paris under Whistler and Mucha. Chase showed an aquarelle at the 1903 Salon des artistes français and a painting of Mexican pottery at the 1904 AWAA exhibition at 4 rue de Chevreuse. She later lived in Chicago and Pocatello, Idaho.
Portraitist and art teacher Ellen Wheeler Chase was born in Faribault, Minnesota in 1882. She studied with Charles Woodbury at the Buffalo Fine Arts Academy and at the Art Students League in New York City before traveling to Paris. Her teachers in Paris were Menard and Simon. In February 1914, Ellen Wheeler Chase was one of the exhibitors at the annual AWAA show at the Girls’ Art Club but it is unclear if her work was ever accepted into any of the Paris Salons. After returning to the United States around 1915, Chase became a frequent exhibitor with the Buffalo Society of Artists, earning several honorable mentions. She maintained a studio and taught art classes in New York for much of her life, dying at age 66 in 1948.
Painter and teacher Rebecca Chase was born in 1878 and died in 1965. She lived mostly in Milwaukee, Wisconsin but studied at the Art Institute of Chicago around 1900 and then in Paris around 1903. Chase was among the exhibitors at the 1903 annual AWAA show at the Girls’ Art Club, showing two architectural studies. Upon returning to the United States, she worked as a teacher at Washington High School in Milwaukee and was active in the Wisconsin Education Association. She also appears to have illustrated some books in the early 20th century, including a 1905 edition of The Three Bears.
Adeline F. Cheron was an active member of the American Woman’s Art Association. She served on the Reception Committee for the 1910 annual show and was one of the exhibitors at the February 1914 AWAA show. Cheron was a painter who specialized in genre subjects in oils. Her canvas, “A Wish,” was also exhibited at the 1904 St. Louis Exposition. It appears that she always lived in Paris but further details about her life are not extant.
Originally from Elizabeth, New Jersey, Florence Choate (1878-1967) was an illustrator, author, and painter who specialized in Native American scenes. She studied for five years at the Art Students League in New York with Kenyon Cox, Joseph De Camp, Frank DuMond, and George Bridgman, earning a 1904 scholarship in life drawing and a 1905 scholarship in portraits. Her drawings were acclaimed at a number of Water Color Society exhibitions and Choate was among the dozen artists who occupied the Broadway Arcade Studios on 65th Street. While at the Art Students League, Choate met fellow artist Elizabeth Asten Curtis, five years her junior, and the two would become lifelong collaborators. They studied in Paris together from 1912-1913, where Choate trained with Richard Miller and George Oberteuffer. Choate and Curtis were among the exhibitors at the 1913 AWAA show at the Girls’ Art Club, both showing some of their drawings. They returned to New York and went on to write, illustrate, and publish more than 20 children’s books, including The Little People of the Hills and Tales from the Amazon. Choate solo authored and illustrated Fast Turns, a ballet story, around 1928. The two women traveled together several times in the 1920s and 1930s, mostly to Europe, but remained New York residents. Curtis died in Manhattan in 1959 and Choate in 1967. A large collection of nearly 500 of Choate’s drawings is preserved at the Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum in New York.
Painter and illustrator LuDeen Christensen was born in Gunnison, Utah in 1878. She was a close friend of fellow artist Mary Teasdel, whom she followed to Paris in 1901. Christensen lived at 4 rue de Chevreuse at least in 1904 and perhaps for her entire stay in Paris. Unlike Teasdel, who became a successful artist, Christensen lived a quiet life, returning to Gunnison in the early 20th century. She then moved to California and taught art in the Los Angeles and San Diego public schools from 1908 until the 1940s. Christensen died in 1946.
Minnie L. Churchill was one of the artists who exhibited at the 1902 annual AWAA show at 4 rue de Chevreuse. Details about her life and career are not extant.
Lida Maude Clark was an artist from Michigan born in 1866. She attended Eastern Michigan University, later teaching in and heading its art department. Clark studied briefly in Paris at the turn of the 20th century. She was listed among the exhibitors at the 1904 AWAA show at 4 rue de Chevreuse. Much later in life, Clark exhibited some of her oil paintings in her long-time home of Ypsilanti, Michigan but it is unclear if she worked in other media as well. She died in 1960.
At the annual 1902 AWAA show, an artist only identified as Mrs. Sherman Clarke was listed among the exhibitors. This was likely Rochester, New York philanthropist Jean Vance Clark (1867-1934). In addition to serving on the Rochester Institute of Technology board, Clark was very involved in the arts, women’s clubs, and historic preservation. It is not clear how much time she spent in Paris or if she pursued a career as an artist.
Artist, printmaker, and teacher Gabrielle de Veaux Clements (1858-1948) was born in Philadelphia to a prominent family. She graduated from Cornell University in 1880 with a science degree and then spent much of her career working in Massachusetts and Washington, D.C., with a short period of study in Paris around 1908. Clements was among the exhibitors at the 1908 AWAA show at 4 rue de Chevreuse. Her partner and travel companion was Impressionist painter Ellen Day Hale.
Mary Teresa Cloud, known professionally as Teresa Cloud (so as not to be confused with her mother, fellow artist Mary Teresa Picher Cloud), was a watercolorist born in 1876. She was educated at Miss Orton’s Classical School for Girls in Pasadena before attending Smith College in Massachusetts. Cloud also studied at the Art Students League of Los Angeles and then traveled to Europe from 1906-1908. She enrolled at the Académie Julian in Paris and trained in Italy, Switzerland, and England. In 1907, she exhibited “Tete de Religieuse” at the annual AWAA show at the Girls’ Art Club. She returned to Pasadena after her studies in Europe and taught art at her alma mater, Miss Orton’s. Cloud was active in many California art circles and organizations, frequently exhibiting her work in L.A. and in Pasadena. During World War I, she served with the Red Cross in France. Once the war was over, she returned again to Pasadena, where she died in 1965.
Sculptor Katherine M. Cohen was born in Philadelphia in 1859 to wealthy Jewish immigrant parents originally from England. She received a fine education, studying with Thomas Eakins at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts and then working in New York at the Art Students League and as a studio assistant to Augustus Saint-Gaudens. Cohen opened her own studio in Philadelphia in 1884 but traveled to Paris a few years later to train with sculptors Puech and Mercié. She was an early exhibitor with the AWAA, showing her sculpture “The Western Maiden” at the 1895 show, and two small busts at the 1903 AWAA show. Cohen was also accepted by the Salon des artistes français, exhibiting a bas-relief plaster portrait of Mlle Katherine Lemcke in 1893 and a plaster statue, “The Israelite,” in 1896. Her address in the Salon catalogues was listed both years as 9 rue Campagne-Première. In addition to her work as a sculptor, Cohen also illustrated A Jewish Child’s Book for kindergartners, one of the first of its kind to be printed in color. She remained active in Jewish circles in Pennsylvania for most of her life, dying in 1914 at age fifty-five.
Jenny Petria Collin (dates unknown) was born in Wishy, Sweden in the late-19th century. She studied in London under Roscoe Mullins before moving to the United States. Collin was a painter and sculptor who is known to have exhibited in San Francisco and Chicago. She became active in the New York art scene in the 1920s. Just before WWI, Collin was studying in Paris- she exhibited a sculpture at the 1913 Salon des artistes français and participated in the 1914 AWAA exhibition at 4 rue de Chevreuse.
Painter Adairene Vose Congdon (1865-1918) was a New York native who spent many years in Paris. She married fellow artist Thomas R. Congdon. They both exhibited regularly in the Paris Salons and she was a member as well as an officer of the American Woman's Art Association for several years. Her 1911 painting, "A Forest in Brittany," was highly praised at the AWAA exhibition at 4 rue de Chevreuse that year.
Born Mabel Viola Harris (1871-1966) in Boothbay, Maine, Conkling was a sculptor who served as the president of the National Association of Women Painters and Sculptors from 1926-1928. She studied extensively in Paris at several academies. One of her instructors, Frederick MacMonnies, painted her portrait in 1904 and it is still considered one of his finest works. Mabel married fellow artist David Paul Burleigh Conkling in 1901. She exhibited a portrait bust of Suzanne Baudy, daughter of the proprietor of the famed Hotel Baudy in Giverny, at the 1904 Salon des artistes français, and showed two other sculptures at the Salon the following year. In 1903, she showed two portrait medallions at the AWAA exhibition at the Girls' Art Club. Later in her career, Conkling focused on public sculptures, including fountains.
Ohio-born sculptor, designer, and lithographer May Elizabeth Cook (1863-1951) studied in Paris at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts and the Académie Colarossi in the years right before World War I. Her sculpture "Joyeuse rencontre" was exhibited at the 1913 Salon des artistes français. Cook's address in the catalogue is listed as 4 rue de Chevreuse.
Bertha Coolidge (1880-1953) was a portrait miniaturist who specialized in watercolors on ivory. Her works are held in The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, and several other renowned collections. She studied in Paris in the early 20th century and exhibited her miniatures at several salons and at the AWAA's 1913 show.
Painter Emma Lampert Cooper was born in 1855 in Nunda, New York. After graduating from Wells College in 1875, she studied in Rochester, at the Art Students League in New York with William Merritt Chase, in Holland with Hein Kever, and in Paris at the Académie Délécluse. Considered an exceptionally talented artist, Emma exhibited at several World’s Fairs (and won awards), and also taught art later in life. She met her husband, fellow painter Colin Campbell Cooper, in the summer artists’ colony at Laren, Holland, and the two were married in Rochester in 1897. During her years in Paris, she was a frequent exhibitor at the Salon des artistes français, showing a variety of works from 1887-1901. She was also an exhibitor at the 1899 annual AWAA show at the Girls’ Art Club. The Coopers traveled extensively and both became known for their impressionist landscapes. They were aboard the RMS Carpathia liner en route from New York to Gibraltar in April 1912 when the ship was rerouted to rescue passengers from the Titanic. The Coopers helped rescue a number of survivors and Colin Cooper would go on to paint several pictures of the Titanic. Emma died in 1920 in Pittsford, New York. Her work can be found in a number of U.S. museums and her papers, along with those of her husband, are preserved at the University of Rochester.
Another Ohio native, Nell Baker Coover (1869-1955), studied in Paris in the 1890s and returned to live there again from 1908-1914. Coover specialized in drypoint etchings. Her most popular subjects were children. She exhibited her work at the 1910 AWAA show and at the 1909-1913 Salons des artistes français.
A painter of various forms of womanhood, Mildred Baynon Copeland (dates unknown) was born in El Paso, Texas and became a favorite at the Paris Salons from 1911-1914. Her canvases were praised in the American and French press and her painting, "Vanity," won best in exhibition at the 1910 AWAA show before being exhibited at the 1910 Salon des artistes français. Her father, Guild A. Copeland, was the editor of the Boston Daily Advertiser. She studied in New York under Kenyon Cox and in Paris at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts as well as with Richard Miller.
Born into a family of artists and writers in Rome, Georgia, Imogen Adams Coulter (1868) first studied at Shorter College, where she won the Excelsior Gold Medal for her art studies. She then enrolled in the Chase school in New York City for a year, continuing private lessons with William Merritt Chase. Some sources indicate that she also studied at the Art Students’ League. In Paris, she worked with Raphael Collin and Alphonse Mucha (probably at the Académie Colarossi) and spent hours copying old masters in the Louvre and the Luxembourg museums. On vacation, she painted in Barbizon and Fontainebleau.
A member of the American Woman's Art Association and a resident at 4 rue de Chevreuse from 1902 through the summer of 1903, Coulter exhibited her work at the Salons des artistes français, with a miniature entitled “Portrait of a Young Girl” in 1902 and a painting, “A Sonata,” in 1903. It seems she also exhibited “A Sonata” at the AWAA’s 1903 annual exhibit, for which she was part of the hanging committee. On her return to the U.S., she stayed in Rome Georgia for a few months before opening a studio in New York City. She and her sister Lilian left for Italy in 1906; they traveled through Italy and resided in Paris for several years. After teaching art in Jackson, Tennessee, she was named head of the art department at Shorter College in c. 1910 – men were admitted to Shorter beginning in 1948. She died in Rome, Georgia in 1957. Sources
Miniaturist and portrait painter Sarah Eakin Cowan was born in Hendersonville, North Carolina in 1875 and died in Miami, Florida in 1958. One of her major achievements as an artist was a book of silhouettes of famous people whom she met while traveling across the United States. Her 1935 miniature of fellow artist and American Girls' Art Club resident Anne Goldthwaite is extraordinary, and can be found in the collection of The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. As a young art student in Paris, Cowan trained under Mme Laforge and at the Académie Julian. She lived at 4 rue de Chevreuse and exhibited a miniature at the 1907 Salon des artistes français. It is perhaps during this period when she met Goldthwaite.
Cornelia Cowles Vetter (1881-1958) was born in Hartford, Connecticut and remained one of the city's most prominent artists throughout her life. Like many of her peers, Cowles studied art in New York with William Merritt Chase; she also took lessons from Robert Henri and was enrolled in the Pratt Institute. Cowles won a scholarship to Spain and France in 1910, exhibiting at the AWAA exhibition at 4 rue de Chevreuse that same year before embarking on a trip around the world.
Atlanta, Georgia native Esther Mabel Crawford (1872-1958) studied at the Cincinnati Art Academy and at the Pratt Institute before traveling to Europe to further her artistic education under the tutelage of artists Whistler and Mucha. She exhibited her work at the 1899 and 1900 AWAA shows at the Girls' Art Club. Known for her oil painting landscapes and her color woodblock prints, Crawford visited China and Japan around 1909, before settling in Southern California as an instructor in the State Normal School, now UCLA.
Originally from a prominent family in Virginia, Catherine Carter Critcher (1868-1964) was a phenomenally successful artist in her lifetime. She studied in Paris, exhibiting at the Girls' Art Club (and serving as AWAA president in 1908) as well as at several Salons. Critcher even founded her own art school in Paris in 1905, the Cour Critcher, for American students who could not speak French. Critcher first visited New Mexico around 1920 and was elected to the prestigious Taos Society of Artists in 1924, the only woman accorded this honor. A painter of portraits and genre scenes, Critcher's later work immortalized the rituals of the Pueblo Indians in New Mexico.
A painter of murals, portraits, and landscapes, Marie Cronin was born in Sedalia, Missouri in 1879 and died in Houston, Texas in 1951. She enjoyed success as an art student in Paris, exhibiting her paintings at the 1907 and 1908 Salons des Beaux-Arts and at the 1908 AWAA exhibition at 4 rue de Chevreuse. Sources indicate that Cronin had a studio for three years on rue Notre-Dame-des-Champs and that she studied under Lucién Simon and Claudio Castelucho at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière. Upon returning to the United States at the outset of WWI, Cronin lived with her family and worked professionally as an artist. A series of events led her to become the only woman railroad president in the country...
Helen Cruikshank (later Davis) was born in Elizabeth, New Jersey but spent most of her career in Houston, Texas. Cruikshank was a miniaturist and pupil of the famous Mme Laforge in Paris. While studying in Paris, Cruikshank lived at 4 rue de Chevreuse and two of her miniatures, "Etude de blonde" and "Germaine" were accepted into the 1913 Salon des artistes français.
An artist identified only as “Miss Cullen” exhibited some bookbindings in the objets d’art section of the March 1914 AWAA exhibition at the Girls’ Art Club. Miss Cullen is Frances Cullen, a graduate of the Pratt Institute who studied bookbinding in London and Paris just before World War I. A Brooklyn native, she opened her own studio at the Pratt Institute upon returning from Europe, where she lectured and demonstrated the various bookbinding processes to artists in training.
Born in New York City in 1883, Elizabeth Asten Curtis was an artist influenced early in life by her aunt, successful illustrator Jessie Curtis Shepherd. She studied at the Art Students League with Twachtman and Chase before going abroad to Paris in 1912 with her friend and future collaborator, Florence Choate. Curtis exhibited some of her drawings at the December 1913 AWAA exhibition at the Girls’ Art Club. Upon returning to New York, Curtis and Choate embarked on a very successful career writing, illustrating, and publishing children’s books for several decades. Curtis shared a New York home at 84 Grove Street with her younger sister Margaret, a dance teacher. She died in 1959, about 8 years before her friend and fellow illustrator Florence Choate.
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Painter, muralist, and teacher Edith Fairfax Davenport was born in Kansas City, Missouri in 1880. Davenport was a cousin of James Abbott McNeill Whistler and she painted an astonishingly good copy of his famous 1871 portrait of his mother, her grandmother’s sister, with the permission of the French government in 1906. Davenport was in Paris studying at the Académie Julian under Jean-Paul Laurens and Raphael Collin. She was also among the first women accepted into the famed Ecole des Beaux-Arts, training with Ferdinand Humbert in his women’s painting atelier beginning in 1900. Davenport exhibited an open air nude study at the 1907 AWAA show at the Girls’ Art Club but it does not appear that her work was accepted into any of the Salons. She returned to the United States before World War I and began studying with Howard Giles and Hans Hoffman; she embraced abstract composition and produced modern art in her later years. A frequent exhibitor in the United States, Davenport eventually retired to Winter Park, Florida, where she died in 1957.
Davis ran the Kenjockety Bindery in New York (1230 Amsterdam Avenue) with another former Girls' Club resident, Sarah J. Freeman. Both had studied book art and book binding with M. Dumont at 11 rue du Buci while living at 4 rue de Chevreuse from 1906-1908.
Maria Thompson Daviess (1872-1924) was a successful American novelist and artist. Born in Harrodsburg, Kentucky, Daviess enrolled for a year at Wellesley College before moving to Paris to study art. She exhibited two works at the 1904 AWAA show at 4 rue de Chevreuse and exhibited two miniatures at that year's Salon des artistes français. Daviess exhibited another miniature at the 1905 Salon des artistes français. While in Paris, she studied at the Académie Delécluse and under Delance and Prinet. Once back in the United States, she rose to fame as a novelist. Two of her novels, Out of a Clear Sky (1917) and The Golden Bird (1918) were made into movies starring noted silent film star Marguerite Clark.
Mathilde J. de Cordoba (1875-1942) was a New York artist who studied under Kenyon Cox at the Art Students League in New York and with William Merritt Chase at Shinnecock. She exhibited in Paris Salons between 1908 and 1913 and was later associated with the Byrdcliffe Arts & Crafts Colony, founded in 1902 near Woodstock, NY. While in Paris, de Cordoba also exhibited her work at the 1913 AWAA show at 4 rue de Chevreuse. In the 1930s and 1940s de Cordoba worked for the WPA's Federal Art Project in New York.
French artist Marguerite de Félice was born in 1872 in Sainte-Foy-la-Grande, a small commune in southwestern France. In her early career, she worked primarily in leather, producing many objets d’art as well as dollhouses for children. She was knowledgeable in all the applied arts and, after leather became scarce during World War I, de Félice turned her talents to bookbinding, producing exquisite works on paper and teaching the craft at the Ecole et Les Ateliers d’Art Décoratif beginning in 1920. Though she was never explicitly named as an exhibitor in any AWAA shows, de Félice was known to be affiliated with the organization and she served as vice president for the rival International Art Union in 1914, headquartered at 93 Boulevard Saint-Michel. She was also a frequent exhibitor at the Salon des Beaux-Arts, showing her work in 1903, 1906, 1907, 1908, 1909, and 1910 (and possibly in others). After living for a number of years in Bordeaux, she moved to the Villa des Ternes in Paris around 1909. Little is known about her later years before her death in 1933.
Amalie Busck Deady (dates unknown) was an interior designer, decorative artist, and had once been the librarian at New York's Pathological Institute. Her family business, Busck Studios, produced housewares like cigar boxes, desk sets, and leathers (Amalie is credited with making some Busck leathers in 1902). She spent some time studying in Paris and exhibited two works at the 1910 Salon des artistes français, both in the decorative arts section: "Branche d'eglantier" (aquarelle au pinceau japonais) and "Euphronia" (aquarelle au pinceau japonais). Deady also participated in the 1910 AWAA show at the Girls' Art Club. She was also an author, publishing articles like "Beaten Metal-Work" on the history of ornamental metalworking for House & Garden (vol. 2, no. 11, November 1902, pp. 572-578).
Carrie Decker was a painter who exhibited at the 1910 AWAA exhibition at 4 rue de Chevreuse. Further details about her life are unknown.
A painter from California, Mabel Reed Deming Hobart (1874-1945) spent most of her life in San Francisco. Deming was in Paris at the turn of the 20th century, showing her work at the 1899 AWAA exhibition at the Girls' Art Club, and exhibiting "Un jour sombre" at the 1900 Salon des artistes français. She married architect Lewis Hobart around 1906 and appears to have given up her career in order to raise a family.
Savannah, Georgia painter and watercolorist Lucile Desbouillons Murphy (1873-1956) was the daughter of French immigrants. She spent the summer of 1895 in Paris with her friend and fellow artist, Emma Cheves Wilkins. They lived at the Girls’ Art Club and studied with Gustave Courtois at the Académie Colarossi. The two women also worked in ateliers at the Académie Delécluse and received criticism from gallery owner Bernard Boutet de Monvel. Before going abroad, Desbouillons had trained with Carl Brandt at the Telfair Academy of Arts and Sciences in Savannah. After her 1902 marriage to painter Christopher Patrick Hussey Murphy and the subsequent birth of their seven children, Desbouillons switched from oil painting in the French academic style to watercolors, a medium better suited to her busy life managing a home and large family. Few of her works remain but some undated watercolors of flowers, interior scenes of her home, and landscapes of Hendersonville, North Carolina, where she often summered, are extant. Desbouillons and her husband taught art to their children, two of whom (Christopher and Margaret) pursued their own artistic careers. Though she did not often exhibit her own work, 26 of her watercolors, mostly floral still lifes, are held in the collection of the Morris Museum of Art.
Mary Estelle Dickson (1858-1904), known professionally as M.E. Dickson, was a very successful painter at the turn of the 20th century, listed in the European edition of the New York Herald as one of the six best American women artists in Paris, together with Elizabeth Nourse, Mary Shepard Green, Kate Carl, Miss Blackstone-Freeman, and Anna Klumpke (June 18, 1902, p. 3).
Mary E. Dickson was born in St. Louis, Missouri to Charles K. Dickson, Vice-President of the Atlantic and Pacific Railroad Company and a director of the North Missouri Railroad Company. Dickson’s early education at the Georgetown Convent was followed by training at the St. Louis School of Fine Arts. She then traveled to Paris in the early 1890s to study at the Académie Julian, listing Tony Robert-Fleury and Jules Lefebvre as her principal teachers. A Washington Post article claims she was a “prize pupil” of noted landscape painter Luigi Chiavila. Dickson resided in Paris for over 10 years, first at the Girls’ Art Club, then at 7 rue Scribe (1898, 1899), and later at 11 bd. Clichy (1900, 1901, 1902), 55 rue des Abbesses (1903), and finally at 233bis rue du Faubourg St. Honoré (1904).
She received an Honorable Mention at the 1896 Salon des artistes français for the painting "Mistletoe" and was listed in the Salon catalogue as a resident at 4 rue de Chevreuse that year. She exhibited the same painting at the Chicago Art Institute (1896) and the Museum of Fine Arts in St. Louis (1897). Recognized for her talent, Dickson continued to be accepted at the annual Salon des artistes français: 1898 (“Fleur Brisée,” “Haydée”); 1899 (“Rêverie,” Stolly”); 1900 (“Isabella”); 1901 (“La bonne aventure”); 1902 (“Jeune Femme aux Fleurs,” “La première lesson,”); 1903 (“La fin d’un roman,” “Sylvie”); 1904 (“Rêveuse”).
Dickson returned to St. Louis for the World’s Fair exposition in September of 1904. Her health gradually declined and she died on December 22 that same year. She was only 46 years old, leaving behind a rich artistic legacy and “[...] a vacancy in the art world that will be very hard to fill” (St. Louis Post-Dispatch, July 6, 1907, p. 4).
One of the women artists invited to represent the United States at the 1900 Exposition Universelle at the Grand Palais, Dickson won a bronze medal. Among her other distinctions, she earned an honorable mention at the Pan-American Exposition of 1901. Sources.
Blanche Annie Dillaye (1851-1931) was born into a prominent family in Syracuse, New York. She studied etching under Stephen Parrish at the prestigious Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts and painting in Paris under Garrido. Considered an authority on etching in the early 20th century, Dillaye was one of a few women working in a medium dominated by men. She exhibited at several Paris Salons, in the 1893 Columbian Exposition, and also enjoyed a successful career as an illustrator based in Philadelphia. While in Paris, Dillaye showed a watercolor at the 1902 AWAA exhibition at the Girls' Art Club.
Noted miniaturist Eulabee (Eulalia) Dix Becker (1878-1961) was born in Greenwood, Illinois but lived in Beatrice, Nebraska for several years and then in St. Louis, studying at Washington University and the St. Louis School of Fine Arts. She moved to New York as a young woman, training with George Bridgman at the Art Students League as well as William Whittemore, founder of the American Society of Miniature Painters. Dix lived and worked in a studio in the Carnegie Hall Tower, surrounded by other artists and musicians. Her friendship with fellow artists Charles Dana Gibson and Robert Henri as well as her close relationship with British socialite Minnie Stevens Paget led to European travel and prestigious commissions for Dix, who counted among the sitters for her miniature portraits actress Ethel Barrymore and photographer Gertrude Kasebier. Her preferred medium for miniatures was watercolor on ivory. Dix was in Paris in 1906, staying for a short time at 4 rue de Chevreuse, studying at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière and sketching at the Louvre. One of her portraits of a "beautiful American" granted her membership in the Society of Miniature Painters (Washington Times, Feb. 18, 1906). She returned to the United States by 1908, where she produced the last ever portrait of Mark Twain. She also befriended John Butler Yeats, the father of Irish poet William Butler Yeats, who introduced her to the literati at the National Arts Club in New York. She married lawyer Alfred Becker around 1910 but the marriage ended in divorce. Dix lived in California in her later years, including a stay with a community of East Indian monks. She died in Connecticut in 1961. Her personal papers, and a large collection of her paintings, are held by the National Museum of Women in the Arts.
Lucille Sinclair Douglass was born in Tuskegee, Alabama in 1877 or 1878, daughter of Walter E. and Marie Sinclair Douglass. She was a painter, etcher, photographer, writer, and an authority on China and Cambodia. Douglass was influenced as a child by reading exotic travel books and visited China for the first time in 1920 on behalf of the Board of Missions of the Methodist Episcopal Church. She moved to Shanghai in 1921 and is best known for her etchings, aquarelles, and drawings made during her trips throughout the Orient.
Before her travels in Asia, Douglass graduated from the Woman’s College in Tuskegee, and lived in Europe from 1909-1912. In Paris, she studied under Lucien Simon, René Menard, and Alexander Charles Robinson. She became Robinson's assistant while in Paris and exhibited her work at the AWAA exhibition in 1910 and at the 1912 Salon des artistes français. From 1922-1924, she served on the editorial staff of the Shanghai Times, writing about China’s art treasures. Her work was represented in numerous galleries and museums in the U.S. and abroad, notably the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Congressional Library in Washington, the British Museum, and the Musée Guimet in Paris (Birmingham News, September 30, 1935, p. 14). According to the Birmingham News, one of her paintings was purchased by the French government (January 9, 1933, p. 9).
Lucille Douglass died on September 27, 1935. In accordance with her wishes, her ashes were scattered in front of the Angor Vat temple in Cambodia, where she had worked with a group of French archaeologists. Her etchings were presented at the French Colonial Exhibition in 1927 (Birmingham Post-Herald, February 19, 1936, p. 5). She was a member of the Society of Women Geographers, and the American Women’ clubs of New York and Shanghai.
Antoinette Farnsworth Drew (1866-1941) was a painter who lived at 4 rue de Chevreuse in its early years. Drew exhibited a pastel at the 1896 Salon des artistes français and a painting at the 1898 Salon des artistes français. Around 1901, Drew illustrated a children's book by Maud Ballington Booth, Lights of Childland. Not much is known about her later life but she lived in Atlanta, Georgia for twenty-five years before her murder in 1941. The New York Times reported on her shocking killing (bludgeoned in the head with a steel axe in an attempted robbery) and noted that her mural "Dawn of Learning" could be seen at Atlanta's Carnegie Library (September 18, 1941, p. 25).
Though many facts about her life are shrouded in mystery or are simply disputed, famed journalist Constance Drexel (1884? - 1956) definitely studied at the Sorbonne and definitely resided at the American Girls’ Art Club in the early 20th century. Born in either 1884 or 1894 in Germany, Constance Drexel was not, as she publicly claimed, a wealthy Philadelphia heiress. Though her family did emigrate to the United States and Drexel eventually became a naturalized U.S. citizen, she grew up in Massachusetts before completing her education in Paris. Considered a groundbreaking journalist known for her features in American newspapers, Drexel was also an ardent suffragist. She was one of the delegates in the American delegation to the 1915 International Congress of Women at the Hague and wrote often about political candidates in the U.S. who were either for or vehemently against votes for women. Drexel wrote for all sorts of publications, from Collier’s and Harper’s Monthly to trade journals and official government documents, and her stories ranged from the frivolous (a 1924 article in Collier’s on the American/European obsession with bananas) to the serious (a 1935 Senate treatise on munitions and disarmament). Supposedly, Drexel was in France at the beginning of World War I, working as a nurse with the Red Cross in Deauville but she soon abandoned this mission to focus full-time on suffrage. By 1920, she had secured a job as a columnist for The Philadelphia Public Ledger, and her remit was to focus on women and politics, both nationally and internationally. That same year, she was interviewed in an article for the New-York Tribune and declared that she was “so much interested in the continuance of the American Girls’ Club in Paris,” which was then serving as the European headquarters for the Red Cross (February 15, 1920, p. F3). Her career as a celebrated journalist continued for two decades, until Drexel’s own actions during WWII brought it to a crashing halt. It was known that Drexel was pro-Hitler, but for a U.S. citizen to go abroad in 1939 and publicly shill for the Nazis, who were paying for her travel and expenses, meant treason. She was indicted for her propaganda broadcasts in 1943, arrested by U.S. soldiers in Vienna in 1945, and was investigated by Justice Department officials for three years before the charges were dropped in 1948 due to lack of evidence. Drexel died in Connecticut in 1956, her reputation ruined and her career over.
Originally from Santa Barbara, California, miniaturist Isidora C. Dreyfus (ca. 1896- ?) studied in Paris before World War I at the Académie Délécluse. Her teachers were the famed Mme Debillemont-Chardon and Sonia Routchine-Vitry. Dreyfus was among the miniature exhibitors at the December 1913 AWAA show but it does not appear that her work was accepted into the Salons. Like many Americans studying in Europe when war broke out, Dreyfus seems to have returned to the United States and settled in New York. She was listed among the exhibitors at a 1924 Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts show, where she showed two miniature cameos, one a shoulder brooch and the other a pendant. Dreyfus was also among the artists who participated in the 1926 annual exhibition of the Brooklyn Society of Miniature Painters. Her three miniature cameos were praised for their realism and resemblance to real cameos. Around this time, Dreyfus married Oliver W. Parsons; they had children and eventually moved back to her native California. Her later life is not well-documented.
No information on her
Helen Savier DuMond (1872-1968) was a painter born into a wealthy family in Portland, Oregon who moved to New York to study at the Art Students League. One of her instructors, prominent Impressionist Frank DuMond, eventually became her husband. Helen traveled to Paris in the late 1890s to study at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts and under Luc Olivier Merson and Raphael Collin. Her work was exhibited at the 1897 and 1898 Salons de Beaux-Arts. In 1906, the DuMonds moved to Old Lyme, Connecticut, splitting their time between Old Lyme and New York City for many years. She continued painting, exhibiting, and sometimes teaching throughout their marriage. After Frank's death in 1951, Helen moved to Los Angeles, where she died in 1968.
Painter, art instructor, and china decorator Mary Stewart (Minnie) Dunlap (1846-1925) taught at Wittenberg College in Springfield, Ohio from 1890-1895. She traveled to Europe to study at the great art academies in Paris and exhibited at the 1897 AWAA exhibition at 4 rue de Chevreuse. Around 1906, Dunlap settled in Pasadena, California, remaining for about 10 years while she painted and lectured on art.
Born in Petersburg, Virginia in 1883, Anna Mercer Dunlop studied at the Art Students League in New York with Kenyon Cox, William Merritt Chase, and Frank DuMond before finishing her education in Paris. Dunlop studied under Raphael Collin and Whistler in Paris, exhibiting painted china frames at the 1900 AWAA exhibition. She opened the unsuccessful Petersburg Art School at the beginning of the 20th century but was forced to close it after just two years. She reopened the school in 1932 and is credited with developing it into an important Virginia institution. Dunlop was a painter of portraits, still life, and landscapes, her early works influenced by Impressionism.
Originally from Port Byron, New York, Fannie Eliza Duvall (1861-1934) studied in New York City at Cooper Union and at the Art Students League before joining many of her female peers in Paris at the turn of the 20th century. She studied with Whistler and at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière. Duvall painted portraits, landscapes, and floral still life, alternating between oil, watercolor, and pastel. She exhibited at the 1893 Columbian Exposition in Chicago and at the 1901 and 1908 Salons des artistes français. She also showed her work at the 1911 AWAA exhibition at the Girls' Art Club, and the 1909 and 1910 exhibits of the International Art Union. Initially, Duvall had planned on stayed a short while in Paris, but remained for more than five years. After studying in Paris, Duvall returned to the United States and settled in California, dying in Los Angeles at the age of 73.
A Boston painter from a prominent New England family, Julia Strong Lyman Dwight (1870-1961) received extensive training in the United States and in Paris before embarking on a successful art career. She studied first at the Hopkins Academy in Hadley, Massachusetts and then graduated from Smith College in 1893. Dwight then moved to New York and took classes at the Art Students League before studying for a decade at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, earning a diploma in 1905. She went abroad at this time, living in Paris from 1906-1912. In her first year in Paris, Dwight shared a studio on rue Boissonade with fellow painter (and her former Smith art teacher), Mary Rogers Williams. Julia Dwight was among the exhibitors at the February 1907 AWAA show at the Girls’ Art Club; she exhibited a still life. In 1908, Dwight showed a painting, “La lampe italienne,” at the Salon des artistes français and in 1910, she exhibited another painting, a portrait of a young girl, at the Salon des Beaux-Arts. Upon returning to the United States, Dwight settled in Boston, often moving between a number of studio/residences, and sometimes living with her unmarried sister Marion McGregor Dwight. She continued exhibiting her paintings, mostly in the Northeast, well into the last decades of her life. Interestingly, Dwight’s parents were friends with Emily Dickinson and Julia preserved the family’s correspondence with the famed poet, eventually donating it to Amherst College.
Casimira Dziekonska was a Polish artist born in Warsaw who spent most of her career in the United States. She studied in Paris with Robert-Fleury and Lefebvre around 1897, exhibiting a pastel at that year's Salon des artistes français; her address in the Salon catalogue is listed as 4 rue de Chevreuse. Dziekonska exhibited a painting and a pastel at the 1904 Salon des artistes français but not much else is known about this artist.
Sculptor Elizabeth Edmond (1887-1918) was born in Portland, Maine and studied at the Massachusetts Normal School and at the Art Students League in New York before continuing her education in Europe. Edmond lived in Paris around 1910-1912, sharing a studio for a time with fellow sculptor (and Girls' Club affiliate) Alice Morgan Wright at 45 rue Vandamme. Edmond exhibited at a number of Paris Salons and at the 1910 and 1911 AWAA exhibitions. She settled in Los Angeles upon returning to the United States and died tragically after a minor operation in 1918.
An artist identified only as H. Edwards exhibited a painting of a flower vendor at the 1905 AWAA show.
Portraitist Kate Edwards (1877-1980) was born in Marshallville, Georgia, and spent most of her life in Atlanta. After studying at the Art Institute of Chicago, Edwards went abroad to continue her training in Paris just before WWI, and then moved to England in the mid-1920s to execute portraits for several literary celebrities. Her work is held in collections such as the United States Capitol and the Georgia Capitol, as well as the collection at Georgia Tech.
Ellen Emmet Rand (1875-1941) was a highly-respected painter and illustrator. Among her portrait sitters were President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, artist Augustus Saint-Gaudens, novelist Henry James, and philosopher William James (the James brothers were her cousins). She studied art in Boston and then in New York, producing illustrations for Vogue magazine and Harper's Weekly before moving to Europe to study with Frederick MacMonnies. A double-view portrait by Emmet was exhibited at the Girls' Art Club in the 1898 AWAA show. The vast majority of her work can be seen at the William Benton Museum of Art at the University of Connecticut.
New York portraitist Lydia Field Emmet (1866-1952) was the cousin of fellow artist Ellen Emmet Rand, the sister of famed painter Rosina Emmet Sherwood, and the friend of sculptor Janet Scudder, whose portrait medallion of Lydia was exhibited at the 1900 Salon des artistes français. Lydia studied with artists William Merritt Chase, Kenyon Cox, and Tony Robert-Fleury, among others. Working primarily in watercolors and oils, Emmet enjoyed a successful and varied career: she was invited to represent the United States at both the 1893 Columbian Exposition in Chicago and the 1900 Exposition Universelle in Paris; she designed stained glass windows for Louis Comfort Tiffany; she produced illustrations for Harper's Bazaar; and she was commissioned by President Herbert Hoover to paint an official portrait of First Lady Lou Henry Hoover, which still hung in the White House as of 2020. While studying in Europe, Lydia, her cousin Ellen, and a number of other American artists formed a summer colony at the Hotel Baudy in Giverny, to be near Claude Monet's estate. There is no documentation showing that Lydia ever exhibited her work with the American Woman's Art Association but her cousin had participated in the 1898 show and her sister Rosina participated in the 1899 show so perhaps Lydia's name was simply omitted from the exhibition reviews.
Alice Dow Engley Beek (1867-1951) was born in Providence, Rhode Island but spent much of her adult life in Tacoma, Washington. She studied in Paris at the end of the 19th century, exhibiting at the 1897 and 1898 AWAA exhibitions at 4 rue de Chevreuse. She spent several years in the early 20th century studying painting in Holland, where she met her husband, Theodore Beek. The couple settled in Tacoma around 1907 and remained there until their deaths. Alice continued to paint but also served as the director of the Annie Wright Seminary (now School) for 17 years.
Painter Florence Esté (1860-1925) was born in Cincinnati, Ohio and was known for her accomplished, Japanese-influenced landscapes. She also produced watercolors, pastels, and etchings. Esté studied in Paris as a teenager before returning to the United States to work with Thomas Eakins at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and with William Sartain at the Philadelphia School of Design for Women. In 1888, she moved permanently to Paris, studying with Alexander Nozal and Raphael Collin. Esté remained in Paris during WWI and was a regular exhibitor at the Salons and in the AWAA exhibitions at the Girls' Art Club.
Though the 1896 Indicateur guide to Paris lists Evans as a painter, two early 20th-century newspaper sources indicate that her talents were actually musical. The Carmarthen Journal, a Welsh magazine, published an article in March 1911 about a patriotic event celebrating Welsh language and culture in the town of Carmarthen and noted that "Miss Adelina Evans gave selections on the harp throughout the evening." An earlier article appeared in a February 1897 issue of Viator: Musical opinion and musical trade review listing "Miss Adelina Evans...a talented harpist: and it is amusing to see printed in English and Welsh on this young lady's harp case, 'Harp with care.'" Both journals are accessible in Google Books.
Ethel Evans was a painter born in Mount Pleasant, Iowa in 1866. It is unclear where she studied art but she was living in Omaha, Nebraska in the 1890s and was affiliated with the Western Art Association and the Haydon Art Club in Lincoln, Nebraska. After working for a few years as Supervisor of Drawing in the Omaha Public Schools, Evans took a leave of absence in 1895 to continue her studies, first in New York and Pennsylvania, and then in Paris. Evans lived at 11 rue Bara and studied with Raphael Collin and Augustus B. Koopman. She exhibited a painting at the 1897 Salon des artistes français, “Portrait de Mlle K.” Upon returning to Omaha, Evans took a studio in the 5-story Boyd’s Opera House building, where she taught art, hosted meetings of the Art Workers Society, and painted. In 1903, she left Omaha and moved to New York City, taking a position in one of the city’s high school art departments. Her sister became a wealthy widow in 1913 and they traveled extensively, visiting Cuba, California, and returning to Europe frequently. They must have been in Paris in the months before WWI because Ethel Evans was among the exhibitors at the February 1914 AWAA show at 4 rue de Chevreuse. She died in New York in 1929 at the age of 63.
A miniaturist originally from Baltimore, Fannie Evans exhibited her work at the 1909 AWAA show at the Girls’ Art Club. She was listed among the miniaturists and was also praised for “Study for a Portait.” Evans was also accepted into the Salon des Beaux-Arts in 1908 and 1909. In 1908, she exhibited a miniature “Portrait of Miss W” and in 1909, she showed a cadre of three miniatures, “Tete d’enfant,” “Femme italienne,” and “Portrait de Miss D. M... dans le rôle de Miss Hook of Holland.”
Nannie Evans, a soprano known for her opera performances, lived at 4 rue de Chevreuse for a time in 1906. She had been part of an opera company in Cincinnati around 1902 and was in Wichita, Kansas in 1908. No other details about her life have surfaced.
Farmer (1881-1939), known for her miniature portraits, was born in Lyons, New York and went to Syracuse University, where she earned the Hiram Gee award for painting in 1906. She lived in Paris from 1906-1907 and was told at the Girls' Art Club that her room would not be ready until much later due to renovation work. Her room only became available on January 12, 1907, and she stayed until August. She studied at the Académie Julian and the Académie de la Grande Chaumière.
Painter Margaret L. Farrow exhibited “Going Home,” a picture of an unhappy flock of sheep in the evening at the 1908 AWAA show at 4 rue de Chevreuse. No other details about her have emerged.
Adele Fay, later Adele Fay Williams, was born in Joliet, Illinois in 1859. An artist best known for her drawings and prints of Joliet, Fay studied at the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts, the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, and the Art Students League in New York. Around 1893, Fay went to Paris, enrolling at the Académie Colarossi and training with Camille Pissarro. At an April 1896 AWAA exhibition at the Girls’ Art Club, Fay showed a painting of a choir boy. She also participated in the 1893 Columbian Exposition in Chicago, exhibiting some of her work in the Illinois building. Her cityscapes eventually illustrated such newspapers as the Joliet Herald, New York World, and Washington Times. She also served for a period as the art critic for the Pittsburgh Spectator and was a member of the Experimentalists, an avant-garde group of women artists in Pittsburgh. Fay married John Williams in 1901; he died in 1916 and she died much later in 1937. Her prints and drawings are part of the Howard and Lois Adelmann Regional History Collection at Lewis University in Romeoville, Illinois.
Nancy Maybin Ferguson (1872-1967) was born and raised in the Germantown area of Philadelphia. As a young artist she studied with Elliott Daingerfield in Provincetown, at the Philadelphia School of Design for Women (now Moore College of Art & Design), and later at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, where she was awarded a Cresson Traveling Scholarship. While in Paris, Ferguson exhibited at the 1905 AWAA show and at the 1906 Salon des Beaux-Arts. She became known for her colorful townscapes and street scenes across Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Provincetown, and Truro, Massachusetts. She was an active member of the Philadelphia Ten, a group of women artists who traveled and exhibited together from 1917-1945. Today, her works are represented in institutions across the U.S., including in the Art Institute of Chicago, Illinois, the National Academy of Design in New York City, and the Buffalo Fine Arts Museum in New York.
Sculptor Emilie Louise Fiero was born in Joliet, Illinois in 1889. After studying at the Art Institute of Chicago, Fiero went abroad, studying marble cutting in Florence and then going to Paris to continue her sculpture training under Injalbert, Navlier, and Bartlett. She was among the exhibitors at the last AWAA show at the Girls’ Art Club in March 1914. Fiero exhibited a sketch for a fountain, a portrait medallion, and “Sleeping Cat.” During World War I, she was living in San Francisco, later moving to New York in the 1940s after another stint in Paris in the 1920s. A member of a number of arts organizations including the National Association of Women Painters and Sculptors, Fiero died in Madison, Wisconsin in 1974. Among her notable commissions were a triptych for Calvary Episcopal Church in Gramercy Park and a Great Blue Heron Drinking Fountain for the city of Cleveland (made in 1928, now lost; replicas on display at the Cleveland Museum of Art).
Painter Lucy Agnes Flannigan was born in Boston around 1870 and studied at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. She taught art in the Brookline, Massachusetts public schools for a short time before winning a scholarship to study in Rome in the late 1890s. While in Italy, Flannigan traveled to Capri and fell in love; she would remain in Capri, living in the famed Strandpension owned by Augusto Weber in the Marina Piccola, until her death in 1934. At first, Flannigan used her scholarship money to pay for her room and board at the pension but when that ran out, she was fortunate to have befriended the wealthy Mather family, direct descendants of the notorious Salem witch trial prosecutor Cotton Mather, who financially supported her for the rest of her life. Flannigan even gave lessons to one of the girls, Carol Mather. She worked tirelessly at painting, producing countless landscapes and seascapes in oil, pastel, and charcoal in her lifetime, none of which she ever sold because she could not bear to part with any of her works. In 1907, Flannigan must have been in Paris—she exhibited two marine views of Capri at that year’s AWAA show at the Girls’ Art Club. A devout Catholic, Flannigan never married and left all of her works to the Weber family. She was an eccentric to the end of her life: despite living in Italy for nearly forty years, she refused to learn a word of Italian and only spoke in English.
Birmingham, Alabama native Mamie Fogarty was a painter who studied in Paris at the turn of the 20th century after first training with William Merritt Chase in New York. She was among the exhibitors at the 1904 annual AWAA show at 4 rue de Chevreuse though we don’t know the types or names of works she displayed. While in Paris, it seems that Fogarty studied with Lawton Parker and also spent time at the Barbizon School of Art. She was among the students who visited Spain with Claudio Castelucho, where she was particularly taken with “The Spinners” by Velazquez. Upon returning to the United States, Fogarty turned her focus to painting portraits, particularly of wealthy Southern women and young ladies, though it appears that she was financially secure even without portrait commissions. An apparently cantankerous individual, she rewrote her will shortly before her death in 1935, leaving her entire estate to the woman who had served as her caretaker rather than giving it all to a committee that would open a public art gallery in Birmingham. She felt her work had not been appropriately recognized by members of the Birmingham Art Club and decided against her charitable impulse to establish a museum in her hometown. The will was contested and ultimately the money went into a trust managed by the Birmingham Art Association which would eventually lead to the opening of the Birmingham Museum of Art in 1951.
Ethel F. Folsom was a painter who frequently exhibited her work at the Girls’ Art Club with the AWAA between 1907-1914. In 1907, she showed two views of the Pont-Royal and an interior; in 1908, three paintings, including “L’Atelier de M.W.;” two garden paintings in 1909; three interiors in 1911; a painting of the Pont Neuf in 1913; and she participated in the February 1914 AWAA painting exhibition at the Club though the works she showed that year are unknown. Folsom was also an exhibitor at the 1910 Salon des Beaux-Arts, showing two paintings, “Cathédrale de Chartres” and “Intérieur.” Her address in the Salon catalogue was listed as 78 rue d’Assas. Around 1909, Folsom illustrated a book of fiction by Helen Mackay, Houses of glass: stories of Paris, published in New York.
Born in Macon, Georgia in 1885, Martha Fort Anderson was a painter, etcher, and art instructor who studied in Paris at the Académie Colarossi just before World War I. She exhibited two drawings at the 1914 Salon des artistes français, "Un vieux negre" and "Une vieille négresse," listing her address in the Salon catalogue as 4 rue de Chevreuse. She married fellow artist Frank Hartley Anderson and the couple raised their family in Mt. Airy, Georgia. During the Great Depression, Martha and Frank were employed by the WPA, working together on several projects, including a mural, "The Spirit of Steel" for the Fairfield, Alabama post office. They apparently spent six months studying operations in the Birmingham, Alabama U.S. Steel mills in order to prepare for painting the mural.
Mary Jett Franklin (1842-1928) was born in Athens, Georgia and trained at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. In her forties, Franklin moved to Paris to continue her art education, exhibiting at the AWAA show in 1897 as well as the 1895 and 1896 Salon des Beaux-Arts and the 1901 and 1902 Salons des artistes français. A portrait and genre painter, Franklin returned to Georgia in 1917 and remained there until her death in 1928. She never married nor had children, leaving her entire estate to the University of Georgia.
Sarah Jane Freeman ran the Kenjockety Bindery at 1230 Amsterdam Avenue in New York for several years with Mary A. Davis. Both women had studied bookbinding in Paris while living at 4 rue de Chevreuse from 1906-1908. Freeman went on to teach art at the N.Y. Evening High School for Women and at Teachers' College. Originally from Morristown, New Jersey, Freeman had studied at Wellesley College before going abroad.
Born in Fresno, California in 1868 to Danish parents, Maren Froelich (1868-1921) was a painter who spent most of her life in San Francisco and was active in the Carmel art colony. Froelich studied in Paris from 1907-1911, exhibiting her work at the 1910 AWAA show and a painting, "La robe chinoise," at the 1910 Salon des artistes français. Known for her floral still lifes, landscapes, and figure studies, Froelich also taught at the Mark Hopkins Art Institute in San Francisco from 1902-1903. According an article in the Los Angeles Times, Maren's studio was on the rue Vavin and she spent many of her leisure hours at the Girls' Art Club (July 31, 1910, p. 42). She also showed her work at the Women's International Art Union's exhibits.
Though not directly affiliated with the AWAA, Edith Fry was an Australian expatriate artist living in Paris in the years immediately before World War I. She exhibited 7 watercolors at a private show in a studio on rue Notre-Dame-des-Champs in March 1914, alongside Girls’ Club artists Frances Thomason and Blondelle Malone. Fry graduated with a BA from the University of Sydney in 1904 and eventually moved to Paris to pursue artistic training at Académie Colarossi. After World War I, she moved to London and was a part of literary and artistic circles. Fry often wrote articles for publications like Studio, Connoisseur, and The Sydney Morning Herald. In 1924, she organized a major exhibition in London, “Australian Artists in Europe.” In the 1930s, she was affiliated with the British Authors’ Press and when she died, around 1950, Fry was the editor of the British Annual of Literature.
Philadelphia-born sculptor Meta Vaux Warrick Fuller (1877-1968) was personally mentored by Rodin while studying in Paris from 1899-1902. The daughter of a middle-class black family, Fuller endured racism on both sides of the Atlantic while successfully pursuing her career as an artist. She exhibited frequently as a young sculptor in Europe and in the United States, overcoming even a devastating 1910 warehouse fire that destroyed most of her work and her possessions. A friend of W.E.B. Du Bois and other major black intellectuals, Fuller received commissions from the U.S. government and the Field Museum, and her work can be viewed today in many major collections.
Best known as a portraitist and landscape painter, Elizabeth Fullick graduated from Vassar College in 1878. She spent several years studying in Munich before going to Paris, where she trained under Callot, Courtois, and Dupré. Fullick exhibited a pastel at the 1894 Salon des artistes français, “Petite Rosa,” and she exhibited a painting of a sunset at the 1895 AWAA show at the Girls’ Art Club. While in Europe, Fullick spent summers on sketching trips, often visiting small towns in Brittany and capturing the local people in her paintings and pastels. After her European sojourn, Fullick worked as an art teacher at The Staten Island Academy in New York. She was active in The New York Branch of the Vassar Alumnae and often lectured on art, including a 1911 public lecture, “Holland and the Art of the Dutch,” at the Boston Public Library.
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Miniaturist Rebecca Ashton Garlick Van Horne was born in Galveston, Texas in 1864. There are nearly no details about her early life and education. She exhibited 2 miniatures at the 1901 Salon des artistes français; her address in the catalogue was 17 rue de Montenotte and her teachers were identified as Hortense Richard and Raphael Collin. Garlick exhibited another miniature at the 1902 Salon des artistes français and her address for that year was 8 rue Cernuschi. She was also among the miniature exhibitors at the February 1902 AWAA show at 4 rue de Chevreuse. In May 1902, Garlick married judge William Grant Van Horne in Alexandria, Egypt, where he was justice of the International Court of the First Instance, appointed by President Theodore Roosevelt. She died in 1917 in Alexandria.
Della Garretson (1859-1940) was a painter from Ohio who specialized in portrait, genre, and landscape painting. She and her twin sister, Lillie Garretson, a ceramicist, spent most of their lives in Detroit, Michigan but also in Buffalo, New York. They studied in France and Belgium from 1900-1902. Della exhibited two paintings at the 1902 Salon des artistes français, "Autumn Day" and "Portrait of Miss G" (probably a portrait of her sister), and she also showed her painting, "Village," at the 1902 AWAA show. Her address was listed as 7, rue Léopold Robert, a stone's throw from the Girls' Club. She identified her principal teachers as Dutch-American painter Leonard Ochtman and Spanish-French painter Leandro R. Garrido. Della also lived in Bruges, Belgium in 1912 and showed "Marché aux chiffons in Bruges" at the Salon de la Société nationale des Beaux-Arts in 1912.
Neither Garretson was married and they died within a few months of each other, around their 80th birthday.
No first name. Identified as living at 4 rue de Chevreuse in 1896.
The third child of a prominent Chicago family (her father was a real estate mogul and president of the White Stockings baseball team), Grace Gassette (1871-1955) lived a varied, interesting life. She studied art as a young woman in Europe, training under the great Impressionist Mary Cassatt, and exhibiting her work at a number of Paris Salons: the 1898 and 1899 Salon des artistes français and the 1902, 1903, 1904, 1909, and 1910 Salons des Beaux-Arts. Her most important work came during WWI, when Gassette worked with the American Ambulance in Neuilly and developed a number of orthopedic appliances to aid wounded soldiers.
A painter originally from Oscoda, Michigan, Mary Gay was born in 1873. She studied with Tarbell and Benson at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston before going abroad. In Paris, she was a student of Lazar, Cottet, and Menard. In 1904, Gay was among the artists who participated in the AWAA show at the Girls’ Art Club, though it is not known which works she exhibited. While in Paris, Gay lived at 24 rue Boissonade and showed her work at the Salon des Beaux-Arts in 1903 (a painting, “Portrait of Miss G”), 1906 (a painting, “Portrait of Miss L”), and 1907 (two paintings, “La glycine” and “Les dunes”). By 1909, Gay was back in the United States, first living in Cambridge, MA and then moving to Los Angeles, where she shared a studio in the Walker building with fellow artist Helen Osborne. Her portrait of her brother, economist and Harvard Business School dean Edwin Francis Gay, is part of the Harvard University Portrait Collection. In addition to portraits and landscapes, she also painted miniatures.
An accomplished painter born in Liverpool, England in 1886, Doris Gernon studied at the National Academy of Design in New York. There she met fellow artist Alfred Cheney Johnston, whom she married in May 1914. Gernon must have been in Paris before World War I, as she was listed among the exhibitors at the December 1913 AWAA show at the Girls’ Art Club. When they returned to New York, Johnston became a prominent photographer and his wife, perhaps due to her skill as a painter, was known to complete the darkroom retouches on his prints and glass plates. Johnston eventually became the official photographer of Ziegfeld’s Follies, leading to other commercial commissions and opportunities to work in film; Doris Gernon was active in retouching all his work. After their fortunes were diminished following the 1929 stock market crash, Gernon and Johnston moved to rural Oxford, Connecticut, where she died in 1968 and he passed away three years later in 1971.
Born in San Francisco in 1881, Alida Ghiradelli was the daughter of Domingo Ghirardelli, founder of the famed chocolate factory. As a young woman in San Francisco, she studied with Norwegian-born landscape painter Chris Jorgensen, who was married to her aunt Angela Ghirardelli-Jorgensen. Alida went abroad in the early 20th century, executing a number of Venetian canal scenes before studying in Paris. Ghirardelli showed her work at the Girls' Art Club in 1904 and 1906 AWAA exhibitions. She also exhibited a painting of a Dutch family at the 1906 Salon des Beaux-Arts before returning to California just after the catastrophic San Francisco earthquake that leveled the city. She moved to an artists' colony at Carmel-by-the-Sea with the Jorgensens, tragically drowning at the age of 28 in August 1909 while swimming in the ocean near their home.
Originally from Kalmazoo, Michigan, Ada Gilmore Chaffee (1883-1955), was a watercolorist and a printmaker, one of the founding members of the Provincetown Printers art colony in the early 20th century. She studied at the Belfast School of Art, the Art Institute of Chicago, and in Paris just before WWI. Two of her drawings were exhibited at the 1914 Salon des Beaux-Arts and her address in the Salon's catalogue is 4 rue de Chevreuse. She also participated in the 1914 AWAA exhibition at the Club. War forced Gilmore to return to the United States but she visited Paris again in 1923, meeting her former Art Institute of Chicago classmate, Oliver Newberry Chaffee, Jr., whom she would soon marry. They lived in Provincetown from 1928 until Gilmore's death in 1955.
Painter Margaret L. Goldschmidt was one of the exhibitors at the 1913 AWAA show at the Girls’ Art Club in Paris. A few years later in 1916, her watercolor “Venice, June 1914” was exhibited by the American Watercolor Society at Cornell University. Further details about her life are unknown.
Painter, printmaker, and advocate of women's rights, Anne Wilson Goldthwaite (1869-1944) was born in Montgomery, Alabama to an old Confederate family. She might never have pursued a career as an artist if her fiancé hadn't been killed in a duel in the 1880s. An uncle discovered her artistic talent and offered to financially support her if she moved to New York to study at the National Academy of Design. Around 1906, Goldthwaite went to Paris, meeting Gertrude Stein almost upon arriving, which opened her up to the exciting world of modern art, particularly Fauvism and Cubism. Goldthwaite lived at the American Girls' Art Club for a time and served as president of the American Woman's Art Association in 1910 and 1911. She exhibited her work many times at the Club and in several Paris Salons. She also participated in the landmark 1913 Armory show in New York.
Born on a plantation in Perry, Georgia, Caroline Love Goodwin O'Day (1875-1943) was an artist and political leader, serving four terms in the United States House of Representatives as a Democrat from New York. As a young woman, Goodwin was educated at the Lucy Cobb Institute in Athens, Georgia, before spending eight years in Europe studying art, including a long stint in Paris with Whistler. She exhibited at the 1899 and 1900 Salon des artistes français (paintings and drawings) and worked as an illustrator in the early 20th century. She met her husband, Standard Oil executive Daniel T. O'Day, while in Europe, and the couple raised their 3 children in Rye, New York before Caroline became involved with politics. Her involvement with the Westchester League of Women Voters introduced her to Eleanor Roosevelt, who in 1934 would become the first First Lady to actively campaign for congressional candidate Goodwin. Goodwin was a passionate suffragist and pacifist.
Carrie Goodwin, originally from Savannah, Georgia, studied art in Paris in the winter of 1895-6 with her sister Nina. They lived at the Girls’ Art Club.
Frances Murphy Goodwin (1855-1929) was a respected sculptor from Newcastle, Indiana. She studied with Lorado Taft at the Art Institute of Chicago and then with Daniel Chester French at the Art Students League in New York before traveling to Europe. Goodwin's statute, "Education" was exhibited in the Indiana State Building at the 1893 Columbian Exposition in Chicago. She exhibited an unidentified portrait bust at the 1905 AWAA exhibition but her most famous sculpture depicts U.S. Vice President Schuyler Colfax, executed around 1896-1897, and now held in the U.S. Senate's art collection.
An artist from Savannah, Georgia, Nina Goodwin trained in Paris in the winter of 1895-6 with her sister Carrie. They lived at the Girls’ Art Club and intended to study drawing and illustrating, though it is not clear at which academies or ateliers. Nina then returned to New York and resumed her studies at Cooper Union.
The younger sister of sculptor Frances Murphy Goodwin, Helen M. Goodwin (1865-1955) was a landscape painter and miniaturist born in New Castle, Indiana. She followed in her sister's footsteps by studying at the Art Students League in New York, and then in Paris at the Academie Julian and with painter Charles Hoffbauer. Helen exhibited at the 1905 and 1910 AWAA exhibitions at 4 rue de Chevreuse, at the 1904 and 1907-1910 Salon des artistes français, as well as at the 1908 Salon des Beaux-Arts (under the assumed name Mme Helen Goodwin-Paine).
Born Elizabeth Eleanor Greatorex in New York City, Eleanor Greatorex (1854-1917) was a painter, illustrator, and member of the New York Etching Club. Her mother, Eliza Pratt Greatorex, was her teacher and was a renowned artist who became the first woman elected an associate of the National Academy of Design in New York. Eleanor Greatorex studied in Paris in the 1870s with Carolus-Duran and Jean-Jacques Henner before opening a studio in New York with her mother and sister (fellow artist Kathleen Honora Greatorex). Eleanor taught art classes and she and her sister painted murals in the Ladies Reception Room at the famed Dakota apartment building. Around 1886, Eleanor returned to Paris and remained there for much of the rest of her life. She lived at 70 rue d'Assas and exhibited at several Salons. Two of her paintings were exhibited at the 1902 AWAA exhibition at 4 rue de Chevreuse and she also participated in the 1903 show.
An artist like her mother and sister, Kathleen Honora Greatorex (1851-1942) was a painter known for her still life and flower paintings. She studied first under mother and then in Europe (in Rome, with Carolus Duran in Paris, and in Munich at the Pinakothek). Kathleen showed several works at the 1893 Columbian Exposition in Chicago, a watercolor portrait at the 1894 Salon des Beaux-Arts, and some landscapes plus a portrait at the 1902 AWAA exhibition at 4 rue de Chevreuse. She spent much of her adult life in Moret-sur-Loing in France, developing a close relationship in his final years with Impressionist painter Alfred Sisley, a Moret resident. She died in 1942 at the age of 91.
A New York City native, Mary Shepard Greene Blumenschein (1869-1958) was a painter, illustrator, and jewelry designer. She studied in Brooklyn at the Adelphi Academy and at the Pratt Institute before going abroad at the end of the 19th century. Greene lived in Paris for nine years and studied with Raphael Collin, exhibiting at the 1900 and 1905 AWAA exhibitions, and at almost every Salon des artistes français from 1896-1910, becoming the second medalist of the Société (1902), the first of its kind awarded to an American woman. While in Paris, she met her future husband, fellow artist Ernest L. Blumenschein. The wedding ceremony, performed by Rev. Isaac Van Winkle, took place at St. Luke's Chapel in June 1905 and attracted many members of the American colony, including Grace Gassette. The couple returned to New York in 1909 just before their birth of their daughter, Helen. Mary then worked as an illustrator for a number of magazines, including McClure's. Her husband, a devotee of Taos, New Mexico, first brought her there in 1913 and they moved there permanently in 1919 as members of the Taos Society of Artists.
Sculptor Sara Morris Greene was born in Onerta, Illinois in 1877. She studied at the Art Institute of Chicago and with Augustus Saint-Gaudens before traveling to Paris around 1905. Initially, Greene studied with Charpentier, MacMonnies, and Dampft in Paris; she even worked out of a studio at 16 Impasse du Maine that had once been used by Mary Fairchild MacMonnies. After traveling in Europe for a time, Greene returned to Paris and began studying with Rodin and Bourdelle. She exhibited a sculpture called “Sisters” at the 1909 AWAA exhibition at the Girls’ Art Club and was accepted into the Salon des Beaux-Arts in 1908, 1909, and 1910. Greene exhibited two sculptures in 1908: a plaster statue, “Fillette à la pomme,” and a bronze group, “The Two Sisters.” In 1909, she showed four works: a plaster sculpture called “Eve;” a plaster bust called “Portrait of Herbert Harnoin;” a bronze bust called “Portrait of Henry Van Dyke;” and a plaster figure of Pan. In 1910, Greene showed a plaster sculpture, "Dame de l'autrefois" and a plaster bust, “Portrait of Mrs. R.D.” Greene returned to the United States in 1912 to execute some government commissions in New York. She was married twice. Her son from her first marriage, poet Jack Wright, was killed in World War I at the age of 19, a tragedy from which Greene could not recover, dying in 1919 of a broken heart. Greene was living in New York at the time of her death with her second husband, John S. Wise, Jr. Her studio in Greenwich Village (7 West 9th Street) became a meeting place for soldiers and sailors on leave in the city.
Born in Aberdeen, South Dakota in 1890, Frances Cranmer Greenman began her art training at the age of 15 at the Wisconsin Academy of Art. She then spent four years in Washington, D.C. studying at the Corcoran School of Art. There were short stints at the Minneapolis School of Art, the School at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, and in New York, training with William Merritt Chase and Robert Henri, before she made her way to Paris. By 1911, Frances was living at 4 rue de Chevreuse and was enrolled in Castelucho’s class at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière just around the corner. She recorded her club experiences in her 1954 autobiography, Higher than the Sky, recalling: “It was a new world to me, that next morning. Breakfast under ancient trees in the old world garden of the club hidden behind high walls and chimney pots. My little yellow table, on a carpet of white pebbles and ivy, shone in the sunlight” (82). She also remembered the models’ market on rue de la Grande Chaumière, where she often hired small children to pose for her for just $3.75 per week (84). Her time in Paris was brief but formative. She returned to the United States to pursue a career as a society portrait painter in Minneapolis. In 1917, she married John Wolcott Greenman, who fully supported her ambitions and her work as an art critic for the Minneapolis Tribune. The Greenmans spent time in New York and in Los Angeles, where Frances painted the portraits of famous actresses, including Mary Pickford, but mostly resided in Minnesota. In the 1940s, Frances taught at her alma mater, the Minneapolis School of Art, and also occasionally taught at the Art Institute of Chicago. A bold painter who had initially embraced modernism, Greenman’s style grew more conservative as she aged. She died in Medina, Minnesota in 1981.
At the 1897 AWAA exhibition, one of the works on display was “a study of the much-advertised ‘Cleo de Merode,’ by Miss Greenough, [which] is good and very decorative—more so than the original.” This praise was published in a review in The Chicago Chronicle (Dec. 27, 1897, p. 12). It is very possible that Miss Greenough is Charlotte Gore Greenough (1850-1919), daughter of the famed sculptor Horatio Greenough, who was living in Paris at the end of the 19th century and was known to publicly exhibit her work in France, including a painting accepted into the 1888 Salon des artistes français. A bust by Charlotte’s uncle, Richard Saltonstall Greenough, greets visitors in the vestibule of Reid Hall to this day.
American artist and teacher Anne Lawrence Gregory Ritter (1868-1929) was a painter and pottery maker from Plattsburgh, New York. She studied landscape painting with Charles Melville Dewey in New York, as well as oil painting, watercolors, and clay modeling at the Victoria-Lyceum in Berlin. Anne met her husband-to-be, pottery maker Artus Van Briggle, at the Académie Colarossi in Paris around 1894. While in Paris, Anne exhibited paintings at the 1895 and 1896 Salons des artistes français (her address for both years was 4 rue de Chevreuse). The couple returned to the United States around 1900, settling in Colorado Springs. In 1901, they opened Van Briggle Pottery, and married in 1902. Anne was left to run the factory after her husband's untimely death from tuberculosis in 1904. She later remarried and became an art instructor at Colorado College, returning to painting in the last years of her life.
Her name appears in a May 15, 1895 issue of the Musical Courier in an article about "Mr. Bouhy's music studio" near the Champs-Élysées. Gregory, a "New York contralto," is also said to have a sister "who is a painter of some name." The New York Times' "The Social World Column" noted a musicale given by Mr. Francis Fischer Powers in honor of Miss Grace Gregory, who was set to depart for Europe to complete in her studies in May 1894. Another article in The San Francisco Chronicle from May 1897 reports that Miss Gregory was once more traveling to Europe, accompanied by her mother, to "add to her musical repertoire" Her sister, mentioned in the Musical Courier, is probably Anne Lawrence Gregory, listed alongside Grace as residing at 4 rue de Chevreuse in the 1902 Anglo-American Annual.
Painter Hilda Grossman Taylor (1891-1967) studied fine arts at Syracuse University beginning in 1908. She won a Hiram Gee fellowship to train in Paris and was among the exhibitors at the February 1913 AWAA show at the Girls’ Art Club; her painting, “The Wardrobe” was considered one of the finest in the show. By 1914, Grossman was back in Syracuse sharing a studio with fellow artist Rachel Bulley. She became known as a portraitist, eventually producing 800, many of which graced the halls of Syracuse University; she also enjoyed a successful career as an advertiser in New York, designing billboard posters and fashion illustrations. Her husband had been photographer Herbert Taylor.
The sister of noted philosopher and college president Julia H. Gulliver, painter Mary Gulliver (1860- ?) lived in Paris at the turn of the century studying in Montparnasse and living at 4 rue de Chevreuse. Very few images of Mary Gulliver's work are extant. Records show that Mary exhibited a painting at the 1902 Salon des artistes français, "A Dutch Interior," and that she participated in an AWAA exhibition around the same time, but further details are scarce. The catalogue from the 1902 Salon indicates that Mary's address was 54 rue Notre-Dame-des-Champs, right at the intersection of the rue Vavin. The 1905 Artists Year Book, produced by the Art League Publishing Association, tells us that Mary had been educated at Smith College and that she had studied in Paris under Whistler, Delance, Collin, and others at the Académies Delécluse and Colarossi, in addition to completing a course at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston.
A resident of Brooklyn, Marie E. Gurnee was a printer who taught in the Art Department at Washington Irving High School in Manhattan around 1910. She was in Paris in the late 19th century, likely studying art, and she exhibited pencil sketches at the 1895 AWAA exhibition at 4 rue de Chevreuse. Gurnee also appears to have studied drawing at the Pratt Institute. She gifted several decorative objects to The Brooklyn Museum in the 1920s and 1930s.
Grace Edith Hackett was a painter, illustrator and watercolorist born in Boston in 1874. She studied at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston before going abroad at the turn of the 20th century. Hackett was among the exhibitors who participated in the 6th annual AWAA show held at the Girls’ Art Club in 1899. By 1905, Hackett was teaching art at the Weymouth, Massachusetts public schools. She was a member of the Boston Art Club, of the New York Watercolor Club and the American Federation of Arts.
An accomplished painter originally from Brooklyn, Eliza Voorhis Haigh (1865-?) became deaf at the age of 2 after a bout of spinal meningitis. She studied painting in New York with James Caroll Beckwith, Kenyon Cox, and William Merritt Chase before going abroad with a group of art students, first to Italy and then to France. She lived at the Girls' Art Club for two years, studying at the Académies Vitti and Colarossi, and is listed among the exhibitors at the 1902 AWAA show. She then moved into her own atelier, remaining in Paris for about seven years, and exhibiting at the 1902 and 1903 Salons des artistes français. Haigh then decided to study Dutch art and went to Laren, Holland, living with a host family and working with a deaf model until the outbreak of WWI. After spending ten years with family in Connecticut, Haigh returned to France in 1925 for the rest of her life. Her independent spirit and her ability to read lips enabled Haigh to support herself and enjoy the rich life of an artist in Europe in spite of her disability.
A wealthy Rhode Island socialite and painter, Caroline Minturn Hall (1874-1972) was the granddaughter of Julia Ward Howe, famed abolitionist, suffragist, and composer of "The Battle Hymn of the Republic," the Union Army's rallying cry during the Civil War. Caroline went to France to study art in the late 19th century, living and exhibiting at the Girls' Art Club for several years between 1894 and 1904. According to the Boston Post (August 11, 1995, p. 15), she studied at the Académie Delécluse and received counsel mainly from French painters Antoine-François Callet and Paul-Louis Delance, but also from Léon l'Hermitte and Pierre Puvis de Chavanne. According to the 1904 American Register (Feb. 27), she was the Club's secretary. She married Rev. Hugh Birckhead, Columbia University graduate and church rector in New York, in 1909, and they raised two sons. Caroline continued to paint throughout her life, though not professionally, and she was active in her later years in several art associations and the Newport Historical Society. Her son, Hugh, also an artist, was killed during WWII.
Born into a wealthy family in Cairo, Illinois, Mary Hughitt Halliday (1866-1957) graduated from Vassar College and then studied painting with William Merritt Chase in New York. Around 1897, Halliday went to study in Paris at the Académies Carmen (run by Whistler) and Colarossi. She exhibited at the 1897 AWAA show at 4 rue de Chevreuse and then spent a number of years in her own studio in Berlin. Her painting, "The Convalescent," was accepted into the 1913 Salon des Beaux-Arts. Halliday frequently visited Southern California, maintaining a studio in Santa Monica in the 1920s and 1930s. World War II and old age brought her back to the United States permanently and she settled in Santa Barbara, dying there in June 1957.
Harriet Hallowell, a miniature painter and expatriate who would live in Paris for fifty years, was born in Boston to a Quaker family in 1873. Her brother George was also an artist and their father was an architect. Harriet’s aunt was Sarah Tyson Hallowell, the famed art agent who helped launch the careers of a number of women artists, including Mary Fairchild MacMonnies. Harriet Hallowell went abroad to join her aunt and grandmother in France around 1894. Her miniatures were shown at the 1903 annual AWAA exhibition at the Girls’ Art Club and she was accepted into the Salon des Beaux-Arts at least five times between 1898-1910. In addition to various studios and apartments in Paris where she would live for short periods, Hallowell and her aunt purchased a home in Moret-sur-Loing, just six miles from Fontainebleau, in 1900. During World War I, Harriet and Sarah volunteered at a local hospital and established a crocheting center in their home where injured soldiers, local Moret residents, and American volunteers made clothing for soldiers. In 1930, Harriet was awarded the Croix d’Honneur from the French government for her war service. Although she inherited valuable works of art upon Sarah’s death in 1924, Harriet Hallowell experienced grave financial troubles during her later years. She moved around frequently during World War II to escape German soldiers but never left France—she died in her Moret home in 1943.
Idea S. Hammond was an artist originally from Ohio who studied at the Art Institute of Chicago. She exhibited a painted landscape of Brittany at the 1907 annual AWAA show and a painting called “Inspirations,” featuring a young woman playing a violoncello, at the 1909 AWAA show at the Girls’ Art Club. Hammond also exhibited a drawing at the 1908 Salon des Beaux-Arts, a portrait simply called “Elisabeth.” Her address in the Salon catalogue was listed as 1 avenue de l’Observatoire, very near rue de Chevreuse.
Sculptor Jane Nye Hammond (1857-1901) hailed from another prominent Rhode Island family (her father, Gideon Nye, Jr., had been a merchant and then American Vice Consul in Canton, China). Hammond's bas-relief sculpture "Lucie" won a bronze medal at the 1893 Columbian Exposition in Chicago. She studied in the late-1890s at the Académie Julian in Paris under Raphael Collin, Jean Antoine Injalbert, and Paul Bartlett, and exhibited her work at the 1897 AWAA exhibition at the Girls' Art Club. Hammond also showed two sculptures at the 1897 Salon des artistes français, a bas-relief called "The Music Lesson," and a medallion called "Floreal," after the 8th month of the French Republican calendar. It is unclear how or where she died in 1901 but a memorial exhibition of over 40 of Hammond's works was held in November 1902 at the Rhode Island School of Design's museum.
Painter Louise Barker Hancock was born in Wyoming, Pennsylvania in 1879. Very little is known about her early life and artistic training. She was in Paris just before World War I, listed as one of the exhibitors at the February 1914 AWAA show at the Girls’ Art Club. Hancock must have traveled to Europe with her mother, Isabella Brown Barker, as her mother’s death record indicates she passed in October 1914 at 41 rue Notre-Dame-des-Champs, just a few blocks from the rue de Chevreuse. Hancock returned to the United States, marrying Robert Waldon Conville in 1918 and continuing to exhibit her work in art shows both in New York and Pennsylvania. She later moved to Los Angeles and died there in 1972, twenty years after her husband.
Massachusetts native Margaret Hardon Wright (1869-1936) studied architecture at MIT, graduated from Wellesley College in 1892, and then went to Paris, eventually enrolling as an architecture student at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, one of the first women accepted into the august institution. While in Paris, she also studied with Luc-Olivier Merson and lived at 23 boulevard du Montparnasse. Hardon exhibited at the 1899 AWAA show at the Girls’ Art Club, sharing some of her sketches and her etchings of the cathedral of Notre Dame. She became known for her exquisitely detailed etchings throughout her career, many of which are now owned by American museums including the Smithsonian. Hardon also exhibited some of her drawings at the 1899 Salon des artistes français, mostly depicting chateaux in the Touraine. By 1901, Hardon was back in the United States, where she married Detroit native James Hayden Wright that spring. He was an architect who had been educated at Harvard and MIT but it is likely that the couple met in Paris, where Wright had gone to study in the atelier of Victer Laloux in 1898. The Wrights had one son, James Hardon Wright, born in 1907. Later in her career, she focused almost exclusively on etching and engraving, producing bookplates for her many wealthy friends and collectors. Margaret Hardon Wright died in 1936.
Oberlin magazine, Bertha Hart
An artist named Edythe B. Hart exhibited a painting, “La Balencoire,” at the 1914 AWAA show at the Girls’ Art Club. She had apparently been born in New York and was a pupil of Humbert in Paris. During World War I, Hart was back in the United States, living at 8 West 51st Street in New York. Details of her later life are not known.
A painter of landscapes and still lifes, Marie Theresa Gorsuch Hart (1829-1921), studied at the National Academy of Design in New York. She spent a summer in Farmington, Connecticut in 1865, where she met her future husband, noted artist James McDougal Hart. The Harts, both artists of the Hudson River School, were married in 1866. They had three children, all of whom became artists: William Howard Hart, Leticia Bonnet Hart, and Mary Theresa Hart. The son, William, lived in France for many years, and it is likely that Marie was visiting him when she exhibited her work in 1902, 1904, and 1906 at the AWAA shows at the Girls' Art Club. The rest of the family was living in Brooklyn, New York when James Hart died of pneumonia in 1901. He is buried at Green-Wood Cemetery and his headstone includes a bronze plaque designed and cast by the Harts' youngest daughter, Mary. Marie spent the remainder of her life in Lakeville, Connecticut.
Born in Boston and raised in Cleveland and Zurich, Lucie Hartrath (1867-1962) was an accomplished painter known for her landscapes and figural works. She studied art in Paris at the Académie Colarossi from 1891-1894 before moving to the Art Institute of Chicago to train under John Vanderpoel. Hartrath returned to Paris around 1898, continuing her training with André Rixens and Raphael Collin, and exhibiting two paintings at the 1901 Salon des artistes français. She worked as the head of painting and drawing instruction at Rockford College from 1902-1904, serving under President Julia H. Gulliver, whom she perhaps knew from their days in Paris around the Girls’ Art Club. Hartrath left Rockford to further study at the Art Institute, opening her own studio in Chicago in 1908, where she was based for the rest of her prolific career. Around this time, she visited Indiana’s Brown County and was inspired by the rural landscapes. She encouraged other Chicago artists to visit and paint in this bucolic setting, helping to establish an artists’ colony.
Born in Salt Lake City, Utah on November 10, 1861, Rose Hartwelle was the eighth of 12 children of Elliott Hartwell and Hortense Rogers. Her mother left the church of Latter-day Saints when her father took on a second wife.
A fellow student of Mary Teasdel and Myra Sawyer in Utah, then in Paris in the late 1890s and early 1900s, she is best known for her small-scale landscapes and domestic scenes. She described her artistic endeavors in several letters published by Alice Merril Horne in The Young Woman’s Journal (March 1, 1911, pp. 127-133). In these letters, she explains that she first studied art in Utah with James Taylor Harwood and John Willard Clawson in Utah, both of whom had attended the Académie Julian in Paris.
Mr. Harwood was my first teacher in art, and when I went to him I had never thought of picking it up seriously. He started me in water color and drawing and seemed pleased with my progress, so suggested my taking up oils, which I did. If I have talent, it was Harwood who first discovered it [...] He and Mr. Will Clawson were my only teachers in America, and they both advised me to go to Paris (128).
According to The Salt Lake Tribune, she traveled to France on June 21, 1895 (June 9, 1985, p. 4). When she arrived in Paris, it seems she first stayed at the American Girls’ Art Club, where:
I could get help and advice about things I did not understand” [...] There I met an English girl who afterward became a very dear friend and with whom I spent the first six years of my European life. We took apartments and kept house together, and traveled together constantly (129).
She initially went to the Académie Julian but a woman she met there recommended that she study at the Académie Vitti, since Julian was crowded and critics would spend very little time with her. She spent the first two years drawing from 8-5, and spending time in galleries and at the Louvre to acquaint herself “with the old masters and their work” (129). According to the Utah division of Arts and Museums, she was a friend and painting partner in Giverny with Myra Louise Sawyer where they observed Monet painting. She then traveled to Italy with a friend (Sawyer?) for 18 months, first staying in San Geminiano, then in Capri, and later traveled to England, Belgium, and Holland before returning to Paris, where she enrolled at the Académie Julian and also studied with the Spanish painter Claudio Castelucho (critic at the Académie Colarossi and then the Académie de la Grande Chaumière) who told her: “Miss Hartwell, you must be considered very wonderful in your native home, for your coloring if for nothing else” (128). In 1899, without going through the usual channel of art critics-teachers, she submitted a miniature to the Salon de la Société nationale des Beaux-Arts, which was accepted in 1900, the first in a series of other Salons exhibits (e.g., 1902: portrait of her sister Mrs. Edwin Kimball and the portrait of a model made for Mrs. Edwin Holmes).
Hartwell only returned to Utah in the Fall of 1904. Throughout her nine-year-stay in Europe, she traveled extensively in northern Europe and the Mediterranean, claiming “In Paris and Florence, I am more at home than in Salt Lake City” (132).
Upon her return, she showed several miniatures and a large painting of an Italian family eating dinner (“Un bon régal”) in the December exhibition organized by the Society of Utah Artists (The Salt Lake Tribune, December 20, 1904, p.3). Her painting “French Flower Girl,” was included in the opening of the Holmes Gallery in June 1905 (Salt Lake Telegram, June 15, 1905, p. 6).
She returned to Paris in February 1905, traveling with her niece through Europe and Asia until December, only to leave again in early 1907, together with her niece for an extended visit of Egypt, Athens, Constantinople, Hungary, Italy, Germany, and France. She continued her travels and painting through 1910, including a trip to Germany with Myra Sawyer. Two of her portraits were accepted in the 1910 Paris Salon de la Société nationale des Beaux-Arts (The Salt Lake Herald-Republican, April 3, 1910, p. 25), and she showed miniatures and “Lady of the Poppies” in the 1911 Salon (The Salt Lake Tribune June 25, 1911, p. 11). She also exhibited at the 1910 and 1911 AWAA exhibitions at 4 rue de Chevreuse.
Hartwell finally returned to Utah with her niece in August 1913 (The Salt Lake Herald-Republican August 10, 1913, p. 24). According to the Salt Lake Herald-Republican Hartwell married lieutenant colonel Theodore W. Whiteley, on June 25, 1914 (May 31, 1914, p. 24; June 7, 1914, p. 17). He was the Secretary-Treasurer of the Utah Art Institute at the Salt Lake City State Capitol in 1917 and member of the board of governors of the Commercial Club in 1913, where Hartwell’s painting, “Un bon régal” was on loan. Hartwell maintained close ties with Teasdel and Sawyer with whom she exhibited – all three were members of the Associated Artists of Salt Lake. In 1915, they were included in the stereomotorgraph slide presentation sent to the Panama-Pacific Exposition in San Francisco, educational building.
Rose Hartwell died of complications from an operation at the age of 56, on August 22, 1917 (The Salt Lake Tribune, August 23, 1917, p. 16).
Born in Iowa in 1867, Elizabeth “Lucy” Case Harwood was a painter who studied at Vassar College and then in Minneapolis at the Academy of Drawing and Painting. Burt Harwood, a photographer and instructor at the Academy, would become her husband in 1896. Their honeymoon in Europe lasted twenty years, as the young couple settled in France to study and produce art. She studied with Whistler and Collin in Paris and during the summers, the Harwoods would join many American expatriates in Brittany. In 1905, Lucy Harwood exhibited a painting called “Spring” at the annual AWAA show. She had already shown her work in 1902 and 1903 at the Salon des artistes français. In 1902, Harwood exhibited two paintings, “Une Bretonne” and “Communiante;” in 1903, she showed one painting, “Clair de Lune.” When World War I began, the Harwoods remained in Paris, wishing to aid the war effort by maintaining a hospital for victims. In 1916, the couple left Paris for good, settling in Taos, New Mexico among a number of American artists who had studied in Paris at the Académie Julian. The Harwoods’ home in Taos was called El Pueblito and it was there that they set up their Harwood Foundation, which would eventually become the Harwood Museum of Art. He died in 1922 and she passed away in 1937 but their legacy in Taos lives on.
Known for her landscape paintings and miniature portraits, Abby Watkins Hathaway was originally from Michigan and spent most of her adult life in Detroit. She traveled to Paris in the late-19th century to study with Vignal, Desjeux, and Raphael Collin at the Académie Vitti. It seems that she also studied in Dresden and traveled throughout Europe. Hathaway was among the exhibitors at the April 1896 AWAA show at 4 rue de Chevreuse, where she exhibited a drawing of an old hunter. Her work was also exhibited at the 1897 Salon des artistes français—she showed a painting, “La femme d'un pêcheur,” and 2 portrait miniatures. By 1900, Hathaway was back in Detroit, listed as an artist in the city’s directory.
An artist from Pen-y-Bryn, Pennsylvania, Sarah E. Hawley presented two watercolors, a view of Dordecht and another called simply “In Holland” at the annual 1907 AWAA exhibition at the Girls’ Art Club. She had been studying in Europe for four years, spending time in Paris, Brittany, and Holland.
An artist identified only as T. Hawley was listed among the exhibitors at the December 1913 AWAA show at the Girls’ Art Club. This was probably New York native Theodosia Hawley who would go on to exhibit her work in New York and Philadelphia in the years before and during World War I. In 1915, Hawley was living at 141 East 40th Street in New York City. She was apparently a good friend of Isabella Stewart Gardner, one of the most important American art collectors, patrons, and philanthropists of the 20th century.
Painter and watercolorist Wilhelmina Douglas Hawley (1860-1958) grew up in St. Alban’s, Queens. Encouraged by her aunts to pursue art, Hawley studied at the Cooper Union Women's Art School and then at the Art Students League. She eventually became the first woman vice-president of the League. Hawley traveled to Paris in the summer of 1893, studying at the Académie Julian and visiting Belgium and the Netherlands. Among the masters who taught her in Paris were Benjamin Constant and Jean-Paul Laurens. Beginning in 1893, she taught watercolor at the Académie Colarossi. From 1896 – 1899, she exhibited her work at the AWAA shows at 4 rue de Chevreuse, and also participated in numerous Salons between 1894 and 1900. She developed a friendship with Whistler, her neighbor on rue Notre-Dame-des-Champs, and spent summers in the artists’ colony at Rijsoord in the southern Netherlands, where she settled in 1900. She married a Dutch man, Bastiaan De Koning in 1901 and soon had a daughter. Hawley continued to produce paintings and watercolors, residing with her family in Rijsoord but regularly traveling to New York. She died in 1958 at the age of 97, a few years after her husband passed away.
Chicago artist Sara Shewell Hayden (1862-1939) graduated with honors from the Art Institute in 1890. She held a few teaching positions, first at the Mount Auburn Young Ladies Institute, and then a four-year stint at the Grant Collegiate Institute, a preparatory school that trained women for Vassar College. In 1893, Hayden’s work was featured in the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago. She decided to give up teaching to pursue further art training in Europe from 1896-1898. Hayden went to Paris, working at the Académie Vitti and in the studio of American painter Charles C. Lasar, who had recently opened his atelier to women. In 1897, Hayden exhibited 6 watercolors of rural scenes in England from her summer travels at the annual AWAA show at the Girls’ Art Club. Then, in 1898, Hayden had four miniatures accepted into the Salon des artistes français; her address in the Salon catalogue was given as 22 rue Delambre and she was listed as a student of Raphael Collin. Upon returning to the United States, Hayden successfully applied for the position of art department director at the University of Nebraska in Lincoln. She taught drawing and painting at the university but also offered public art classes on weekends. A number of her works can be found at the Sheldon Museum of Art and the Musuem of Nebraska Art in Kearney. After five years, Hayden decided to take a leave of absence from teaching and accepted the invitation of William Merritt Chase to paint and study in Spain; she would also take solo trips to Paris and London. She would ultimately work at the University of Nebraska for fifteen years, resigning in 1916 to return to Chicago. Illness and a desire to withdraw from society meant that she produced very little art in her later years and did not publicly exhibit her work. She died in 1939.
Originally from Minneapolis, Margarethe E. Heisser (1871-1908), was a painter, printmaker, and draughtsman who was one of the earliest women artists to paint Western subjects, including Native Americans. Heisser studied with Burt Harwood at the Minneapolis School of Fine Arts and in New York at the Art Students League. She returned to Minnesota to teach art at Central High School, her alma mater, before opening a studio with fellow artist Elizabeth A. Chant and taking up another teaching position at Morehead Normal School (now Moorehead State University). Around 1903, Heisser traveled to Europe, training under Claudio Castelucho in Paris while living at the Girls’ Art Club, and later visiting Rome as well as Madrid. While in Paris, Heisser executed a number of society portraits, and exhibited her work at the 1906 AWAA show. She also exhibited a drawing, “Monotypes,” at the 1905 Salon d’Automne, listing her address in the catalogue as 70 bis rue Notre-Dame-des-Champs. Heisser returned to the United States before 1907 and was commissioned by the state government of North Dakota to paint a number of portraits of “Indian types” from the Gros Ventres tribe at Fort Berthold (this kind of racialized commission was common in the early twentieth century). She died in June 1908 in Grand Forks, North Dakota, having completed only four of the twelve portraits.
An artist identified as Grace Helliwell from Oak Park in Chicago was among the exhibitors at the 1897 AWAA show, where she showed a Swedish marine sketch. The Illinois Historical Art Project has recorded an artist named Ellen Grace Helliwell who lived in Oak Park but further details are not extant.
An artist and designer from Bayfield, Wisconsin, Bertha D. Herbert studied at the University of Illinois-Chicago and at art schools in Milwaukee, Chicago, and Paris. In 1907, she showed some of her design work in the objets d’art section of the annual AWAA show, mostly opera bags and card cases. In 1909, Herbert also exhibited in the objets d’art section of that year’s annual AWAA show at the Girls’ Art Club. She married Horace Hotchkiss Holley in New York in 1909 and the young people lived in Europe for several years before settling in New York City. While in Paris, Herbert seems to have founded an art gallery on Boulevard Raspail called Ashnur Galerie and she also opened a store to showcase her fashion designs, the New Art of Dress, address unknown. The Holleys had two daughters and split their time between an apartment in New York City and a large home on Long Island. The Holleys were both interested in the Baha’i faith and he became a devoted follower, publishing a number of books on the so-called “modern social religion.” Their marriage disintegrated, in part because of the mental illness of their elder daughter Hertha (1911-1936), and they divorced in 1919. She didn’t die until 1969 but very little is known about her life following the divorce from Herbert Holley.
Allentown, Pennsylvania native Ella Sophonisba Hergesheimer (1873-1943) began studying under William Merritt Chase and Cecilia Beaux at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in 1900. She won several prizes, including a traveling scholarship that enabled her to study abroad for three years. Hergesheimer was based in Paris, studying at the Académie Colarossi and exhibiting some figure studies at the 1904 AWAA exhibition. Two of her paintings and a miniature were accepted into the 1904 Salon des artistes français, and two other paintings were exhibited at the 1905 Salon des Beaux-Arts. Hergesheimer impressed Bishop Holland M. McTyeire, one of the founders of Vanderbilt University, and her accomplished portrait of him from 1907 led to further commissions. She remained in Nashville painting wealthy Southern women, experimenting a bit with printmaking but primarily devoting herself to portraiture. Hergesheimer lived in Tennessee until her death in 1943.
Painter and illustrator Laetitia Herr Malone was born in Lancaster, Pennsylvania in 1881. She studied art in New York before spending three years at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, training under great artists like William Merritt Chase and Cecilia Beaux. In February 1913, Herr exhibited her “Portrait of Miss H” at the annual AWAA show at 4 rue de Chevreuse. World War I likely prompted Herr’s return to the United States. She first lived in New York at 111 East 56th Street, earning a living as an illustrator for books and magazines. In 1915, she married John E. Malone (twenty years her senior) and the couple settled in Lancaster for the rest of their lives.
Louise Chamberlain Herreshoff (1876-1967) was a painter and porcelain collector born in Brooklyn and raised in Providence, Rhode Island. She began studying art at the age of six with Mary C. Wheeler. On a trip to Europe with Wheeler in 1895, Herreshoff met Raphael Collin at Fontenay-aux-Roses, and he became her teacher. In 1898, Herreshoff moved to France to study full-time at the Académie Julian with Jean-Paul Laurens and Benjamin Constant. Herreshoff exhibited at the 1897, 1899, 1900, and 1902 Salon des artistes français. She also showed a portrait at the 1897 AWAA exhibition. She returned to the U.S. in 1903, was briefly married (they separated after just three months), and she returned to Providence to live with her aunt, Elizabeth Dyer. Dyer’s death in 1927 led Herreshoff to give up painting and turn her attention to collecting porcelain, a pursuit she would follow for the next forty years. In 1941, Herreshoff married lawyer Euchlin D. Reeves, nearly thirty years her junior, and the couple worked together to amass an enormous porcelain collection which they bequeathed to Washington and Lee University, Reeves’ alma mater, upon their deaths.
In 1899, a sculptor named Mabel Conyers Herring was featured in both the annual AWAA show at the Girls’ Art Club and in the Salon des Beaux-Arts. At the Club, Herring exhibited a sculpture called “Echo” and a portrait-statuette. That same plaster portrait-statuette, “Portrait de M.C.” was shown at the Salon. Herring’s address was listed as 9 rue des Fourneaux. She was originally from Boothbay, Maine and lived part of her adult life in Windsor, Vermont. Herring was apparently one of the exhibitors representing the United States in the 1900 Paris Exposition universelle, though it is not known what she showed. While in Paris, she appears to have studied for four years with Luc Olivier Merson and Collin (New York Herald, European Edition, January 28, 1900, p. 10) and studied sculpture under Augustus Saint-Gaudens and Mac Monnies (ca. 1899).
One of the artists who served on the 1910 Receiving Committee for the annual AWAA exhibition at 4 rue de Chevreuse was Alice Herthel. Originally from Missouri, Herthel had studied at Washington University in St. Louis in the 1890s, until at least 1903. It is unclear when she arrived in Paris and further details about her life are not extant.
Originally from Troy Grove, Illinois, Sara Mae Hess (1875-1960) studied at the Art Institute of Chicago and then in Paris at the Académie Julian. She lived at the Girls’ Art Club in 1908 and exhibited two miniatures at that year’s Salon des artistes français. Hess worked as an art supervisor for public schools in Michigan and Indiana before opening her own studio in New York. In her later life, Hess moved to San Diego, painting many flower and landscape canvases.
A soprano originally from Waco, Texas, Bettie May Hill lived at the Girls’ Art Club during her trip to Paris in 1913. In April 1912, she was listed by the Waco Morning News as a member of the Waco Euterpean Club and a regular hostess of their sessions, which included singing. The September 5, 1913 issue of Waco Morning News included a short article about Hill’s year in Paris, including her stay at 4 rue de Chevreuse. She had apparently sung for the manager of the Opera Garnier (doubtful) and had met famed singer Gaby Deslys. In 1915, Hill was invited to join the Lyceum company on a tour of Texas and take the place of its former soprano. Not much else is known about her life or career.
Born in Bern, Switzerland, Alma Hirsig Bliss (1875-?) moved to New York with her mother and siblings when she was a child. Hirsig and her sister were lured into Tantric occult in America, and they met notorious occultist Alistair Crowley in New York in 1918. Hirsig was increasingly drawn into the Tantric world but later extricated herself and published a memoir in 1928 under the pseudonym Marion Dockerill, My Life in a Love Cult: A Warning to All Young Girls. Her artistic pursuits began with miniatures; she exhibited a number of miniature portraits at the 1904 AWAA exhibition, presumably while she was studying in Paris. Hirsig had trained under Douglas Volk at the Art Students League while in New York. She married Louis E. Bliss around 1920 and was widowed by 1923. Details about her later life are hazy.
Though she was born in Denver, Colorado, sculptor Katherine Thayer Hobson (1889-1982) lived and worked in New York City. In her early career, she focused on portrait busts, war memorials, and relief sculptures, but became very interested in horses in the mid-1960s and earned several lucrative commissions to sculpt racehorses. As a young woman, Katherine studied at the Art Students League in New York (an award for portrait sculpture named for her is still given each year by the League) and with Walter Sintenis in Dresden, Germany, where she produced a WWI memorial for the city in the 1920s. Before living in Germany, she spent some time in Paris, exhibiting sculptures at the 1914 AWAA exhibition and “Bust of an old woman” at the Salon des artistes français that same year. Her address in the Salon catalogue was 4 rue de Chevreuse. A beloved figure in New York, her 90th birthday was celebrated at City Hall, where she received an achievement award from Mayor Ed Koch.
New Zealand painter and textile designer Frances Hodgkins (1869-1947) first traveled to Europe in 1901 to study at an art school in London. She traveled and painted around Europe and North Africa but then returned to New Zealand, exhibiting her work and running a teaching studio in Wellington. She moved to Paris in 1908 and began teaching at the Académie Colarossi in 1910, the first woman appointed as an instructor at the famed school. In 1911, Hodgkins participated in the annual AWAA exhibition; her work was also exhibited at a number of Salons from 1909-1912. Hodgkins spent WWI in Cornwall, England, making her way back to France in 1919, where she was somewhat influenced by Matisse and Derain. She visited Nice in 1924, meeting fellow New Zealander, Margaret Butler, a celebrated sculptor. From the late-1920s until her death in 1947, Hodgkins lived in England, regularly exhibiting and painting well into old age, despite debilitating health issues.
A sculptor from Indiana, Grace Crabb Hoerger (1885-1967) was in Paris just before WWI, exhibiting at the AWAA sculpture exhibition in 1914. Records show that a few years earlier, between 1907-1912, she was studying in Chicago at the Art Students League (affiliated with the Art Institute). Though few details of her life remain, Hoerger won prizes for her work several times: in 1912 from the Art Students League for her sculpture, “Lioness;” and in 1915 a large group composition she executed on war won a prize from the Friends of the Young Artists, given by fellow sculptor, Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney.
Famed sculptor Malvina Hoffman (1885-1966) was born to prominent parents in New York and was able to leverage her many social connections to earn fame in the United States and in Europe. After studying at the Art Students League in New York, Hoffman received a generous bequest from an aunt, enabling her to go abroad with her mother and eventually to study with Rodin, Hoffman's dream mentor. She lived in various studios and apartments near the Girls' Art Club, refusing to reside there, though she was close friends with Janet Scudder and other Club regulars. Hoffman was introduced to Gertrude Stein, Modernism, and the bohemian pleasures of art student life through Scudder, who also connected her to Frederick MacMonnies. Hoffman and Rodin developed an extremely close bond and he trusted only Hoffman and his wife to catalogue the collection that would eventually become the Rodin Museum. Hoffman's own work mostly focused on portrait busts and dramatic, lively sculptures of dancers, particularly interpretations of her model and muse, Anna Pavlova.
San Francisco native Marion Holden Pope (1872-1958) studied at the Mark Hopkins Institute in her hometown and then in Paris at the turn of the century at the Académie Colarossi. Holden also trained with Whistler. She exhibited a painting at the 1900 Salon des artistes français, "Portrait of My Sister," and won a competition to design a "die" for the American Woman's Art Association. In 1903, Holden returned to California, got married, and resided in Los Angeles, continuing to paint but also developing her skills as an illustrator and etcher. She produced lovely etchings for Charles Farwell Edson's 1916 book, Los Angeles: From the Sierras to the Sea (privately printed) and painted a series of portraits of California's governors from 1915-1940. Pope later moved to Oakland, having earlier painted three large murals in its public library, and also spent time in Sacramento.
An artist identified only as E.J. Holzbecher was among the exhibitors at the annual 1902 AWAA show at the Girls’ Art Club.
Born Edna Bel Beachboard in Hudson, Michigan, Edna Boies Hopkins (1872-1937) was a famed artist known for her woodblock prints. Inspired by Japanese prints and principles outlined by artist Arthur Wesley Dow, who would later become her teacher, Hopkins met fellow artists Maud Hunt Squire and Ethel Mars when they were all studying at the Art Academy of Cincinnati around 1895. She moved to New York to study with Dow at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn around 1899. After marrying John Roy Hopkins, whom she had also met in Cincinnati, she moved to Paris with him and they lived there from 1904 until the beginning of World War I. Hopkins exhibited many prints and decorative pieces at Beaux-Arts Salons between 1909-1914 and also received an honorable mention for her woodcuts at the 1913 AWAA exhibition at 4 rue de Chevreuse. The war forced Hopkins and her husband back to Ohio, though they summered in Provincetown, Massachusetts, and spent several more years living in Paris beginning in 1920. Arthritis prevented Hopkins from producing prints and making art in the last years of her life; she died in 1937 in a hospital in Detroit.
Ellen Dunlap Hopkins was an extraordinary woman best known for founding the New York School of Applied Design for Women in 1892. Born in 1854 in Chicago to millionaire grain operator George Dunlap and his wife Ellen Pond Dunlap, she used her wealth and connections to establish the first design school for women in New York amid the fervor of the Arts and Crafts Movement. A painter herself, Ellen Dunlap Hopkins recognized that women were not succeeding in design because they were not receiving adequate training and she sought to create a school that would produce talented designers, architects, and technicians. Though it is unclear if she ever studied in Paris, she was certainly there in 1914, when her work was exhibited at the February AWAA show at the Girls’ Art Club. Her school was located for many years at 160 Lexington Avenue; she lived nearby on Madison Avenue. Ellen married her husband Amos Laurence Hopkins in 1896 but this did not prevent her from building up the school. She died in 1939, a few years before the institution was renamed the New York Phoenix School of Design and some thirty years before it merged with the Pratt Institute.
A painter from Washington state, Bertha May Houser (1878-1947) grew up in Pataha, WA, where her father was a famous miller (he owned the Houser Flour Mill). After graduating from high school, Houser traveled to Europe with her parents and studied art in Paris. She exhibited drawings at the 1913 AWAA show, for which she received an honorable mention, and a portrait of her by fellow artist Anne Wilson Goldthwaite, "Miss Houser," was accepted into the 1913 Salon des Beaux-Arts. Houser exhibited two paintings in the First Annual Exhibition of the Society of Independent Artists (1917, New York), "Villa du Midi" and "Pres du Toulon." Her New York address was given as 3 Washington Square. Houser spent the rest of her life traveling around Europe, Mexico, and Central America, pursuing her career as an artist. She suffered a stroke in the 1930s which cause some facial paralysis, and she died after being hospitalized in San Francisco in 1948 following an illness that manifested during one of her trips to Mexico.
Caroline A. Houston (1871-?) was born in Brooklyn and studied in Paris around 1900 with Frank DuMond, Raphael Collin, and Eugene Trasset. Houston exhibited at the 1900 AWAA exhibition, showing a portrait miniature of Miss Y.C. That same year, Houston was among the select group of women artists invited to represent the United States at the Exposition Universelle; she showed two miniature portraits. While in Paris, Houston resided first at 17 rue Campagne-Premiere and then at 13 rue Boissonade. Houston also exhibited miniatures at the 1898 and 1899 Salons des artistes français. She later lived and worked in New Jersey.
Born in New York, Anna "Nan" Hope Hudson (1869-1957) spent most of her life as an expatriate in France, her adopted country. While studying painting in Paris as a young woman around 1892, Hudson met Ethel Sands, who would become her lifelong friend and partner. The two split their time between England and France, enjoying comfortable, independent lives afforded by the bequests each had inherited from her deceased parents. Hudson exhibited at the Salon des Beaux-Arts for a few years and also at the Salon d'Automne, most notably in 1906 when her painting of a canal in the Giudecca, Venice was critically acclaimed. Her "Scene in New Jersey" was exhibited in 1904 at the AWAA show at the Girls' Art Club. Hudson and Sands became friendly with Walter Sickert and Virginia Woolf in London, and they were affiliated with several artists' collectives, including the male-only Camden Street Group. During WWI, Hudson and Sands established a hospital for soldiers near Dieppe; when it was forced to close, they continued their nursing work in England and in France. Hudson purchased the 17th-century Chateau d'Auppegard near Dieppe in 1920 and worked to restore it over time. She lived there with Sands until her death in 1957.
Katherine Middleton Huger (1853-1902) was born in Charleston, South Carolina. Little is known of Huger’s life and career as a painter and miniaturist. She studied art in Boston, New York City, with Frank Duveneck in Florence, and later in Paris under Jean-Léon Gérôme and Noemi Schmitt. She was a member of the New York Watercolor Club and the Women’s Art Club, and exhibited at venues such as the Boston Art Club in 1884 and then from 1890 to 1899; the National Academy of Design in 1884, 1893, 1895, and 1898; the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art in 1895 and from 1898 to 1899; the New Orleans Centennial of 1897-1898; among others. Her miniatures and paintings were exhibited at the 1900 and 1901 Salons des artistes français, while she was living at 4 rue de Chevreuse.
Although born in Nebraska, Esther Anna Hunt (1875-1951) spent most of her childhood in San Diego. In 1901, she moved to San Francisco to study at the Mark Hopkins Institute, painting scenes of Chinatown and selling them at galleries to support herself. Hunt next went to New York to study with William Merritt Chase from 1905-1906, and then spent a few years in Paris refining her skills. Her work was shown in the 1908 AWAA exhibition reviewed in Le Figaro and at the Salon des artistes français in 1906, 1907, and 1908. It appears that she lived at 4 rue de Chevreuse for her entire stay in Paris. Hunt returned to the United States, living and working for long periods in Los Angeles, New York, and San Francisco. A stroke in 1946 ended Hunt's career and she spent her last five years in a nursing home, dying in 1951. She produced watercolors, oil paintings, etchings, and even sculptures throughout her life.
Painter Margaret Wendell Huntington showed two works at the 1909 annual AWAA exhibition at 4 rue de Chevreuse: “The Fountain of Versailles” and “Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel.” Known primarily for landscapes and still life paintings, Huntington had been born in 1866 and lived most of her adult life in New York City. She was among the exhibitors at the landmark 1913 Armory Show, where her painting of the Cliffs of Newquay was displayed. At the time, Huntington was living at 36 Washington Square in New York. Huntington was a member of the National Association of Women Painters and Sculptors, winning medals at their New York exhibitions in 1927, 1931, and 1937. She died in 1958 in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
No first name. Identified as an artist living at 4 rue de Chevreuse in 1896.
Painter and watercolorist Lora Hyde was born in Nova Scotia in 1885. She studied in California with Xavier Martinez before marrying fellow artist and painter Clarence Montfort Gihon. They moved to Paris to continue their studies and art careers—while in Paris, Lora enrolled at the Académie Julian and trained with Jean-Paul Laurens. Though he was more successful in their lifetime and is more well-known today, Lora Hyde still achieved some recognition for her work. She exhibited some studies at the December 1913 AWAA show at the Girls’ Art Club and showed two paintings at the 1904 Salon d’Automne, “Le moulin de Montigny” and “Fin d’orage.” They remained in Paris for many years—he died in 1929 but it is unclear where and when she passed away.
Painter, illustrator, and sculptor Elizabeth Howell Ingham Smith was born in 1870 in Easton, Pennsylvania. She studied with Robert Henri and found herself in Paris at the turn of the 20th century. Ingham was among the exhibitors featured in the December 1899 annual AWAA show at the Girls’ Art Club—two of her works, particularly “Le Guignol,” were thought to be illustrative of Paris life. She died in 1931 but few details of her later years are extant.
Known primarily as a portraitist, Myrtle Jean McLane Johansen (1878-1964) was born in Chicago. She studied with John Vanderpoel at the Art Institute of Chicago, with Frank Duveneck in Cincinnati, and in New York with William Merritt Chase, before going abroad. She was among the artists praised in Le Figaro's review of the 1908 AWAA exhibition and her painting, "The Visitor," was included in the 1907 Salon des artistes français. While studying at the Art Institute of Chicago, Myrtle met her future husband, Danish-American artist and teacher, John Christen Johansen, whom she married before 1911. They helped establish the National Foundation of Portrait Painters in 1912 and they were both elected to the National Academy of Design, a singular honor for American artists. Myrtle won many awards during her career and she executed portraits of a number of world leaders, including Queen Elisabeth of Belgium, Premier Hughes of Australia, and Premier Eleftherios Venizelos of Greece.
Alice Miriam Johnson (1856-1901) was a painter originally from New York. She studied oil painting with Mrs. H. G. Ely at the Fredonia Normal School in the late 1870s, graduating in 1879. Johnson also studied in New York, possibly at Cooper Union, and also took classes at Oberlin College in the 1880s. In 1895, she was listed among the residents at the Girls’ Art Club. There are no other extant details about her life.
Sculptor, painter, and civil rights activist Grace Mott Johnson (1882-1967) was an award-winning artist born in New York. She was home-schooled as a child but studied at the Art Students League as a young woman, including summer programs upstate in Woodstock, New York. There she met her husband-to-be, Andrew Dasburg, whom she married in 1909 and divorced in 1922. Johnson became known for her sculptures of animals and she traveled to farms and circuses to observe her subjects. Johnson and Dasburg went together to Paris after their wedding and joined a circle of Modernist artists. Johnson exhibited a sculpture of Percheron horses at the 1910 AWAA show and at the 1910 Salon des artistes français. Back in the United States, Johnson lived most of her life in New York (Yonkers, Pleasantville, and Woodstock) but visited Taos, New Mexico in 1920 and Egypt in 1924. She was a lifelong member of the N.A.A.C.P. (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People) and was involved in a 1935 legal case to desegregate Playland, an amusement park in Rye, New York.
Raphael Johnson is an artist about whom we know very little. The earliest record of her reports that Johnson earned a First Grade Certificate in Drawing from Life at the Cooper Union in New York in 1891 (Annual Report of the Trustees, p. 67). Then she is listed as a Girls' Art Club resident in the 1896 Indicateur guide to Paris Salons and artists. It is unclear when she arrived in Paris, how long she resided at 4 rue de Chevreuse, or when she returned to the United States. Johnson's name next appears in the October 9, 1913 issue (vol. 25, no. 6) of School: Devoted to the Public Schools and Educational Interests, a local publication chronicling New York City's vast public school system. Miss Raphael Johnson is listed as the supervisor of drawing in the fifth district of Manhattan. She had apparently suffered a nervous breakdown earlier in the year but was now "well and at her work."
Alice Benton Jones was a painter born in 1882 in Berkeley, California. Jones was active in the San Francisco art community at the turn of the century and taught French at Mills College for a few years before resigning her position to pursue art full time. She then went abroad, spending four years in Paris training at the Académies Julian and Colarossi. Jones was among the artists who exhibited their work at the annual 1904 AWAA show at 4 rue de Chevreuse. She married Willys Ruggles Peck in 1910 and the couple had one daughter. Jones stopped painting when her daughter was born and the family settled in San Mateo, California. She died in 1951 and her husband died the following year.
A painter from Nashville, Tennessee, Annie Weaver Jones (ca. 1862-1911) studied at the Art Institute of Chicago and the Art Students League in New York. She exhibited three works at the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago and then went abroad to continue her training. Jones was in Paris in 1897, studying with Merson and Collin, when she exhibited several rural English scenes at the annual AWAA show at the Girls’ Art Club. She eventually married Justus L. Johnson and worked as an illustrator.
Another artist whose biography remains obscured is painter Rebecca Jones. Volume 4 of the American Art Annual (1903-1904) lists her as a resident at 259 Boulevard Raspail who had been born in Eaton, Georgia and was a student at the Académie Delécluse. She exhibited her work at the 1902 AWAA show and had two paintings in the 1901 Salon de la Société des Artistes Francais. The 1901 Salon catalogue describes her as a student of Garrido, Collin, and the Académie Colarossi. Two more of her paintings were featured in the 1902 Salon de la Société nationale des Beaux-Arts.
Kassen - Muzzey
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Clara Kalisher (contralto) was born c. 1866 in San Francisco (1106 Fulton) to Edward Kalisher Jr., importer, whose parents were born in Germany. She had three siblings Emma, Emilia (artist), and Frances. She was a resident at the Girls' Art Club in 1896 and traveled to Switzerland with Julia Morgan. When she returned to the U.S. in 1900, she lived in New York city (114 Madison ave.), where she pursued a career as a music teacher and gained notoriety for her excellent recitals and concerts.
She died on December 14, 1951 at the age of 86.
An artist identified only as “Miss Kassen” exhibited the portrait of a Breton woman cleaning in her kitchen at the 1906 annual AWAA show at the Girls’ Art Club.
A miniaturist and painter originally from New York, Lavinia Kelly first exhibited her work at the 1899 AWAA show at 4 rue de Chevreuse. She showed a painting of a mother and child under trees. Kelly was accepted in the 1899 Salon des artistes français, where she exhibited one portrait miniature. The Salon catalogue gave her Paris address as 25 avenue du Maine. She exhibited another miniature at the 1901 Salon des Artistes français; this time her address was listed as “chez Mlle Trotter, 51 avenue de l’Observatoire” in the Salon catalogue. While in Paris, Kelly studied with Raphael Collin and Luc-Olivier Merson. Her full name was Lavinia Ebbinghausen Kelly. She also exhibited several miniatures at the 1903 annual exhibition at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts.
Helen Kibbey was a painter born in Massachusetts in 1881. As a young woman, she was among a handful of artists who contributed illustrations for a 1900 special edition of Nathaniel Hawthorne's Mosses from an Old Manse. Kibbey married fellow artist Patrick Bruce, known for his avant garde Cubist works, around 1906. They had met while in art school in New York and both went abroad around the same time. She lived at 4 rue de Chevreuse at first, exhibiting in the 1904 and 1905 AWAA shows, until the newlyweds moved to a garden apartment at 65 boulevard Arago, regularly entertaining other artists such as Edward Hopper. Though her husband showed his work at the Salon d'Automne, Helen preferred the Salon des Beaux-Arts, exhibiting paintings and drawings in the 1904, 1905, and 1906 shows. He undoubtedly enjoyed more artistic success during their lifetime, but the dearth of information about her and about their marriage speaks to the sexism that continues to pervade art history. As of October 2021, Patrick Henry Bruce's Wikipedia page does not mention Helen by name nor does it even acknowledge that he was married for thirty years until his suicide in 1936.
Illustrator and etcher Katherine Kimball (1866-1949) was born in Fitzwilliam, New Hampshire but spent most of her life in England. Her etchings and drawings of landscapes across Europe, both urban and rural, earned her acclaim and were used to illustrate travel literature in the early 20th century. She studied at the National Academy of Design in New York and then at the Royal College of Art in London, opening her first solo exhibition in 1902 at London's Clifford Gallery. Though Kimball made her home in Bath for nearly twenty years, she definitely spent time in Paris and exhibited her work at the 1910 AWAA exhibition, the 1907 and 1911 Salons d'Automne, and a few of the Salons des artistes français between 1907 and 1912. Kimball could trace her lineage to the earliest years of the United States and, though she lived abroad, was a member of the Daughters of the American Revolution and donated some of her works to their collection.
An artist identified as Alice B. King participated in the March 1908 AWAA exhibition, showing a painting called “Borage and Poppies,” which depicted the sun shining on a bunch of poppy flowers.
Though listed as a painter in the 1896 Indicateur guide to artists, Efreda Klamroth (1876-1956), who lived at 4 rue de Chevreuse while training in Paris, was actually a talented opera singer. Originally from New York, she had studied painting with William Merritt Chase before going abroad, and likely dabbled in both music and painting in Europe. Known professionally as Ruano Bogislav, her own opera career was overshadowed by that of her husband, Riccardo Martin, a tenor nicknamed the "American Caruso" who sang at the Metropolitan Opera from 1907-1915. The couple married in 1899 and lived a lavish partying life- their events were covered in all the society pages, their escapades shared with eager readers in minute detail. Though they shared a daughter whom they both adored, Biji Martin, the marriage was rocky, in large part because Klamroth had sacrificed her own career in order to focus on supporting him. They divorced in 1920 and she resumed singing professionally, charming audiences with her performances of European and Slavic folk songs. Later in life, she was introduced to Indian spiritual master, Meher Baba, and became his devotee, joining him on several trips through India and Sri Lanka before her death in 1956.
Portrait and genre painter Anna Elizabeth Klumpke (1856-1942) was born in San Francisco, the eldest of eight children. Her parents divorced when she was a teenager and her mother took the children to live in Europe, first in Germany, then Switzerland, and finally in Paris. Klumpke enrolled in the Académie Julian from 1883-1884, studying under Tony Robert-Fleury and Jules Lefebvre. She became deeply interested in the work of Rosa Bonheur and drew inspiration from her paintings. Klumpke began exhibiting in the Paris Salons almost right away and continued to do so throughout her career. In 1895, Klumpke finally met her idol Bonheur, and a few years later the women were living together. Klumpke would paint the iconic portrait of Bonheur (now at The Metropolitan Museum of Art) and would write her biography. Bonheur died in 1899 and Klumpke, who had been named her sole heir, worked to ensure that Bonheur's legacy lived on in a museum, a Salon prize, and in the biography she finally published in 1908. When Klumpke died in San Francisco in 1942, she was returned to France and interred beside her love Rosa Bonheur at Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris.
At the 1902 annual AWAA show at the Girls’ Art Club, one of the exhibitors was May Bell Koll of Ohio [real name Elizabeth May Bell Koll], a pupil of Jeanie L. Boyd. Koll exhibited a watercolor, “Les Étudiants,” featuring two Japanese dolls “reading” a leather-bound book. Born in 1878, Koll studied in Paris at the turn of the 20th century, training with Mucha at the Académie Delécluse. She returned to the United States around 1903, marrying Frederick Bliss Luquiens in Salem, Ohio in June 1904. Frederick Luquiens was a Yale graduate and taught at the university for 43 years. He was an expert on Spanish-American literature, following in the footsteps of his father, Jules Luquiens, who had held the Street Professorship of Modern Languages at Yale before him. Frederick Luquiens employed his expertise on Latin America several times in service to the U.S. government, including as a captain in the army during WWI. Frederick and Elizabeth never had children and lived in New Haven, Connecticut for their entire married life. She studied with George A. Thompson in Connecticut and was active in the New Haven Paint & Clay Club. After her husband’s death in 1940, Elizabeth traveled quite a bit; she died in California in 1952.
Louise Lovett Osgood was born in Cohasset, Massachusetts in 1863. In 1897, she married North Carolina native Augustus B. Koopman, a painter and etcher who achieved a great deal of success during his lifetime. The Koopmans made their home in France, residing in Paris but summering in Etaples, among the many artists who vacationed there. Though her husband was a frequent Salon exhibitor, it seems that Louise only showed her work once, at the 1902 Salon des Beaux-Arts, where she exhibited a portrait in the painting section. In 1911, Louise was among the exhibitors at the annual AWAA show at 4 rue de Chevreuse, when she displayed a portrait of a girl, possibly her own daughter, Ellen Devereux Koopman, who had been born in 1898. The Koopmans also had a son, Bernard Osgood Koopman, born in 1900. Augustus Koopman was stricken with some kind of paralysis while working in Etaples in 1914 and he died at the age of 45. Near the end of her life, Louise Osgood Koopman published the extraordinary account of her mother’s relationship with Henry David Thoreau. Both Henry and his brother John had proposed to Louise’s mother (unsuccessfully; her grandfather rejected both young men). Their families remained extremely close and Louise had learned about the “Thoreau Love Affair” before inheriting a trove of family documents. She survived her husband by 50 years, dying in Woods Hole, Massachusetts in 1964, shortly after she published her mother’s story in The Massachusetts Review.
A painter from Illinois, Clara Josephine Kretzinger (1883- after 1940) graduated from the University of Chicago in 1902 and then went to Paris to study art. Her paintings were regularly shown in the Salon des artistes français from 1906-1912 and, though she never resided at the Girls' Art Club, she did participate in the 1909 AWAA show at 4 rue de Chevreuse. While in Paris, Kretzinger studied at the Académie Julian with Robert-Fleury, Lefebvre, and Richard Miller. She likely returned to the United States at the outset of World War I and it is recorded in the Beloit College Annual Report 1914-1915 that she unveiled a portrait of Trustee Rev. G.S.F. Savage, painted just before his 98th birthday, at the College's 68th Commencement. Her father's position as Trustee of the Beloit College likely led to this commission. Scarce details about her later life are extant. In 1918, she was working as an Interpreter and Translator for the War Trade Board in Washington, D.C. but it is unclear if she continued her career as an artist or if she ever went back to Paris.
No first name. Identified as living at 4 rue de Chevreuse in 1896.
Although a Theodora Larsk is named as a miniature exhibitor in the 1913 AWAA exhibition (American Art News, December 27, 1913, vol. 12, no. 12, p.5), there are no records of any artist by this name. The correct spelling is Theodora Larsh (later Theodora Larsh Chase), and she was a miniaturist born in 1887 in Crawfordsville, Indiana. After graduating from the Art Institute of Chicago and joining The Chicago Society of Miniature Painters (along with Anna Lynch, another artist affiliated with the Girls’ Club), Larsh studied in Paris just before WWI. Prior to exhibiting in the 1913 AWAA show, she had shown a miniature portrait of her mother at a February 1912 exhibit at the Art Institute of Chicago and, upon returning to the United States, Larsh exhibited a miniature watercolor of jonquils at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in 1917. Larsh’s husband was Francis Dane Chase, a former dry goods salesman and merchant mariner who became the manager of New York’s Hotel Colonial. His daughter, Larsh’s stepdaughter, was Ilka Chase, an actress, radio personality, and novelist. Larsh and Chase lived in New York for many years, and Larsh maintained an art studio at Carnegie Hall, joining a lively community of musicians, artists, and writers. One of her studio neighbors at Carnegie Hall, Harriet Keith Fobes, published a 1924 book about birthstones, Mystic Gems, for which Larsh contributed the frontispiece, a miniature of a bracelet of scarab gems. Larsh died in 1955, surviving her husband by six years.
A sculptor listed as Marion Lassey was praised for the works she exhibited at the 1911 AWAA show. No other details about this artist have been located.
In 1902, an artist identified as Ada F. Lathrop was listed among the exhibitors at the annual AWAA show. This was most likely Ada Frances Lathrop (1846-1929), originally from New York City. Lathrop was a musician for most of her life but turned to art in middle age, studying at the Art Institute of Chicago and then in Europe for 6 years. Upon returning to the United States around 1904, Lathrop settled in Santa Monica, California for the rest of her life. She exhibited her work periodically, including at the 1909 Alaska-Yukon Exposition in Seattle. Lathrop died in 1929 in Santa Monica.
Painter, printmaker, and designer Blanche Lazzell (1878-1956) was an American modernist known for her white-line woodcuts. Originally from West Virginia, Lazzell studied fine arts at West Virginia University and then in New York at the Art Students League. In 1912, she sailed for Europe, where she spent a year in Paris training with artists Albert Gleizes, Fernand Léger, and André Lhote. Though Lazzell did not live at the Girls’ Art Club, she obtained a membership in September 1912 and frequently took tea at 4 rue de Chevreuse, ultimately befriending other Club members including Ethel Mars, Maud Hunt Squire, and Ada Gilmore. All of these artists would go on to form the Provincetown Printers in Massachusetts around 1915, a collective that eventually gained national recognition. While in Paris, Lazzell kept meticulous notes in her Baedeker guidebook and provided detailed descriptions of daily life in letters to her sister Bessie back home. On Sundays, like many students in the American colony, Lazzell attended church services at St. Luke’s Chapel, located in the back garden of the Girls’ Art Club, as well as musical festivities in the evening. She also visited the Girls’ Art Club annual exhibition in December 1912, where she encountered fellow artist Florence Heywood, and had tea with friends. Lazzell returned to Paris in the 1920s, annually exhibiting her work at the Salon d’Automne from 1923-1928. Later in life, she became a teacher and offered private lessons to artists in West Virginia; one of her pupils was Ella Sophonisba Hergesheimer, who had also studied in Paris and exhibited at the Girls’ Art Club before WWI.
*Many thanks to Mary Louise Soldo Schultz for alerting us to Lazzell’s archives and her presence at the Club!*
Harrisonburgh, Virginia native Anna Blackwell Williams Lea (dates unknown) was a miniaturist who married professional genealogist James Trumbull Lea in the mid-19th century. Their daughter, Frances Trumbull Lea, became a successful artist (see below). Further details about Anna’s life are scarce, though catalogues from Paris Salons tell us that she was living with her daughter at 90 rue d’Assas around 1898-1910, when both were regularly exhibiting their work at the Salon des Beaux-Arts. In 1910, Frances Lea exhibited watercolors at the AWAA exhibition at 4 rue de Chevreuse. Though she is not among the named exhibitors, it is probable that Anna participated in this show as well.
Painter and illustrator Frances Trumbull Lea (1875-?) was born in Wilmington, Delaware, the only child of James Trumbull Lea and Anna Blackwell Williams Lea, from whom Frances inherited her artistic skills. Mother and daughter lived in Paris at 90 rue d’Assas at the turn of the 20th century, both frequently exhibiting at the Salon des Beaux-Arts from 1898-1910. Frances was praised for her watercolors at the 1910 AWAA exhibition but was known mostly for portraits and figure painting. She wrote and illustrated a short story for The Century Magazine, “The Dompteur and the Damsels,” in 1908, but it is unclear if she continued her career as an artist after marrying Stuart Moroney, foreign correspondent for the Associated Press based in Paris. The couple had one daughter and were living in La Varenne-Saint-Hilaire, France as of 1926.
New York painter Lucy Lee-Robbins (1865-1943) was known for her sensitive portraits of female nudes. When her family moved to Paris in the 1880s, she began studying under Carolus-Duran and Jean-Jacques Henner. Robbins was a darling of the Salon, exhibiting paintings and drawings nearly every year for two decades. She also became the first female associate member of the Société nationale des Beaux-Arts. Lee-Robbins also showed her work at the 1893 Columbian Exposition in Chicago and at the AWAA exhibitions at 4 rue de Chevreuse in 1899, 1900, and 1902. Lee-Robbins married fellow painter Hendrik-George van Rinkhuyzen in 1895 but continued to exhibit her work under her maiden name. She lived in Paris until her death in 1943.
Grace Hunter Leighton (1878- ?) of Kenton, Ohio was a painter. She studied at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston and also trained in Paris. In 1904, Leighton exhibited an interior at the annual AWAA show at 4 rue de Chevreuse. Later that year, she married John H. Phillips and the couple lived in New York. During World War I, she served in U.S. General Hospitals in Cape May, New Jersey, Carlisle, Pennsylvania, and the Walter Reed Center in Washington, D.C.
Though never a resident at the Girls’ Art Club, Anna McNulty Lester (1862-1900) was a frequent visitor during her year of studying art in Paris at Académie Delécluse, Académie Julian (which she considered to be snooty), and the Académie Colarossi from 1897-1898. Lester lived at a number of pensions around Montparnasse and regularly attended Sunday services at St. Luke’s Chapel, whose dignified, plain interior she described for her parents in an October 1897 letter. Lester’s two dear friends in Paris were Amy Steedman and Frances Blaikie, both of whom enjoyed successful careers as artists in the 20th century. Lester contracted tuberculosis, forcing her to leave Paris in December 1898. Back in America, she worked briefly as the head of the art departments at Mary Baldwin College and Shorter College before succumbing to her illness at the age of 38. There are no records of her exhibiting at any of the Paris Salons or at the Club.
Born in New Haven in 1865, Josephine Miles Lewis was the daughter of her hometown’s mayor, Henry Gould Lewis. She studied at the Yale School of Fine Arts from 1883-1891, earning her BFA, the first graduate to be awarded this degree from Yale (and only the second woman ever to earn a Yale degree). Lewis then moved to France and enrolled at the Académie Julian. She remained in Europe for five years, also studying with Frederick MacMonnies at his villa in Giverny. While in Paris, Lewis frequently exhibited her work. At the 1893 Salon des Artistes français, Lewis showed a drawing entitled “Margery,” and at the 1896 Salon des Beaux Arts, she showed two paintings, “A l’ombre” and “Eugénie.” She was also among the exhibitors at the December 1894 AWAA show at 4 rue de Chevreuse; Lewis’ “Study” was one of the works recognized in The New York Herald Paris edition review of the show. Josephine Lewis was one of the founding members of The New Haven Paint & Clay Club, exhibiting her watercolors and oil paintings nearly every year from 1900 until her death in 1959. She lived and worked in the Carnegie Studios in New York for several decades after returning from Europe, but then retired to Scituate, Massachusetts. Her work is held by a number of American museums, including the Yale University Art Gallery, the Farnsworth Art Museum, and the Boston Museum of Fine Arts.
A pianist from Chicago who went by "Belle," Maud Anne Lincoln lived at the Girls' Art Club from 1911-1913. She had trained with Harold Bauer and, by 1913, was teaching music classes at 4 rue de Chevreuse. She also gave a concert for the American colony at the Club in November 1913. When artist Frances Cranmer Greenman lived there in 1911, the two were great friends. Greenman recalled traveling throughout Europe with Belle in her 1954 autobiography: “Belle Lincoln (‘Abe’ we called her) played semi-professional ragtime. She was a wizard at the piano" (p. 87). The two girls traveled through Italy, Switzerland, Germany, and Holland together before parting ways in Amsterdam. Details about the rest of Lincoln's life are not extant.
A teacher of languages named Marie Louise Linieder was listed among the residents at 4 rue de Chevreuse in the 1896 Indicateur guide to Paris. No other details about her life are extant.
A painter who exhibited at the 1910 AWAA show at 4 rue de Chevreuse, Janet Lippman (dates unknown) has left very few biographical details. Fellow artist Anne Goldthwaite exhibited a portrait of a Mrs. Clifford Lippman at that same 1910 AWAA show, perhaps Janet herself or her mother or mother-in-law?
Lived and worked in Paris for many years and traveled throughout Europe and North Africa, where she lived in Algiers until 1914. She also worked closely with Rosa Bonheur in the 1890s.
According to the American Register, she showed "Le repos du Chamelier" at the AWAA 1901 exhibit.
Georgia native Caroline Couper Stiles Lovell (1862-1947) was a renowned author, a historian and apologist of the antebellum South, and a miniaturist. Her ancestors included plantation owners and, as she was born during the Civil War, her father and many other relatives served in the Confederate army. Caroline was educated at Madame Lefebvre’s, a French boarding school in Baltimore, before marrying William Starrow Lovell, Jr. in 1884. Theirs was a long and happy though childless marriage. The young couple moved to Birmingham, Alabama, where William pursued a variety of business ventures and Caroline focused on honing her skills as an artist. She made frequent trips to New York to study at the Art Students League and even went to Paris in 1896 to chaperone two unmarried Georgia ladies. While in Paris, Lovell studied at a Colarossi atelier and took all her meals at the Girls’ Art Club at 4 rue de Chevreuse, despite living elsewhere in the Latin Quarter. Lovell painted mostly miniatures and portraits, though she had earlier experimented with a career as an illustrator, including posters designed for Columbia Bicycles. She had to give up painting miniatures around 1900, her vision having been ruined by this tiny medium, but she continued supporting the arts and focused instead on writing. Lovell published a number of plays, including the three-act operetta, Prince Charming’s Fate (1903), a five-act play of Wuthering Heights adapted from the novel by Emily Bronte (1905), and a one-act comedy, The Dust of Death (1929). Lovell wrote two other books, the 1932 historic overview of the barrier islands of Georgia, The Golden Isles of Georgia, which received critical acclaim, and her own memoirs, The Light of Other Days, written in the 1930s but lying unpublished in an archive until the 1990s. Financial troubles forced the Lovells to leave Birmingham and return to her family’s ruined estates in Georgia, where they carved out a meager existence for the next two decades. William died in 1942 and Caroline died in 1947. Two of her miniatures are in the collection of the Birmingham Museum of Art.
Born in New Haven, Connecticut, Mary Fairchild MacMonnies Low (1858-1946) studied as a young woman at the St. Louis School of Fine Arts before winning a three-year scholarship to continue her studies in Paris. She enrolled at the Académie Julian and also took lessons with master portraitist Carolus-Duran and with British painter Harry Thompson. She was a frequent exhibitor at both the Salon des artistes français, beginning in 1886, and the Salon des Beaux-Arts, in addition to representing the United States at the 1900 Exposition Universelle and the 1893 Columbian Exposition. Mary was also a regular participant in the AWAA exhibitions at the Girls’ Art Club, even serving as AWAA president from 1900-1903. She met her first husband, renowned sculptor and teacher Frederick MacMonnies in 1887. The two married in 1888, had two daughters, and established a home at Giverny by 1898. The marriage felt apart after a decade and just a year later Mary married Will Hicok Low, Frederick’s former teacher, in 1909. Mary, Will, and her daughters returned to the United States in 1910, settling in Bronxville, New York. Mary continued to paint but her career gradually declined. She died in Bronxville in 1946, in the Lows’ home in the Lawrence Park artists’ enclave they had helped establish.
Florence Gertrude Lucius (1887-1962) is perhaps unfairly known more for being the second wife of famed Modernist sculptor Jo Davidson than she is for her own career as a painter and sculptor. Born in Brooklyn, she had studied in New York at the Art Students League and then in Paris with Bourdelle. While in Paris, Florence lived at 4 rue de Chevreuse and exhibited her sculptures at the 1910 and 1911 Salons artistes français. She also participated in the 1910 and 1911 AWAA exhibitions. By 1917, Lucius was back in the United States, working at The Modern School on Washington Square in New York, critiquing sculpture alongside fellow artist William Zorach, who had married another Girls’ Art Club alumna, Marguerite Thompson, five years earlier. Also in 1917 was an exhibition at the Plastic Club in Philadelphia, where Florence’s “Garden Group” sculpture received three honorable mentions. Florence and Jo had apparently been childhood friends who renewed their acquaintance after the death of Jo’s first wife Yvonne in 1934. Florence and Jo were married from 1941 until his death in 1952.
Listed as one of the exhibitors at the 1910 AWAA show is an Alice Ludum. Who she was, which medium she worked in, how long she lived in Paris, etc. remain a mystery.
A painter from Erie, Pennsylvania, Lee Lufkin Kaula (1865-1957) studied in New York with Charles Melville Dewey and then went to Paris in 1894. She initially lived at the Girls’ Art Club and studied at the Académie Colarossi. She also seems to have studied at the Académie Vitti and with Raphael Collin and Frederick MacMonnies. In the summer of 1894, Lufkin took a trip to Crécy, France where she met her future husband, William J. Kaula, whom she would marry in 1902. Lufkin exhibited at the 1897 and 1898 Salons des Beaux-Arts, earning acclaim for her skills as a portraitist of young women. At the beginning of the 20th century, Lee and William returned to the United States and settled in Boston, numbering among the first occupants of the Fenway Studio Building on Ipswich Street. They shared a studio and worked side-by-side until William’s death in 1953, both influenced by Edmund C. Tarbell and American Impressionism. In 1906, their paintings were featured in an exhibition at the Rhode Island School of Design, “Paintings by William J. Kaula and Lee Lufkin Kaula.”
Painter, illustrator, and poster artist Florence Lundborg (1871-1949) was born in San Francisco and began her studies with Arthur Mathews at the California School of Design. From 1899-1900 Lundborg studied in Paris with Whistler before returning to San Francisco. While in Paris, she and Philadelphia artist Alice Mumford painted frescoes of the Queen of Tarts on the walls of a beloved neighborhood cremerie frequented by many Girls' Club artists, Henriette's on rue Leopold-Robert. She was an early member and co-founder of the Book Club of California and a member of “Les Jeunes,” a group of young artists who published a humorous magazine, The Lark, for which Lundborg sometimes designed the covers. In 1909, Lundborg and book designer/binder Belle McMurtry traveled to Europe together and they both exhibited at the 1910 AWAA exhibition at 4 rue de Chevreuse. Lundborg and McMurtry then shared a studio in San Francisco from 1915-1917 before moving to New York together. Once in New York, Lundborg focused primarily on her career as an illustrator, producing images for The Rubaiyat, Yosemite Legends, and Odes and Sonnets. She also worked for the WPA during the Great Depression and was commissioned to paint an allegorical mural, “Quest for Knowledge,” installed at Curtis High School on Staten Island in 1932 and restored in 1999.
Miniature painter Anna Lynch (1865-1946) was born in Elgin, Illinois. She studied with John Vanderpoel at the Art Institute of Chicago, first exhibiting her portrait miniatures at the Institute's 1897 annual show. In 1902, Lynch traveled to Paris to study at the Académie Julian with Bouguereau and Debillemont-Chardon. She lived at the Girls' Art Club and exhibited a miniature portrait of her mother at the 1903 Salon d'Automne; Lynch also showed two miniatures at the 1903 and 1904 Salons des artistes français. Upon returning to Chicago in 1905, Lynch had a solo exhibition at the Art Institute. A founding member of the Chicago Society of Miniature Painters, she also served as its first president. Later in her career, as the popularity of miniatures waned, Lynch began producing larger images, including landscapes and marine paintings, many of which were based on her travels throughout Europe. Though she spent most of her career in Chicago, Lynch died in her hometown of Elgin in 1946.
Gertrude Klein Magie was a painter and etcher born in Trenton, New Jersey in 1862. She married Princeton University graduate (class of 1892) John Maclean Magie in 1903. Magie was a staff journalist for The New York Herald Tribune who died from influenza with pneumonia while serving with the U.S. army in France in 1918 near the end of WWI. Gertrude had studied with Henri Morisset and William Merritt Chase and was listed among the exhibitors at the 1913 AWAA show at the Girls’ Art Club (as a miniaturist) as well as at the 1914 AWAA painting show, where three of her landscapes, including “Un Matin d’Automne” were praised. The Magies seem to have lived most of their married life in France and then Princeton, NJ; when her husband died she moved to New York and remained there until her own passing in 1942. She was generous with her art and her wealth, donating paintings and etchings she had made to the Metropolitan Museum of Art and to the Historic Art Museum at Princeton University. Magie also gifted her papers to Princeton University and established the John Maclean Magie and Gertrude Magie Fund at Princeton’s museum to subsidize acquisitions.
Born in Bostwick, Georgia and raised in Columbia, South Carolina, Blondelle Octavia Edwards Malone (1877-1951) studied art at Spartanburg College in 1892, then traveled to New York to study at the Art Students League under William Merritt Chase and John Henry Twachtman. Malone spent the summer of 1899 at an artists’ colony in Cos Cob, Connecticut, developing her skills under Twachtman’s tutelage. An avid traveler, Malone visited California, Japan, and then spent a number of years in Europe. In France, Malone was introduced to Auguste Rodin and Mary Cassatt but her greatest dream- which came true in December 1904- was to meet Claude Monet. The two formed a connection; the great master Impressionist critiqued her work and gave her permission to paint in his legendary gardens. Malone exhibited at the Salon des Independants in 1905 and 1906 and she showed a painting, “La roseraie de Bagatelle (bois de Boulogne)” at the 1913 Salon des Beaux-Arts. Malone also showed her work at the Girls’ Art Club, including a solo exhibition in January 1914 that was favorably reviewed in Le Figaro. Her mother’s death brought Malone back to the United States and she opened her own studio in Aiken, South Carolina. In 1930, she became interested in historic preservation after acquiring and restoring a property in Alexandria, Virginia. She died in 1951.
Painter Ida Bigler Mapel was born in Rosedale, West Virginia in 1875. She was among the artists who exhibited their work at the 1913 annual AWAA show at 4 rue de Chevreuse—Mapel was identified as one of the miniaturists. It doesn’t appear that she was ever a Salon exhibitor but she was still living in Paris in 1917, when her attendance at a war poster exhibition 53 rue Cambon was noted. In the 1940s, Mapel was living in Washington, D.C. She was a correspondent of poet Ezra Pound, as letters she wrote to him are preserved in archival collections at Yale and at the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas-Austin. Little else is known about her life and work.
A woodblock print artist and illustrator, Ethel Mars (1876-1959) hailed from Springfield, Illinois and earned a scholarship to study at the Art Academy of Cincinnati beginning in 1892. Mars studied under Frank Duveneck and Lewis Henry Meakin in Cincinnati, meeting fellow student Maud Hunt Squire, who would become her lifelong partner. Mars and Squire also became friends with Edna Boies Hopkins and all three women traveled to Paris around the same time, exhibiting their work at various Salons and at the Girls’ Art Club AWAA exhibitions. During her successful career in Europe, Mars was an elected member of the Salon d’Automne and also a member of the Société nationale des Beaux-Arts. Mars was a bohemian; she wore bright makeup, dyed her hair red, and became friendly, along with Squire, with Gertrude Stein, Picasso, and Matisse. In 1910, Gertrude Stein wrote her poem, “Miss Furr and Miss Skeene,” about Mars and Squire, and it is believed to be the first literary work to use the word “gay” to mean homosexual. During WWI, Mars worked as an ambulance driver in France but the couple eventually returned to the United States and moved to Provincetown, Massachusetts. Mars and Squire helped establish the artists’ colony of woodblock printers known as the Provincetown Printers. In the 1920s, they returned to France, moving to Vence on the Riviera, and Mars focused on illustrating children’s books. They remained together, living and working as painters and printers in France, for the rest of their lives.
Painter and miniaturist Alice Randall Marsh (1869-1929) was born in Coldwater, Michigan and educated at the Art Institute of Chicago, where she met her future husband and fellow artist, Frederick Dana Marsh. She was an exhibitor at the 1893 Columbian Exposition.
In 1895, while living at 4 rue de Chevreuse, Alice exhibited her painting of la Chapelle de Crécy en Brie at the AWAA annual show and at the Salon des artistes français. Her teachers are identified as: L.-O. Merson, R. Collin, and Aman Jean (Base salons). In Paris, she also trained under Frederick MacMonnies and James Abbot MacNeill Whistler.
She and Frederick Marsh, who also happened to be in Paris, married in Coldwater Michigan in 1895. Both returned to Paris, where they lived at 219 bd. Raspail and where they had two sons, one a painter and the other a designer/metalworker. Their third son was born later in the U.S.
In 1899, Alice exhibited a miniature portrait at the Salon de la Société nationale des Beaux-Arts (her address was listed as 219 bd. Raspail).
Upon returning to the United States around 1900, the Marshes moved to the Enclosure, an art colony in Nutley, New Jersey, and later relocated to New Rochelle, New York.
In 1911, Alice was elected to the American Society of Miniature Painters, alongside another former Girls’ Club resident, Martha Susan Baker. She died from peritonitis while on vacation in Italy in 1929, having mostly given up her career to raise her sons. She was buried in Campo Cestio in Rome. Frederick died in 1961 at 89 years of age.
A sculptor called Clara Massee was among the exhibitors at the annual 1909 AWAA show at the Girls’ Art Club. Her real name was Clarissa Davenport Massee and she was originally from Williston, North Dakota. Massee’s address was given in the 1910 edition of American Art News as 115 rue Notre-Dame-des-Champs, just around the corner from 4 rue de Chevreuse. A few years later, she exhibited some of her sculptures at a 1915 show in Lawrence Park, Bronxville, New York, the enclave to which Mary Fairchild MacMonnies Low and Will H. Low had moved upon returning from Paris.
At the 1908 annual AWAA exhibition, an artist identified as Anne Loo Matthews exhibited a painted view of Etaples. A few years earlier, at the 1905 Salon des artistes français, an artist called Anna Gov Matthews, listed as a resident of Etaples, exhibited two paintings, “Coin de cuisine” and “Sortant de l’église.” The Salon catalogue identified Matthews as a graduate of the Art Institute of Chicago and a pupil of Max Bohm and Leon Garrido. Her real name was likely Anna Lou Matthews and she was born in Chicago in 1877. Matthews did study at the Art Institute—her instructors were famed sculptor Lorado Taft and painter John Vanderpoel. After returning from several years of training in France, she married fellow artist Sidney Nelson Bedore in 1917. The couple settled in Green Bay, Wisconsin and continued to work as artists, he as a sculptor and she as a painter. Anna taught and painted WPA murals while they lived in Green Bay. One of her best-known works is “Our Daily Bread,” painted in 1936 and now owned by the Union League Club of Chicago. The Bedores eventually moved to Lake Geneva, Wisconsin and then retired to Florida. Sidney died in 1957 and Anna in 1962.
Cornelia Field Maury (1866-1942) was born in New Orleans but spent much of her life in St. Louis, Missouri. Maury never married but she pursued a career as a professional artist thanks to her family's support. Studying first at the St. Louis School of Fine Arts at Washington University, Maury twice traveled to Paris to continue her training: at the Académie Julian with Constant and Lefebvre from 1890-1891 and at the Académie Vitti with Olivier-Luc Merson in 1899. Though she is not as widely remembered as artists like Mary Cassatt (with whom Maury corresponded), Cecilia Beaux, or Elizabeth Nourse, Maury was well-known in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. She contributed an illustration to The Woman Citizen, an early suffragist publication, and another illustration appeared in W.E.B. DuBois' The Crisis, the first official publication of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). The American Girls' Art Club did not exist when Maury first visited Paris but when she returned in 1899 she lived at 4 rue de Chevreuse. Letters from Maury to her mother documented her life in Paris, including the high costs of meals outside the Club and her intense loneliness. Working mostly in watercolors and pastels, Maury also experimented with oils later in life though her subject matter, depictions of children, babies, and some landscapes, remained constant.
Columbus, Mississippi native Betty McArthur (1866-1944) spent her entire career in her home state. As a young artist, she studied at the Cincinnati Art Academy, Newcomb College, and at the Académie Colarossi in Paris. In 1902, she was one of the exhibitors at the AWAA show. McArthur was a founding member of the Mississippi Art Association and she established the art department at the Mississippi University for Women (then called the Industrial Institute and College), where she taught for many years. As an instructor and then head of the department from 1909 to 1933, she carefully developed the college’s art curriculum. Summers were spent in the American West, studying or painting, often in the Rocky Mountains or the California deserts. During the Depression, McArthur worked for the WPA. She died in 1944.
Alice McClure (1884-1971) was a Scottish-born painter who studied with Edward Dufner at the Albright Gallery of Art (now the Albright-Knox Art Gallery) in Buffalo, New York before moving to Manhattan and continuing her studies at the Art Students League. In 1905, she won a prize for best still life at an Albright exhibition and received a scholarship to attend the Art Students League. By 1910, McClure was in Paris, and was one of the artists praised for her work in the annual AWAA exhibition. She also participated in a 1920 exhibition at the Memorial Art Gallery in Rochester, New York. The catalogue notes that she had studied with Dufner in Buffalo and then at the Académie Moderne in Paris (not the same school later founded by Leger and Ozenfant). McClure was also made a member of the Salon d’Automne in 1913 and served on its exhibition jury in 1914. After WWI forced her return to the United States, McClure convinced photographer George T. Bassett to partner with her on a venture called McClure Studios. She became a passionate professional photographer and her studio was the meeting place of the Professional Women’s Photographic Club. McClure specialized in photographing the Broadway actresses of her day. Her photos were featured in publications like The New York Times and The Sketch.
In the 1896 Indicateur guide to Paris, a Mary Mac Dowell was listed as one of the residents of 4 rue de Chevreuse Her name was then spelled Mary J. McDowell in the 1902 Anglo-American Annual, but her residence was still 4 rue de Chevreuse. Whether or not she was a designer or was studying any other arts while living in Paris is unknown. It is possible that she was the sister of Susan Macdowell Eakins, artist and wife of painter Thomas Eakins, but there is no confirmation of this theory.
Brooklyn native Kathleen McEnery Cunningham (1888-1971) was a Modernist painter of still lifes and portraits. She studied at the Pratt Institute and then with Robert Henri, whose class she joined in Spain from 1906-1908. McEnery then spent another two years in Paris continuing her studies and exhibiting her work. She participated in the 1910 AWAA exhibition and had two paintings accepted into the 1909 Salon des artistes français. Upon returning to the United States, McEnery opened her own studio in New York and exhibited two nudes in the 1913 Armory Show. After her marriage to Frank Cunningham in 1914, she moved to Rochester, New York and spent the rest of her career painting portraits of friends and acquaintances while raising three sons.
Very little is known about miniaturist Katherine McIntire (1880-?). From 1913-1914, she was living at 4 rue de Chevreuse and showed two miniatures at both the 1913 and the 1914 Salon des artistes français. The 1914 Salon catalogue indicates that she was American and was a student of Mme Laforge. Around 1925, a directory lists her address at 171 West 12th St., New York.
An artist named Laura McKey exhibited two sketches of Italian villages and streets at the December 1913 annual AWAA show at the Girls’ Art Club. Laura Mary McKey was born in 1876 in Janesville, Wisconsin. Her sister Electa and brother Edward were both artists too. The artistic McKey siblings lived in Rome and Paris together, studying, painting and sketching among their fellow young American expatriates. During World War I, Edward served as a Lieutenant in the American Red Cross since his poor health prevented him from joining the military. He served with the Ambulance Field Service in France, earning a French War Cross, before traveling to Italy in December 1917. He was killed in June 1918 on the Piave River during the Battle of the Solstice, the first ARC member to die in Italy and the only American who is buried in an Italian military memorial cemetery. After his death, Electa and Laura, who had gone back to the United States at the beginning of the war, returned to Italy, serving in Padua with the Red Cross to honor their brother’s memory. While volunteering with the ARC in France, Edward had befriended a young Ernest Hemingway—Hemingway wrote a touching poem when Edward was killed that was etched onto a bronze plaque by Edward’s grave. It is thought that Hemingway partially based the character of Frederic Henry in A Farewell to Arms on Edward McKey. Laura McKey eventually returned to the United States, where she died in Brooklyn in 1957. She and Electa donated an Italian Renaissance painting, “The Annunciation” by Il Sabbatini to the Chapel of St. Ambrose at the Cathedral Church of Saint John the Divine, to honor their fallen brother.
At the annual 1902 AWAA show at 4 rue de Chevreuse, a painter originally from Minnesota named Grace Emmajean McKinstry exhibited three paintings, including “Jeune Musicien” and “Petit Garcon de Tangers.” She exhibited the same painting of a young musician at the 1902 Salon des Artistes français. A student of Raphael Collin and Benjamin Constant in Paris, Grace McKinstry was born in Fredonia, New York in 1859 but grew up in Faribault, Minnesota. She first studied at the Minneapolis School of Art, then at the Art Institute of Chicago and the Art Students League in New York, before traveling to Paris and enrolling at the Académies Julian and Colarossi. She maintained a home and studio in Faribault but traveled extensively, often returning to Europe to visit Paris and her beloved Spain, a frequent subject of her paintings. After 1915, she was regularly documented in La Jolla, San Diego, Pasadena, and other California cities. McKinstry died in Minneapolis in 1936.
Mildred “Dolly” McMillen was a painter and printmaker originally from Chicago. Born in 1884, McMillen studied at the Art Institute of Chicago from 1906-1913, where she met her long-time companion Ada Gilmore. McMillen and Gilmore went to Paris together to study at the Académie Colarossi and with Ethel Mars. In February 1914, McMillen was among the exhibitors at the AWAA show at the Girls’ Art Club. Her painting, “Dans le jardin” was among the best-regarded works in the show. Like many American artists in Europe at the time, McMillen and Gilmore were driven out by World War I. They returned to the United States and settled in Provincetown, Massachusetts, joining a small cohort of artists who founded the Provincetown Printers. McMillen became especially known for her large scale black and white prints. Several of her works are owned by the Smithsonian, among other institutions. McMillen died in 1940.
Famed California bookbinder and designer Belle McMurtry Young (dates unknown) began her training in 1906 with Octavia Holden, founding member of the Bookbinders’ Guild of California. In March 1909, the San Francisco Call included a notice about the upcoming voyage to France that McMurtry was undertaking with her friend, Florence Lundborg. Lundborg, who would exhibit her work at the 1910 AWAA exhibition alongside that of McMurtry, was going to continue studying painting while McMurtry would study bookbinding under Rose Adler, Henri Noulhac, Adolphe Cuzin, and Emile Maylander. Upon returning to California, McMurtry married fellow bookbinder W.R.K. Young, and they both were charter members of the Book Club of California. McMurtry not only handbound beautiful books, she shared her knowledge with future bookbinding stars as their teacher. Her husband was a trustee of the San Francisco Public Library and he worked between 1920 and 1925 to build a collection of Californiana and fine books, including the famed Kelmscott Chaucer.
Bertha Menzler was a painter from Chicago who was born in 1871. She first studied at the Art Institute of Chicago, graduating in 1893, then went to Paris to continue training under Merson, Collin, and Aman-Jean. She was living at 6 rue Boissonade when she exhibited a painting, “Annette,” at the 1895 Salon des Artistes français and another painting, “Portrait of Miss W.,” at the Salon the next year. She had also been an exhibitor at the February 1895 sketch show sponsored by the AWAA at the Girls’ Art Club. She returned to the United States around 1900 and painted a series of eight murals on the tenth floor of Chicago’s Fine Arts Building, located at 410 South Michigan Avenue. Also in 1900, Menzler married her first husband, Edward James Dressler, a talented painter who suffered from tuberculosis. The young couple often traveled to the Western United States, hoping the climate in Arizona and New Mexico would help Dressler’s battered lungs. His health continued to decline, however, forcing him to give up painting and to declare bankruptcy. Bertha’s painting supported the couple for a few years, until Edward’s death in 1907. Their time in the West inspired Bertha, who became known for her desert landscapes, particularly scenes of Arizona and the Grand Canyon. The Santa Fe Railway Company bought several of her canvases, including their first ever art purchase, Menzler’s “San Francisco Peaks” (ca. 1903). In 1912, Menzler married Alfred Conway Peyton, a British painter and illustrator who had trained at the Kensington School of Art in London. The Peytons lived primarily in Gloucester, Massachusetts but frequently visited Arizona and other parts of the West. In 1919, Menzler was elected vice president of the National Association of Women Painters and Sculptors. She continued to paint and exhibit her work throughout her life, dying in Boston in March 1947.
Harriette Adams Miller was a painter and miniaturist originally from Maine. She had studied at Mary C. Wheeler’s art school for women in Providence, Rhode Island, where she met her husband, artist and teacher Richard Miller. They were married in 1907 and had a daughter in 1909. The Millers lived in France for several years, returning to the United States at the beginning of World War I. He had been a frequent Salon exhibitor but it doesn’t appear that her work was ever accepted. She did exhibit some of her miniatures at the 1913 AWAA show at 4 rue de Chevreuse. An article in The New York Herald Paris edition states that she had taken up miniatures around 1910 and was a student of Mary Lyttleton Wyatt, another well-known AWAA artist in Paris. (December 6, 1913, 2). Frustratingly few details are available about Harriette’s life. She is usually listed as Miller’s wife in biographies of her famous husband but nothing else is known.
Born in Providence, Rhode Island, Mary Geraldine Reed Millet (1853-1945) was a painter who studied with Wyatt Eaton in New York and then traveled to Paris to continue her training with Carolus-Duran, Merson, and Alfred Stevens. In 1894, Geraldine Reed was living at 31 boulevard Berthier and she exhibited two paintings at the Salon des Beaux-Arts. While in Paris, she met and married Francois Millet, son of famed painter and founder of the Barbizon school, Jean Francois Millet. Geraldine and her husband then made their home in Barbizon, France, with frequent stays in Paris and in New York. In 1906, Mme Francois Millet was among the exhibitors whose work was praised in a Chicago Daily Tribune review of the AWAA annual show. Known usually as Geraldine Reed Millet, she could trace her lineage back to the early American colonies and was a member of the Daughters of the American Revolution. Though still living in France during WWI, she published an overtly xenophobic and anti-immigrant letter to the editor in The New York Times in October 1915, complaining that freedom of the press enabled foreign-born Americans to publish newspapers (with possibly seditious contents) in their native languages.
Originally from Maine, Florence Minard (1886-1985) was a painter and illustrator who graduated from the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) in 1909. She lived at the Club in 1911 and was among the AWAA exhibitors that year. Minard also showed two paintings at the 1911 Salon des Artistes Français, "Portrait of Miss L" and "The Drinker." While working professionally as a book and magazine illustrator, Minard also taught at RISD from 1912-1921. She then took a position as Assistant Professor of Art at Mills College in Oakland, California, a job she held from 1922-1944, and she sometimes served as a Lecturer in Household Art and Design at the University of California at Berkeley, beginning in 1928. Minard is perhaps known best for her illustrations of the 1920 children's book by Karle Wilson Baker, The Garden of the Plynck, an homage to Lewis Carroll's Alice. A 1981 oral history by Florence Minard is preserved at the UC Berkeley Bancroft Library.
Not much is known about Brooklyn native Ethel Moore. An accomplished equestrian, many of her performances on horseback were chronicled in Brooklyn Life in the 1890s. In 1911, one of her pastels was exhibited at the Salon des artistes français and she was also named as an exhibitor at the AWAA show that same year. According to the Salon catalogue, Moore was a student of Otto W. Beck and her address was given as 125 boulevard du Montparnasse. Moore married Rev. Herbert Webb Hopkins, also from Brooklyn, in November 1912. The couple lived in New Jersey, where he served as rector at Trinity Church in Irvington. They had a daughter in 1914 and it does not appear that Ethel pursued a career in art following her marriage.
An aspiring opera singer from Chanute, Kansas, Hortense Morehart spent several years training in Paris, arriving in 1906. She lived for a time at the Girls’ Art Club, 4 rue de Chevreuse, but complained that there were too many friendly people in a comfortable setting, making it impossible for her to focus on her musical practice instead of on her social life. She moved then to the Students’ Hostel, established by Mrs. Whitney Hoff on the Boulevard Saint-Michel, but settled finally in her own mansard, rooming with another opera student who was also serious about her career.
Julia Morgan was among the first female architects to earn a degree in civil engineering, to be admitted to the École des Beaux Arts in Paris, and to earn an architect’s license in California. Born in San Francisco on January 20, 1872, she was the daughter of Charles Bill Morgan, mining engineer from New England, and Eliza Woodland Parmelee. Having completed her studies in civil engineering at the University of California (Berkeley) in 1894, she worked in Bernard Maybeck’s atelier, and went to Paris at his urging, having learned that the Ecole des Beaux Art would start accepting women in 1897. Morgan stayed at the Girls’ Art Club for a year beginning in June 1896, and remained in Paris for another five years. She worked with the architect Marcel Pérouse de Monclos (as did architects Fay Kellogg and Katharine Cotheal Budd, with whom Morgan would later collaborate), and she studied drawing and sculpting at the Académie Colarossi under Jean-Antoine Injalbert. She was accepted to the École des Beaux Arts on November 9, 1898, after three failed attempts (June, October 1897, April 1898). In 1898, she also began working with architect François-Benjamin Chaussemiche who, in an interview for La Fronde on October 10, 1901, declared her work superior to most of her male counterparts (1). After graduating from the Beaux Arts, she returned to California in 1902 and established her own practice, which yielded many successes. Morgan spent 25 years working continuously with William Randolph Hearst; her most notable projects with Hearst include the Examiner building (1915) and his palatial home occupying a full city block. Morgan, who never married, died in San Francisco at the age of 85 on February 2, 1957.
Philadelphia-born painter Alice T. Mumford Roberts Culin (1875-1960) first studied at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts and at William Merritt Chase's summer school in Shinnecock, New York. In 1898, she traveled to Europe with another artist to paint and continue her studies. Mumford exhibited four paintings at the 1899 Salon des Beaux-Arts and her portrait of a young girl was among the works praised in a review of the 1898 AWAA exhibition published in Quartier Latin. While in Paris, she and San Francisco artist Florence Lundborg painted frescoes of the Queen of Tarts on the walls of a beloved neighborhood cremerie frequented by many Girls' Club artists, Henriette's on rue Leopold-Robert. Mumford also exhibited a painting at the 1903 Salon d'Automne and spent a year studying in London before returning to the United States and embarking on a career as a portrait painter. In 1917, she married noted ethnographer Robert Stewart Culin, curator at the Brooklyn Museum. After her husband's death in 1929, she moved from Brooklyn to Miami and lived there the rest of her life.
Born in Salt Lake City but raised in Baltimore, painter and miniaturist Jane Jarvis Mumford (1878-1948) traveled with her family to Paris in 1908, staying for six years so she could continue her artistic training and exhibit her work. Her first Salon appearance came in 1910, when she exhibited three miniatures at the Salon des Beaux-Arts. Mumford showed four miniatures in the 1911 Salon des Beaux-Arts and in 1913 exhibited a drawing of Dutch peasants, listing her address that year as 4 rue de Chevreuse in the Salon catalogue. She was also among those praised for their miniatures at the 1913 AWAA exhibition. Mumford regularly exhibited in the United States in Philadelphia, in Indianapolis, and elsewhere. She studied in Provincetown in 1915 under Charles Hawthorne, producing a number of remarkable paintings that were recently rediscovered by gallerist Jim Bakker. Mumford married Harry Grant Pearson in 1917 and they moved to Marbletown, New York to raise their daughter on a farm.
Though she spent her youth in Mississippi, painter Dora Louise Murdoch (1857-1933) was a six-decade resident of Baltimore, following her 7 years of art training in Europe. After being educated at boarding schools in Baltimore and New York, Murdoch traveled to France and studied in Paris under Courtois, Lucien Simon, Boutet de Monvel, and other notable painters. In 1908, she exhibited three works in the Dessins section of the Salon des Beaux-Arts: “Les marches d’un jardin,” “Après le travail vient le repas,” and a second “Les marches d’un jardin.” Her address in the Salon catalogue was listed as 33 avenue de Friedland. Murdoch also participated in the December 1913 and February 1914 AWAA exhibitions at the Girls’ Art Club. Upon returning to the United States, likely at the outset of World War I, Murdoch settled in Baltimore and was an active member in the Baltimore Water Color Club, which she would also serve as president for many years. She would sometimes exhibit her work at the Peabody Gallery but lived a quiet life, dying at the age of 76 in 1933.
A native of Hamburg, Missouri, Alice Martha Murphy (1871-1909) was a painter and art teacher who specialized in landscapes and figure studies. Murphy studied at the Washington University School of Fine Arts in St. Louis from 1894-1895 before going abroad. While in Paris, she lived at 7 rue de Bagneux, studied under Simon and Menard, and exhibited a painting and colored crayon drawing at the 1904 Salon des Beaux-Arts. That same year, she exhibited a painting of a young woman with fruits and vegetables at the AWAA show, being one of the artists named by Victor Ducieu in his review for L'Art. Back in the United States, Murphy worked as an art teacher in public schools, eventually becoming Director of the Art Department at Manual Training High School in Kansas City. Thanks to her efforts, it became one of the finest art departments in the country and certainly the largest one in the Western United States.
Born Agnes Maud Murray in Rochester, New York, Maud Murray Dale (1875-1953) studied at the Art Students League in 1893 with James Carroll Beckwith. In 1898, she married a former classmate, Frederick S. Thompson, whom she divorced in 1911, just a few weeks before marrying stockbroker Chester Dale. Murray was in Paris in 1910, exhibiting three landscapes of Étel at the AWAA exhibition that year. Her knowledge of art combined with her second husband's substantial wealth and business acumen turned them into major collectors of modern art in the 1920s and beyond. They lived in New York, near painter George Bellows, whom Maud commissioned to paint three different portraits of her. Her great passion was for French art, particularly Impressionism, and the Dales amassed an extraordinary collection that included major (and minor) works by Picasso, Degas, Manet, Renoir, Matisse, and other giants. They were also great philanthropists, lending or donating nearly their entire collection to many of the most significant American art museums, on whose boards Chester Dale would often serve. Maud died in 1953; many critics argued that Chester's finest acquisitions were made during their marriage, a testament to her keen eye for quality.
Alice B. Muzzey (sometimes spelled Mussey) was an artist who lived at the Girls' Club and participated in the annual 1901 AWAA exhibition at 4 rue de Chevreuse. By 1902, she was back in Buffalo, New York. Her name appears occasionally in journals like Sketch Book in the first decade of the twentieth century, when she published articles about arts & crafts.
See Washington Times, February 18, 1906. Lived at the Club while studying with "Philippe".
Netter - Qualley
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An amateur photographer identified as Miss Evelyne Nagle was among the exhibitors at an 1899 exhibition of the Girls’ Art Club. She had apparently entered the photo in a competition and was delighted to find it on view when she visited the Club in Paris.
Among the artists featured in the 1907 AWAA exhibition at 4 rue de Chevreuse was Grace Netter, who showed a watercolor, “When Ceres Comes.” A 1924 wedding announcement in The New York Times gives a few details about this artist’s life. Her sister, named Aimiee Coloredo, was a countess; Netter once lived in Cincinnati, Ohio; and she married real estate dealer Robert A. Borland, originally from Norwich, NY, in January 1924 in Cabbe Roquebrune, a small community in the south of France. No other information about Grace Netter has surfaced to date.
Born on a Tennessee plantation to a slave-holding family during the Civil War, Willie Betty Newman (1863-1935) rose to prominence as an art student in Paris, exhibiting her work several times between 1893 and 1900 at the Salon des artistes français. Unlike other Southern artists who later denounced the evils of slavery, Newman never publicly acknowledged the darker side of her family's history, and her career was built on elaborate society portraits of prominent Southerners, many of whom were former Confederates. Although she eventually moved to her own studio in Paris, Newman first lived at 4 rue de Chevreuse and participated in the 1899 and 1900 AWAA exhibitions. Married but separated from her husband, Newman enjoyed tremendous freedom both in Europe and in the United States.
In February 1913, Juliette S. Nichols was among the exhibitors at the AWAA show at the Girls’ Art Club. She exhibited a painting, “L’ombrelle jaune.” Nichols was born around 1870 and studied in Paris before WWI, but specific details about her education are not extant. She returned to the United States around 1915, moving to Provincetown, Massachusetts to join its vibrant arts colony. In the 1920s, Nichols was known to have lived in New York and also in Marietta, Ohio, though it appears that by 1924 she had returned to France. Nichols was a printmaker who specialized in woodcuts and was a member of the Provincetown Printers. The original members of this group were Mildred McMillen, Ethel Mars, Maud Squire, and Ada Gilmore, all of whom were once affiliated with the AWAA and the Girls’ Art Club in Paris. Nichols exhibited her work occasionally in her later life, including a 1951 show mounted by the Providence Art Association. She died around 1958.
Southern sculptor Maude Miriam Noel (1869-1930) was born in Tennessee to an old Confederate family. Her grandfather had been one of the wealthiest slave-holding plantation owners in Tennessee, owning several thousand acres before the Civil War. She was married at a young age to fellow Southerner Emil Noel, and the couple moved to Chicago, where he became an executive at Marshall Field department store and they had three children. She loved extravagant clothing/ objets d'art and was living in Paris just before WWI (after the death of her husband). In 1914, she shared a $100 prize with Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney given by Elisabeth Mills Reid at the AWAA's sculpture exhibition at 4 rue de Chevreuse. Noel exhibited "two decorative heads" according to The New York Times. She also befriended fellow Girls' Club affiliate and painter St. Clair Breckons around this time. When war broke out, she returned to Chicago and became interested in the occult and spiritualism. She sent condolences to architect Frank Lloyd Wright when his mistress was murdered in August 1914 and within weeks they became lovers. She moved into his home, Taliesin, and they married in Wisconsin in 1923 after the divorce from his first wife Kitty was final. They apparently had a tumultuous relationship and were separated and divorced within a few years of their wedding. She died in 1930 but it is unclear if she continued sculpting after leaving Paris in 1914.
Born Ella Augusta Norcross in Fitchburg, Massachusetts, Eleanor Norcross (1854-1923) was a painter who spent most of her life in Paris but summered in her hometown. She is best known for her interiors, but Norcross also produced Impressionist portraits and still lifes. Her father subsidized her training and her life as an artist, asking only that she not sell her work. Instead, Norcross became a devoted collector and eventually established the Fitchburg Art Museum for the benefit of her beloved town. In 1924, Norcross was honored as the first American to have a posthumous retrospective at the Salon d'Automne. Her works were also shown at the Louvre and the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. She was a darling of the Salons, exhibiting first in 1894 at the Salon des Beaux-Arts and then many times subsequently, in addition to her frequent participation in the Salon d'Automne starting in 1903. She was also praised for an interior that she showed at the 1898 AWAA exhibition.
Cincinnati, Ohio native Elizabeth Nourse (1860-1938) is one of the most important American women painters ever to pick up a brush. Known for her portraits, landscapes, and genre canvases, Nourse was one of the first women members of the Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts (and a frequent exhibitor in the Salon des Beaux-Arts for two decades). She studied in New York with William Merritt Chase and then traveled to Europe with her sister Louise in 1887. France was to become her adopted home: Nourse spent the last fifty years of her life living and working there. Though never a resident at the Girls' Art Club, she served as AWAA president from 1899-1900 and frequently exhibited at their shows. Her realistic depictions of working class people and her skill with composition and technique earned her great acclaim. The largest collection of her works can be viewed at the Cincinnati Art Museum.
An accomplished sculptor originally from Saint Paul, Minnesota, Edith Hope Ogden Heidel (1870-1956) studied at the Art Students League in New York under Augustus Saint-Gaudens. In the 1890s, she moved to Washington, D.C. and began teaching at the Corcoran School of Art in 1901. We know she was in Paris in 1909 because she exhibited a marble sculpture, "Head of a Boy" at that year's Salon des artistes français and also served as vice president of the AWAA around 1910-1911. She was also AWAA president for 1913-1914. An avid supporter of women's rights, Ogden often produced sculptures for the cause, including "The Thinking Woman." Inspired by Auguste Rodin''s "The Thinker," Ogden donated her sculpture to the National Woman's Party in 1922 for their headquarters on Capitol Hill. She married civil engineer Benjamin F. Heidel in the 1920s.
Joan Osborne (dates unknown) is an artist about whom very little is known. She exhibited a miniature portrait of a young man at the 1910 AWAA show and also exhibited two miniatures at that year's Salon des artistes français. Osborne had miniatures in the 1911 Salon des artistes francais and again in 1912; the 1912 catalogue indicates that she was American and a student of the Spanish painter Claudio Castelucho. Her last Salon appearance came in 1914, when her residence was listed as 4 rue de Chevreuse, and her teachers were identified as Castelucho, Simon, and Menard. Further details about her life in Paris are not extant nor are there many traces of her life back in the United States. The Brooklyn Museum held an exhibition in the summer of 1928 and one of the artists included was a Joan Osborne. It is unclear if she was the same miniaturist who lived at the Club in Paris.
Anna Parkman Osgood Culver (1865-1935) is a little-known painter who studied in Paris at the turn of the 20th century and became a portraitist. A Boston native and long-time resident of New York City who married real estate developer Frederick S. Culver, she commissioned a luxurious Connecticut estate, Blendon Hall, designed by Charles A. Platt and completed around 1901. The only surviving painting by Osgood appears to be the oil on canvas "Woman in Green," completed ca. 1912, now in a private collection. It is unclear whether her artistic career was put on hold because of her marriage or for other reasons. As a young woman, she had studied in Paris, exhibiting a painting, "Interior of a church," at the 1897 Salon des Beaux-Arts.
Miniaturist Mabel Packard (1873-1938) was born in Parkersburg, Iowa. She studied at Stanford University, joining the Kappa Alpha Theta sorority before graduating in 1895. Packard then moved to Chicago and studied at the Art Institute for several years. In 1902, she was living at 4 rue de Chevreuse and she exhibited a painting and a miniature at that year's Salon des artistes français. She was also an exhibitor at the 1902 AWAA show. While in Paris, Packard studied at the Académie Colarossi and perfected her craft as a miniaturist under the tutelage of Mme Laforge. After her year in Paris, Packard returned to Chicago, opening her own studio and helping to found the Chicago Society of Miniature Painters. Around 1913, Packard moved to California, settled in South Pasadena, and became a fixture on the local art scene. She continued to exhibit around the country until her death in 1938.
Mabeth Hurd Paige, 1894ish
From her biography: Lady in law : a biography of Mabeth Hurd Paige : sketching seventy-five picturesque and dramatic years as seen through her eyes / by Darragh Aldrich. P. 130-1
“Regretfully she decided to leave the Julien Studio and her aristocratic Viscountess for the Latin Quarter where she could work with an American artist, a Mr. Rolshaven from Detroit. Along with other students there, she could board at the American Girls’ Club in the Latin Quarter in which Mrs. Whitelaw Reid, the wife of the American Ambassador, had taken an interest. It was a comfort to be among English speaking people again, and to have instruction in a language she could readily understand. …Despite the inconvenience of her funny little old room in the Quarter with its one tiny window in a corner, its brick floor, narrow cot and no closet, she felt happily at home. The days passed swiftly with teas at the Club in the afternoons, and the excited reading aloud of Du Maurier’s Trilby which was appearing serially in Harper’s and exactly pictured the life they were living right then. The students could hardly wait for the next installment. …At the Club the food was good and lunches were simple, taken outside at a little creamery in the Quarter. A tiny glass of old Madeira wine with a small sweet Swiss cheese and a couple of buns made a delicious and satisfying meal. It was fun, too, to eat with the various classes of citizens who dropped in and sat at little tables in the corner of the store. The student atmosphere of the Latin Quarter was free and easy and had a simplicity, a freshness of youth, that was captivating.”
Born Emma Alice Parker in Gardner, Massachusetts, Polly Nordell (1876-1958) was a painter and illustrator who specialized in watercolors, landscapes, and scenes depicting children at play. She studied at the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) and also spent time at the Art Students League in New York before finishing her education in Paris at the Académie de la Grande Chaumiere. Parker was among the 1910 exhibitors at the AWAA show, also exhibiting her work in the United States in Chicago, New York, and Detroit. Around 1912, Parker married fellow artist Carl Nordell. Nine years her junior, Nordell had been her pupil when she taught at RISD and he was in Paris with her studying at the Académie Julian. The couple returned to America and settled in Boston, living and working among many other artists at Fenway Studios. They summered in Gloucester, Massachusetts, eventually buying a home in Rocky Neck that they named Cathedral Pines. The marriage ended some time in the 1920s and Polly moved back to Boston, where she remained for the rest of her life.
A Cleveland, Ohio native, Antoinette de Forest Parsons (later Merwin) (1861-1941) was a well-regarded painter who trained at the Art Students League in New York before going to Paris. She studied with Courtois, Collin, and Whistler, exhibiting paintings at the 1900 and 1901 Salon des artistes français, and one painting, "A Young Volendammer," at the 1900 AWAA show. She was married in 1903 to a lawyer, Timothy Merwin, and the couple lived for a time in Morningside Heights, near Columbia University, before moving to New Jersey. Parsons moved to California in the 1920s, remaining there until her death in 1941, and was active in the Los Angeles and Pasadena art communities.
British-American etcher, illustrator, and landscape painter Gertrude Partington Albright (1874-1959) emigrated to the United States with her family in 1889. They settled in Oakland, California and, except for a few lengthy trips abroad, Gertrude remained in the Bay Area for her her entire life. As a young artist, she produced illustrations, mostly portraits and courtroom sketches for the San Francisco Examiner, saving up enough funds to finance further study in Paris. She enrolled at the Académie Delécluse and showed a painting at the 1903 Salon des Beaux Arts. Gertrude also participated in the 1906 AWAA show at 4 rue d Chevreuse. Upon returning to the United States for good in 1912, Partington opened a painting and printmaking studio in San Francisco and joined the faculty at the California School of Fine Arts, teaching painting and etching. She married German painter Herman Albright in 1917. A charter member of the California Society of Etchers and a member of many Bay Area arts organizations, Partington was known for Cubist-inspired etchings and Post-Impressionist landscapes.
A portraitist from Hudson, New York, Hulda Parton Walton (1879-1962) graduated from Vassar College in 1902. She studied at the Art Students League with Kenyon Cox and Sydney Dickinson before going to Paris, studying with Jacques-Emile Blanche while living at the Girls' Art Club around 1910. She exhibited in the 1910 AWAA show and also showed a painting of roses at that year's Salon des artistes français. In 1912, she married Harvard-educated lawyer Daniel Day Walton.
Respected miniature painter Elsie Dodge Pattee (1876-1975) was originally from Chelsea, Massachusetts. As a young artist, Pattee studied in Paris at the Académie Julian, exhibiting several watercolors at the 1910 AWAA show, and showing miniatures at the Salon des artistes francais and the Salon des Beaux Arts almost every year from 1901-1910. She remained in Paris for nearly twenty years, returning to the United States around 1912. Pattee was a member and former president of the American Miniature Society and was also active in the Lyme Art Association, likely because she lived in Old Lyme, Connecticut for the last three decades of her life. She married Charles E. Auger and raised a son and daughter, but is best known for her brilliant miniatures.
Painter Mary Caverly Patten was born in Bowdoinham, Maine in 1868. She studied art in Boston and then went to Paris in 1894, where she worked on the art of painting roses with Pierre Bourgogne, among others. Patten exhibited at the February 1895 AWAA sketch show at the Girls’ Art Club and received praise for her “rich studies of flowers.” At one time, Patten lived in Cuba, and she also worked as an assistant art curator at the Chicago Museum of Art for several years. Around 1912, she moved out to California, working from 1913-1928 as a teacher in the Sacramento public schools. Patten retired and returned to Bowdoinham in 1929, remaining there until her death in 1939.
Painter and woodblock printmaker Margaret Jordan Patterson (1867-1950) spent most of her life in New England but was born aboard her sea captain father's ship near Surabaya, Java. Patterson grew up in Boston and Maine, eventually studying at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn with Arthur Wesley Dow before going abroad. She trained with Claudio Castelucho in Florence and also studied in Paris with Charles-Hubert Woodbury. Her watercolor of Basque houses was exhibited at the 1909 Salon des artistes français and she showed other watercolors at the 1913 AWAA exhibition. Fellow Girls' Art Club affiliate Ethel Mars apparently taught Patterson how to create color woodcuts while they were in Paris around 1910. Patterson was a natural and produced many fine prints throughout her career. Patterson worked as a teacher in Massachusetts and New Hampshire public schools before becoming head of the art department at Dana Hall School in Wellesley, MA, a position she held until her retirement in 1940.
Elise Paulin was an artist born in New Mexico in 1889. She was among the exhibitors at the December 1913 AWAA show at the Girls’ Art Club in Paris. Scattered details about her life remain: she was listed in the roll of honor for drawings in a 1901 volume of the St. Nicholas League; in 1916, she was listed as a member of New York’s Macdowell Club, a major arts organization in the first half of the 20th century; also in 1916, Paulin’s address was given as 13 Wiener Place, Tompkinsville, Staten Island.
Miniature painter Jeanne Payne Johnson (1887-1958) was originally from Danville, Ohio. From about 1911-1913, she studied in Paris, living at 4 rue de Chevreuse and exhibiting her work at the 1911, 1912, and 1913 Salons des artistes français. The 1912 Salon catalogue indicates that her teachers were Richard Miller and Mme Laforge. She served as a member and executive of a number of arts organizations, including the American Society of Miniature Painters. In 1928, she served as the vice president of the Brooklyn Society of Miniature Painters and she regularly exhibited her work throughout her life.
Not much is known about Carolyn Peck Boardman (1869-1947). Originally from New Britain, Connecticut, she graduated from Smith College in 1891. She is listed among the 1910 exhibitors of the AWAA annual show but where she studied or lived in Paris is unknown. A member of the Daughters of the American Revolution, Peck could trace her lineage back to the 18th century. She married Henry Bradford Boardman and they had two sons.
Jessica Peixotto traveled to France with Julia Morgan in 1896 in order to study at the Sorbonne. We can assume she stayed at the Girls' Club since she was considered Julia's chaperonne. The length of her stay is unknown.
Impressionist painter Carra Perkins Cope, the younger sister of fellow artist and Girls’ Art Club resident Mary Smyth Perkins, was born in Palmerston, Pennsylvania in 1880. She graduated from the Philadelphia Normal School, a teacher training institution, in 1899. Though her name never appears in AWAA exhibition catalogues or published reviews, it is believed that Carra followed her sister Mary to Europe. Not much else is known about her life until her death in 1971.
A portrait and landscape painter, Mary Smyth Perkins Taylor (1875-1931) was born in Philadelphia. She studied at the Philadelphia School of Design for Women (now known as the Moore College of Art), winning a scholarship to study in Paris. In 1902, she exhibited a painting at the Salon des artistes français, "Portrait of the author," and she showed 3 studies of Luxembourg Gardens at the AWAA exhibition that year. Perkins lived at the Girls' Art Club while in Paris, and studied under Simon and Cottet. Perkins worked for a few years as head of the art department at Converse College in South Carolina but her life changed in 1906 when she came to Phillips' Mill to study with William Lathrop. Located in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, Phillips' Mill was the center of a thriving art community where Perkins would meet and marry fellow painter William Taylor. They settled in Lumbersville, Pennsylvania and Perkins had begun experimenting with bright, pointillist hooked rugs in the 1920s before her untimely death from cancer in 1931.
Painter Lilla Cabot Perry was born in Boston in 1848. Perhaps best known, along with Mary Cassatt, for introducing French Impressionism to the United States, Perry was also instrumental in the 1914 foundation of the Guild of Boston Artists, which strove to promote painters and sculptors. Perry came from a privileged New England family and married into one: her husband’s great uncle was the famed Commodore Matthew Perry, who engineered the opening of Japan to the West. Lilla had married Thomas Sergeant Perry, a professor of 18th-century literature at Harvard who could also count Benjamin Franklin as an ancestor, in 1874, and their home in Boston became a literary and artistic salon hosting the likes of novelist Henry James and painter John LaFarge (their brother-in-law). They had three daughters. In the 1880s and 1890s, the Perry’s lived in Paris. Lilla studied at the Académie Colarossi and Académie Julian; she was also a frequent Salon exhibitor, first showing one painting at the Salon des Artistes français in 1889, and then several other paintings at the Salon des Beaux-Arts from 1895-1897. Around 1898, the family moved to Japan, where Thomas took a position as professor of English literature at Keio University in Tokyo, but they were back in Paris in the years before World War I. Lilla showed three works at the 1909 AWAA show at the Girls’ Art Club, including “In Summer” and “Portrait of J.C.G.” In 1911, she showed two watercolor Spanish studies at the AWAA exhibition. Lilla and Thomas spent many summers in Giverny, where they lived next door to Claude Monet, a close friend. She recorded her many interviews with the iconic Impressionist painter, turning them into her successful 1927 book, Reminiscences of Claude Monet. Her later years were spent in the wealthy Back Bay neighborhood of Boston, with summers in Hancock, New Hampshire, painting her daughters (and sometimes commissioned portraits). Thomas died in 1928 and Lilla died five years later in 1933.
Though not much is known about Ruth Turner Perry, she was a celebrated photographer in Paris at the turn of the 20th century. In fact, she was possibly the only female photographer in Paris at the time, and her largest client base were the young ladies living at the American Girls' Art Club. She is listed in the American Students' Census of Paris from 1903 as a painting student from New York City, though a July 1908 article in The Chicago Tribune definitively identifies her as a Chicagoan. The Tribune article describes her as having dared to do what no French woman had dared in opening a photography studio that enjoyed great success. Perry was a member of the American Girls' Art Club, though she resided elsewhere in the Latin Quarter on the boulevard Saint-Jacques. Her success with Americans even lead to some French clients, a major coup for any woman artist working in Paris in this period. Unfortunately, further details about Perry's life and career have not yet surfaced.
Impressionist and Expressionist painter Jane Peterson (1876-1965) was born in Elgin, Illinois. Though she had no formal artistic training as a child, Peterson was accepted into the Pratt Institute in 1895 and later studied with Frank DuMond at the Art Students League. Peterson studied in Paris, living in Montparnasse and exhibiting her work at the Salon des artistes français each year from 1908-1914. She also participated in AWAA exhibitions, winning a 500 frs. prize from Elisabeth Mills Reid for her watercolor sketch of boats in 1913. Peterson also studied in Madrid with Joaquin Sorolla y Bastida, who heavily influenced her colorful canvases and loose brushstrokes, and who convinced her to follow him to New York when he was commissioned to paint the portrait of Louis Comfort Tiffany. Tiffany became her friend and patron, and they took several trips together, including a 1916 painting expedition to Alaska and the Canadian Northwest. Peterson was married twice, both times late in life, and was featured in more than 80 solo exhibitions during her prolific career.
Clara Pfeifer Garrett (1882-1946) was a prominent American sculptor who worked extensively in St. Louis, Missouri in the 1910s and 1920s. Her parents were German immigrants. Notably, her father, Carl Pfeifer, was an engineer who took part in the construction of the Eads Bridge. She studied in St. Louis and New York before moving to Paris, where she resided for 3 years while studying sculpture at the École des Beaux-Arts. Women were only admitted to the Beaux-Arts in 1897, so Pfeifer would have been among the first to train at this prestigious institution. On February 23, 1903, an article about American student life in Montparnasse appeared in the influential literary journal, Gil Blas, in which Pfeifer, incorrectly listed as "Mlle. Pliffer", is praised for works exhibited at the AWAA show at 4 rue de Chevreuse: "Among the works exhibited today, the studies by Miss Pliffer [sic] from St. Louis, were highly well regarded. Miss Pliffer is one of the favorite students of Maître Mercié" (translated from French). In addition to showing her work at the American Girls' Art Club, she also showed pieces at the Salon des artistes français in 1903, 1904, and 1905. Pfeifer earned a bronze medal in 1904 for her sculpture Echo at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition held in St. Louis.
An artist named Katherine Elizabeth Phelps exhibited a portrait miniature at the 1899 Salon des Beaux Arts. Her address is listed in the Salon catalogue as 4 rue de Chevreuse. No other information is available.
Born in New York state in 1848, Harriet Sophia Phillips was a painter and craftsperson who also worked for her family’s paper company in Akron, Ohio. She studied painting in Munich with Friedrich Fehr and with Lucien Simon in Paris. In 1904, Phillips was among the exhibitors at the AWAA show at the Girls’ Art Club. A year earlier, Phillips had exhibited an eau-forte engraving at the 1903 Salon des Beaux-Arts, “Paysage.” Her address in the Salon catalogue was given as 103 boulevard Montparnasse. She appears to have lived in New York following her time in Europe, and was a member of the New York Society of Painters and the Pen & Brush Club. Phillips was also among the exhibitors at the 1913 New York Armory Show. She died in 1929, having bequeathed her entire collection of artwork to the University of Akron.
An artist identified only as Mrs. Pinhey was listed among the exhibitors at the December 1913 AWAA show. Mrs. Pinhey is Amy Victorine Putnam Pinhey, a talented landscape painter born into a prominent New York family in 1858. Her father was George Palmer Putnam, publisher and founder of G.P. Putnam’s Sons; her sister, Ruth Putnam, was a writer and Amy’s caretaker later in life; her brother, Herbert Putnam, once worked as Librarian of Congress; and several of her other brothers became publishing executives in the family’s firm. Amy Putnam was a longtime member of the American art colony in Paris, having studied and lived there almost continuously from the 1880s through World War I. Her New York Times obituary, published on February 3, 1931, provides some context on her life. Her husband, Robert Spottiswoode Pinhey, whom she married in 1886, was a British judge in Karachi, Pakistan (then still part of India). They were only married a few years when he died around 1891, so she lived for the rest of her life with her sisters Ruth and Edith. Her studio in Paris was on the rue Boissonade; though Amy was in the United States at the outset of World War I, she traveled back to Paris to open her studio as a social haven for soldiers throughout the war. She spent a great deal of time as a widow traveling and painting in Italy before retiring to Geneva, Switzerland, where Ruth worked as a League of Nations official. Amy Putnam Pinhey died in 1931 after a long illness and was buried in Europe.
Sculptor Olga Popoff won an honorable mention for her “Etude d’homme” at the February 1913 annual AWAA exhibition. Born in New York in 1883, Popoff first studied painting at the Adelphi Academy in Brooklyn. She moved to St. Petersburg, Russia as a young woman to study with the famed Repin, before continuing her training in Munich and Paris. While in Paris, Popoff took up sculpting and discovered her aptitude for that medium. She was mentored by Rodin and by painter Ossip Linde, and exhibited her work several times at the Salon d’Automne. Her “Centaur” won great acclaim at the 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exposition. Popoff was married to New York architect John Muller. Their daughter, Eudoxia Woodward, became a famous artist and chemistry researcher; her work was instrumental in the production of Vectograph and the earliest Polaroids. After living with her family for many years in New York, Olga died in Leonia, New Jersey in 1980.
Born in New York City, May Audobon Post (1860-1929) was a painter who specialized in depicting children. She studied at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts and was in Paris in 1902 when she exhibited a painting of 3 Dutch girls at the annual AWAA exhibition. Like many American artists who were studying in Paris at the turn of the century, Post also spent time in Holland, enjoying the scenery and camaraderie of the artists' colonies at Laren and Volendam. Upon returning to the United States, she lived and worked in Philadelphia, painting portraits and producing illustrations. Post also wrote and illustrated the 1912 book Mother Goose in Holland. She was active in several arts organizations, most notably the Plastic Club in Philadelphia, of which she was a member from 1905 until her death in 1929.
Among the artists at the February 1914 annual AWAA exhibition was Ella M. Powell (1879-?). She was born in Davenport, Iowa and appears to have been an art teacher in Minnesota for much of her life who often vacationed in St. Briac in western France.
Born in London to American parents, Marion Powers Kirkpatrick (?-1962) is known for her murals and for her colorful, rich still lifes featuring textiles. Her training as an artist began in London and continued under Garrido in Paris, where she exhibited her paintings at the Salon des Beaux Arts in 1904, 1905, and 1906, and at the 1904 AWAA show. Powers married fellow artist W.A.B. Kirkpatrick in 1906 and they moved to Waldeboro, Maine. She worked primarily as an illustrator for Harper's but also produced magazine covers for other publications and even worked on advertisements for Jell-O. A frequent exhibitor throughout her life, she was honored by the French government in 1904 when her painting "Treasures" was bought from the Salon des Beaux Arts for the Luxembourg Museum.
Ellen F. Pratt, 1894:
Born in Greene, Iowa, painter Lida Sarah Price (1865-1954) studied in Paris with Richard Miller, Raphael Collin, and Mme Laforge. She exhibited a painting at the 1905 Salon des artistes francais and another painting in 1906, living in Montparnasse during this period. While in Paris, she met fellow artist Mary Harland with whom she moved to Los Angeles in 1906; they shared a studio in the Blanchard Building. Price taught art in the Santa Monica public schools for many years, never marrying.
Suffragist, writer, and painter Ida Sedgwick Proper (1873-1957) was born on a farm in Bonaparte, Iowa. After attending Bethany College in Kansas and working in a library in Seattle to save money, Proper moved to New York to study at the Art Students League. She then worked various teaching jobs in Kansas, New Jersey, and Virginia to fund travels abroad. She moved to Paris from 1910-1911, exhibiting her painting, "Five O'Clock Tea," at the 1910 Salon des Beaux Arts. This painting captured the celebrated daily afternoon teas offered at the Girls' Art Club at 4 rue de Chevreuse. Proper, as an American woman studying art in Paris, could attend these events even though she wasn't a resident, and she even introduced fellow artist, sculptor Malvina Hoffman, to the Club. Upon returning to New York, Proper and Hoffman opened their own art gallery and both were very active in the movement for women's suffrage. Proper served on the organizing committee for the 1915 fundraising suffrage exhibition at the Macbeth Gallery and she became the editor of The Woman Voter, a journal produced by the New York chapter of the American Woman Suffrage Association. Later in life, Proper pursued a career as a writer, penning a history of New England's Monhegan Island and Our Elusive Willy: A Slice of Concealed Elizabethan History, an alternate "biography" of William Shakespeare.
Norwegian-American painter and sculptor Lena Qualley (1871- 1952) was born in Ridgeway, Iowa. Around 1900, Qualley studied at the Art Institute of Chicago and then spent three years in Paris training under MacMonnies, Simon, and Cottet. While in Paris, Qualley lived for a time at the Girls' Art Club and showed two paintings at the 1903 Salon des Beaux Arts. She also participated in the 1902 AWAA exhibition at the Club. Upon returning to the United States, Qualley spent much of her career teaching at colleges in Ohio and Michigan and later became an art advisor for the New York City public schools. A devoted Christian, Qualley endowed a fund for foreign missions at Wheaton College in Illinois. She was retired and living in New York City at the time of her death in 1952.
Ravenscroft - Upton
R-U
Painter and printmaker Ellen Ravenscroft (1876-1949) was born in Jackson, Mississippi. She studied in New York with William Merritt Chase and Robert Henri, and then in Paris with Claudio Castelucho. While in Paris, she exhibited at the 1909 AWAA show at the Girls' Art Club, where her "charming views of Versailles" were praised in American Art News (vol. 7, number 22, March 1909, p. 5). Ravenscroft won two prizes from the Catherine Lorillard Wolfe Club in New York (for portraits in 1908 and for landscapes in 1915). She lived in St. Louis for a time in the 1920s before going to Provincetown, Massachusetts in 1926, then a hub for artists and printmakers, many of whom had known one another as students in Paris. Renowned for her white-line woodblock prints, Ravenscroft was also active in women's art organizations: she was a founding member and officer of the New York Society of Women Artists and participated in the 1915 fundraising exhibition for women's suffrage at the Macbeth Gallery.
In February 1914, Grace Ravlin exhibited three Tangiers scenes, including “An Arab Market," at the annual AWAA show at 4 rue de Chevreuse. Born in Kaneville, Illinois in 1873, Ravlin studied at the Art Institute of Chicago and with William Merritt Chase at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. She went abroad in 1906, traveling through France, Belgium, Spain, Tunis, and Morocco-- Europe and North Africa remained favorite subjects of her paintings throughout her career. Ravlin lived in Paris for several years before World War I, studying with Menard and Simon and living in Montparnasse. In 1908, she showed an aquarelle, "Automne (Moret)" as well as a drawing, "Pont hollandais," at the Salon des Beaux-Arts. In 1910, Ravlin exhibited a painting "Filets bleus de Concarneau" at the Salon des Beaux-Arts. She also participated in the Salon d'Autmone for several years and was eventually named an Associate of the Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts. During WWI, Ravlin became involved in the Red Cross Corps and trained as a nurse's aide, eventually getting dispatched to Paris in December 1918 to assist troops returning home after the armistice. She first traveled to the American Southwest in 1916 and Native American ceremonies frequently appeared in her work. Her landscapes and cityscapes were often praised by art critics throughout Ravlin's very successful career. She died in Plano, Illinois in 1956.
A musician from Illinois, Bessie Ray was a resident at the Club in 1906 and 1909. She was apparently studying with Harold Bauer and traveling throughout Europe, including visits to the Tyrol, during this period.
One of the artists named as an exhibitor at the February 1914 AWAA exhibition at 4 rue de Chevreuse was a “Miss Raymond.” This could be Julia Raymond (1859-1955) or Grace Raymond (1876-1967). Unfortunately, we don’t have enough information to positively identify this artist.
Identified as a painter living at 4 rue de Chevreuse in 1896.
Heloise G. Redfield (1883- 1966) was a miniaturist from Philadelphia. In 1909, she exhibited some of her miniatures at the annual AWAA show at the Girls’ Art Club. A former pupil of fellow Girls’ Art Club affiliate Martha S. Baker, Redfield was a member of the American Society of Miniature Painters and regularly exhibited at their shows in the years before WWI. Eventually, she moved to Cambridge, MA but further details about her life are not extant.
An 1897 Louisville Courier-Journal article about American women studying art abroad mentions a Miss Reynolds of New Jersey who supposedly exhibited a portrait at that year's Salon and who was a member of the summer colony in Laren, Holland. There are no artists named Reynolds listed in any of the 1897 Salon catalogues so her identity remains a mystery.
Portrait miniaturist and influential teacher Virginia Richmond Reynolds (1866-1903) was born in Chicago and first studied at the Art Institute. She later trained in Munich under Carl Marr, and married Wellington Jared Reynolds, fellow art student and instructor. The couple moved to Paris and Virginia exhibited miniatures at the 1897 and 1898 AWAA shows at the Girls’ Art Club. She showed 9 miniatures at the 1897 Salon des Beaux Arts, 6 in 1898, and 4 in 1899. Reynolds was also among the women chosen to represent the United States at the 1900 Exposition Universelle in Paris- 3 of her portrait miniatures were featured. As a teacher of miniature painting, Reynolds instructed some of the most successful artists in that medium, including Marie Champney, another AWAA and Girls’ Art Club affiliate. Reynolds maintained a studio in Chicago, periodically returning to teach at the Art Institute. She was also one of the founding members of the American Society of Miniature Painters. Reynolds died of an embolism while on vacation with her family in 1903, tragically cutting short a brilliant career.
Painter Hannah McCord Rhett (1871-1940) was an exhibitor at the December 1913 AWAA show as well as the February 1914 annual AWAA show at the Girls’ Art Club. Originally from South Carolina, she spent most of her life in Charleston. Rhett often served as an officer for the Charleston-based arts organization, the Handicraft Guild, originally founded in 1909.
An accomplished sculptor, illustrator, and painter, Anne Estelle Rice (1877-1959) was born in Pennsylvania and studied at both the School of Industrial Art and the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art before going abroad in the early 20th century. Her illustrations appeared in publications like Collier's and the Saturday Evening Post; her journey to Paris in 1906 was primarily an opportunity for her to illustrate the latest fashions in American magazines. Scottish painter John Duncan Fergusson (who would paint an iconic portrait of Rice) encouraged her to take up painting in the summer of 1907 and she did so, heavily influenced by Fauvism and Post-Impressionism. Her 1910 painting, "The Egyptian Dancers," (now in the Brooklyn Museum) was widely lauded and Rice became one of the leaders in the American modern art scene. Rice exhibited at the 1908 and 1910 AWAA shows at the Girls' Art Club, and exhibited drawings in the 1907 and 1908 Salons des Beaux Arts. Rice was introduced to writer Katherine Mansfield at a cafe on Boulevard Saint-Michel around 1912 and the two struck up a lifelong friendship. Mansfield dedicated a short story to Rice, "Ole Underwood," and Rice painted her famous portrait of Mansfield wearing vivid red in 1918, the color intentionally chosen by Mansfield since she had recently been diagnosed with tuberculosis. Rice married art and theatre critic Raymond Drey in 1913 and the couple moved to England, where Rice continued painting and illustrating but also took up theatrical costume design.
Landscape painter Anna M. Richardson (dates unknown) trained in Boston and in New York at the Art Students League. She was a member of the Copley Society and was also in Paris around 1906-1910. Richardson exhibited her work at the 1908 AWAA show and in the 1910 exhibition she showed a painting of the dunes at Etampes. Her painting "Sunset" was shown at the 1906 Salon des Beaux-Arts; her address at the time was 130 rue d'Assas.
A portraitist from Mount Vernon, Maine, Mary Neal Richardson (1859-1937) enjoyed much success in her lifetime. Her training began in Boston at the Museum of Fine Arts School and continued in Paris in the late-19th century, when she studied at the Académie Colarossi under Augustus Koopman. Richardson also studied at the Oqunquit School in Maine with Charles Woodbury. In 1897, Richardson was among the women who exhibited their art at the AWAA annual show at 4 rue de Chevreuse. That same year, she also exhibited a portrait at the Salon des artistes français. Later in life, she became interested in spiritualism and was acquainted with Indian nationalist Bhagwan Singh Gyanee.
Identified as a painter living at 4 rue de Chevreuse in 1896.
A painter who immortalized Nebraska's unique landscapes, Alice Righter Edmiston (1874-1964) was born in Monroe, Wisconsin. Her family moved to Lincoln, Nebraska when she was very young and it would be her home for the vast majority of her life. She studied art at the University of Nebraska before continuing her training at the Art Institute of Chicago and then at the Art Students League in New York with Frank Du Mond and other notable instructors. Righter spent time in Paris at the end of the 19th century, exhibiting several pencil sketches at the 1895 AWAA show at 4 rue de Chevreuse. Righter was married in 1899 and raised three children, but she continued to paint and explore printmaking, while also teaching and actively participating in Nebraska arts organizations throughout her life. Her work can be found in a number of American art museums.
Painter and miniaturist Alice Blair Ring (1869-1947) was an adventurous traveler who completed sixteen trips around the world before 1930, an incredible feat for a woman in the early 20th century. Born in Massachusetts, she studied at Oberlin College and then at the Art Students League in New York before going abroad. In 1904, Ring exhibited a painting of a young girl climbing a tree at the AWAA show at the Girls' Art Club. She was enrolled at the Académie Julian, training under J.P. Laurens and Mme Laforge, among others. Ring's paintings, miniatures and drawings were exhibited at the 1905, 1906, 1907, 1909, and 1911 Salons des artistes français. She also spent time at the Dutch artists' colony at Laren, and her subjects were often drawn from people and landscapes she had seen in Holland. Around 1912, Ring and her mother moved to Pomona, California. She died there in 1947, willing her house and its contents, including many works of art, to Pomona's Pilgrim Church.
Painter, sculptor, and ceramicist Lucy Fairfield Perkins Ripley (1875-1949) had a long-standing connection to 4 rue de Chevreuse. In 1905, she exhibited two small sculptures at the annual AWAA show. And in the 1920s and 1930s, when the Girls’ Art Club had been transformed into the American University Women’s Club, she used one of the remaining art studios as her primary workspace. Born in Winona, Minnesota, Perkins studied at the Art Students League in New York with Augustus Saint-Gaudens. When she went to Paris, she trained with Rodin but also with Despiau and Lhote. Known mostly for her garden sculptures, often influenced by Assyrian, Greek, and Egyptian art, Perkins had many prominent patrons, including Stanford White and Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney. In 1912, she married Paul Morton Ripley and they moved to East 67th Street in New York. A frequent exhibitor in the United States and in Europe, Ripley also taught ceramics at the Chautauqua Institution during summers in upstate New York. She and her mother worked together to produce Brush Guild pottery, very popular in the early 20th century.
Sculptor Caroline Risque (1883 or 1886-1952) was among the exhibitors at the February 1913 AWAA show at the Girls’ Art Club. She grew up and received her early education in St. Louis, where she founded The Potter’s Wheel monthly magazine with Sara Teasdale and Williamina Parrish. Risque trained with George Zolnay first at Washington University in St. Louis and then at the Art Academy of University City, Missouri. She also spent some time in New York at the Art Students League before going to Paris and enrolling in courses with Bartlett and Injalbert at the Académie Colarossi. Even as a young sculptor and student, Risque was commercially successful, both in the United States and in France. She supposedly exhibited a fountain at one of the 1913 Paris Salons (not clear which one) and then showed five works at the 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exposition in San Francisco. After two years in Paris, Risque returned to the U.S., living primarily in St. Louis and in New Orleans. She taught at the John Burroughs School in a suburb of St. Louis, where she founded the art department and served as its chair for many years. Risque married Julien Janis, president of the Missouri Safe Deposit Association, and had one daughter, born in 1920.
Edith Roberts was a singer who lived at the Girls’ Art Club in 1909. Originally from Lincoln, Nebraska, Roberts was in Paris to train with Polish tenor Jean de Reszke.
Painter Florence Vincent Robinson was born in Taunton, Massachusetts in 1874. She went to Paris as a young woman to train with landscape artist Henri-Joseph Harpignies, Whistler, and with watercolor master Pierre Vignal. Robinson became known for her watercolors, landscapes, and seascapes. Her travels throughout France, Italy, Spain, and North Africa inspired many of her works. She exhibited at the 1902 AWAA show at 4 rue de Chevreuse and was a three-time exhibitor at the Salon des Artistes français. In 1899, she showed the watercolor “Terrasse des Tuileries;” in 1901, an aquarelle entitled “Un moulin en Holland;” and in 1902, a watercolor of Luxembourg Gardens. She exhibited a number of times in Boston in the early 20th century but eventually settled in New York. Her work can be found in a number of American museums. She died in 1937.
A painter from Charleston, South Carolina, Jean A. Robinson (dates unknown) exhibited three works at the 1904 AWAA show at the Girls' Art Club. In 1917, she served as the vice president of Carolina Arts and Crafts, a women's art organization incorporated in Charleston in 1912. Robinson painted and presented a portrait in 1918 of Dr. Robert Wilson, chaplain of Charleston's St. Andrew's Society. Further details about her life are not available.
Born in Berkeley, California, Sara Center Whitney Robinson (1877) was a sculptor who studied at the Mark Hopkins Institute in San Francisco. She then went to Paris, training under Rodin and exhibiting her work at the 1904 AWAA show at 4 rue de Chevreuse. She lived at the Girls' Art Club, where she met Julia Morgan, with whom she moved into an apartment near St. Sulpice in 1897. In 1903, she married fellow artist and illustrator Boardman Robinson, who is erroneously credited for the two sculptures she displayed at the 1903 Salon d'Automne. The couple returned to the United States in 1904 and settled in New York City. Much to the chagrin of her friend Julia Morgan, Sara did not pursue her artistic endeavors when she returned to the U.S.
A painter from Junction City, Kansas, Bertha Rockwell (1874-1970) earned a degree from Wellesley College before studying at the Art Institute of Chicago. She went abroad in the early 20th century, exhibiting her work at the 1906 AWAA show and at the 1907 Salon des Beaux Arts. Rockwell studied in Paris with Lucien Simon and with Sorolla y Bastida in Madrid in 1908. In 1909, Rockwell went on a painting trip to Italy, producing many canvases depicting Florence and the Tuscan countryside, including Assisi, Italy. While in Assisi, Rockwell met Italian artist and architect Carlo Venanzi, whom she married in Kansas City in 1910. The couple split their time between Rome and Kansas City for the rest of their lives. Though she worked predominantly as a painter, Rockwell contributed an illustration for a 1900 edition of Nathaniel Hawthorne's Mosses from an Old Manse. Her early exhibits and her progress as an artist were proudly recorded in a number of newspaper articles in The Kansas City Star; she was a hometown heroine because of her artistic success and her glamorous transatlantic life.
Painter, illustrator, and writer Frances Elizabeth Rogers (1886- ?) was born in Grand Rapids, Michigan. She studied at the Art Institute of Chicago and was in Paris around 1913 when she exhibited her work at that year's annual AWAA show at 4 rue de Chevreuse. Records also show that she exhibited at the 1917 Salon des Independants. Rogers spent much of her career as an illustrator and she co-authored several books in the 1930s and 1940s with fellow Girls' Art Club affiliate Alice Beard, including 5000 Years of Glass; The Birthday of a Nation, July 4, 1776; and Heels, Wheels and Wire: The Story of Messages and Signals.
A painter from Salem, Massachusetts, Phebe Ropes Coleman (1890- ?) trained in Boston and exhibited two paintings at the 1914 Salon des Beaux Arts. A New York Times article from 1914 indicates that Ropes was a member of the American Girls' Art Club. She also participated in the 1917-1918 and 1922 Salons des Independants. Ropes married Leslie Coleman, an entomologist and virologist, in 1923, and they lived in Bangalore, India for a number of years while he conducted his research.
The identity of Geraldine Rowland is unknown. Her article, "The Study of Art in Paris," for Harper's Bazar in September 1902 (volume 36, number 9, pp. 756-761) remains one of the most informative primary sources shedding light on the experience of American women in Paris at the turn of the century. But it doesn't appear that Rowland wrote further articles for Harper's (unless she used a nom de plume or "Geraldine Rowland" was a nom de plume). Her article describes the quarters she lived in at the Girls' Art Club, her classes at the Académie Colarossi, the habits & social activities of her fellow art students, and even the different teaching styles of Raphael Collin and other atelier masters. Rowland identifies herself as studying bookbinding with one other American girl under Monsieur Gruel, a great master in Paris. She also shares that women were not meant to study this art and thus had to take their lessons at night, under cover of darkness.
Painter, etcher, and art teacher Alice Edith Rumph (1877-1957) was born in Rome, Georgia. After graduating from high school in Birmingham, Alabama in 1895 (and winning an award for drawing), Rumph was granted a three-year scholarship in 1900 from the Continental Gin Company, a cotton gin plant where her father worked, which enabled her to go abroad. In 1901, she exhibited an aquarelle at the Salon des artistes français. The Salon catalogue lists her address as 4 rue de Chevreuse and indicates that her teachers were MacMonnies and Garrido. Reid Hall owns an exquisite etching by Rumph of the Girls' Art Club garden and courtyard, undated but likely executed while she was living there. She returned to the United States around 1904, continuing her career as an artist but also taking up a variety of teaching positions in several states.
Fairmount, Indiana native Olive Rush (1873-1966) was a painter, muralist, and an early advocate for Native American art education. Raised in a Quaker family, Rush attended Earlham College and then studied in New York at the Art Students League. She worked as an illustrator for publications like Woman's Home Companion and St. Nicholas. From 1904-1910, Rush studied with Howard Pyle in Wilmington, Delaware, and then spent a year traveling in Europe. She visited Belgium and France with her friend, watercolorist Alice Schille, in 1913, and exhibited a painting at the 1914 Salon des artistes français. A trip with her father to Arizona and New Mexico in 1914 changed the course of her life; she moved permanently to Santa Fe in 1920. Rush was inspired by the Southwest, particularly by its landscapes and Hopi traditions, and she worked during the Great Depression executing a number of Southwestern-themed murals for the WPA. Rush also taught mural painting at the Santa Fe Indian School, now the Institute of American Indian Arts.
A painter named Marion Sanderson exhibited an interior at the 1896 AWAA show at the Girls’ Art Club. No other information has been uncovered about this artist’s life or career.
Born in Newport, Rhode Island in 1873, Ethel Sands was a painter who lived most of her life in England. Known mostly for still lifes and interiors and encouraged by family friends including John Singer Sargent, Sands studied art at the Académie Carrière in Paris in the late 19th century. While in Paris, she met her partner, fellow artist Anna (Nan) Hope Hudson. Hudson and Sands were members of the cultural elite and counted among their close friends novelist Henry James, author Virginia Woolf, and painter/critic Roger Fry. The couple maintained a home in France, Chateau d’Auppegard, which also served as the inspiration for many interior paintings by Sands. She exhibited an interior at the 1903 AWAA show at the Girls’ Art Club and another interior, featuring only an unmade bed in a sparse room with a chair, crucifix, and white walls, at the 1904 show. In 1899, Sands exhibited two paintings at the Salon des Beaux-Arts, “Nature morte” and a portrait. In 1903, she showed an interior, also at the Salon des Beaux-Arts, and in 1904, she showed two more interiors, including one that depicted a woman reading, at the Salon d’Automne. Sands was certainly a modern artist, often classified as a post-Impressionist whose style was possibly informed by the work of Edouard Vuillard. She and Hudson tended soldiers at a hospital they established near Dieppe during World War I and, during World War II, their home in London was destroyed during the Blitz while their home in France was looted and severely damaged. These incidents led to the loss or destruction of most of the works produced by Hudson and Sands in their lifetimes. Hudson died in 1957, having been nursed in her last years by Sands; Ethel died five years later in 1962.
Philadelphia-born painter Anita Wheelwright Sargent (1876-1966) studied with Sartain and Tarbell in Boston before going to Paris to further her education. A cousin of the legendary painter John Singer Sargent, she was among the AWAA exhibitors at the 1904 show at 4 rue de Chevreuse, and she also participated in the 1905 and 1906 exhibitions at the Club. Anita Sargent exhibited a portrait of Miss E.S. at the 1906 Salon des Beaux Arts. She married Harvard graduate George Livingstone Hamilton in 1908 and they had three children, likely curtailing her career as an artist.
Sargent appears in the Harper's Bazaar column, "Our Paris Letter", written by Katherine De Forest on May 9, 1896. She is described as such: "Miss Bernardine Sargent is a fresh, young American girl, with a charming face and an equally fresh, charming voice, who is studying with Bouhy." Bouhy was likely Jacques Bouhy, a Belgian baritone turned voice teacher in Paris in the late 19th century. Sargent was also listed as a resident at 4 rue de Chevreuse in the 1896 Indicateur guide. Just two years later, in May 1898, The New York Times covered a Choral Union Festival at Carnegie Hall, directed by Juilliard founder Frank Damrosch, and Miss Bernardine Sargent is listed as a soloist at this prestigious event.
Originally from Ohio, artist Clara Rossman Saunders (1874-1951) was best known for her landscapes and figure paintings. She studied first at the Cincinnati Art Academy and then at the Corcoran School of Art in Washington, D.C. before going to Paris. While in Paris, Saunders trained with Hawthorne and Guerin, among others. She showed paintings and watercolors at the February 1913 AWAA exhibition at 4 rue de Chevreuse. Saunders seemingly lived in Washington, D.C. for most of her life and was a member of a number of arts organizations, including the Society of Washington Artists.
Georgia native Hattie Saussie was born in Savannah in 1890. A painter and designer, she was encouraged by her mother, who frequently brought young Hattie to the Telfair Academy of Arts and Sciences to explore its collection of French and American Impressionist works. Saussy attended the Mary Baldwin Seminary for one year before traveling north to study at the New York School of Fine and Applied Art (now the Parsons School). She also trained at the National Academy of Design and the Art Students League and was a member of the Catherine Lorillard Wolfe Club for women in New York. Though Saussy was offered the chance to teach at the School of Fine and Applied Art, she instead chose to go to Europe, to study in the stained glass studio of E.A. Taylor in Paris. Saussy exhibited her work at the December 1913 AWAA show at 4 rue de Chevreuse and she showed a design for a stained glass window in the objets d’art section of the March 1914 AWAA show. She went on a sketching tour of Luxembourg, Switzerland, Germany, and Austria but was caught up in the outbreak of World War I and had to scramble to get home. She lived temporarily in New York, worked in Washington in a government office for part of the war, but spent most of her life in Savannah, sometimes teaching but always active in the Savannah Art Club. Saussy suffered a broken hip in 1972, which severely limited her mobility; she died in 1978.
British painter, illustrator, textile artist, and playwright Amy Sawyer (1863-1945) was born in Sussex. She studied at the Herkomer School of Art in England and exhibited widely from the 1880s-1910s, including at the 1910 AWAA show at 4 rue de Chevreuse and at the 1907 Salon des Beaux Arts, where she showed a nude painting of Psyche. Sawyer became an important figure in the Arts and Crafts movement in England, particularly in her home county of Sussex.
Myra Louise Sawyer, exhibited at Club in 1910.
A painter and watercolorist from Columbus, Ohio, Alice Schille (1869-1955) was known for her landscapes, depictions of mother and children, and her Impressionist/Post-Impressionist styles. Although she would eventually travel all over the world to refine her technique as a painter, Schille began her art education in New York at the Art Students League, studying with William Merritt Chase and Kenyon Cox. From 1903-1904, Schille lived in Paris, studying at the Académie Colarossi and exhibiting a watercolor and a sketch at the 1904 AWAA show. Schille also exhibited two paintings and three drawings at the 1904 Salon des Beaux Arts. Schille traveled again to Europe with her friend Olive Rush in 1913-1914, but she also visited Morocco, Egypt, and the American Southwest, drawing inspiration from every unique place she experienced. Schille taught for many years at the Columbus Art School, retiring in 1948 just a few years before her death.
Born in St. Louis, Missouri, painter Sophie N. Schuyler Dey (1872-1956) studied at the St. Louis School of Fine Arts and in Paris under Raphael Collin. An 1897 article in the Louisville Courier Journal lists Schuyler as a resident at 4 rue de Chevreuse and as a member of the thriving summer artists' colony in Laren, Holland. The article also claims that Schuyler exhibited a portrait at that year's Salon but there are no records placing her at any of the Salons in 1896 or 1897. Schuyler eventually married fellow artist Henry Ellinwood Dey and they lived in Pelham Manor, New York for many years.
In February 1914, an artist identified as Elizabeth R. Scott exhibited her work at the AWAA show at the Girls’ Art Club. No other information on this artist has been located.
Canadian-American painter and teacher Jeannette Scott (1864-1937) was born in Kincardine, Ontario. Her father died when she was twenty-one, enabling Scott to move to the United States and study at the Philadelphia School of Design for Women and the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. From 1889 to 1894, Scott studied in Paris, enrolling at both the Académie Julian and the Académie Colarossi. Her work was exhibited numerous times throughout her life, including at the 1893 Columbian Exposition in Chicago and at the 1894 Salon des Beaux Arts. Scott became a professor of painting at Syracuse University in 1895, eventually being promoted to head of the department by 1902. She continued teaching at Syracuse until her retirement in 1927. Scott periodically returned to Paris, exhibiting her work at the 1903 AWAA show at the Girls' Art Club and at the 1903 Salon des Beaux Arts.
Painter and poet Lucy Scott -Bower was born in Rochester, Iowa in 1864 and studied at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts as well as with William Merritt Chase in New York. She married John Monroe Bower in 1889 and his death in 1911 enabled Lucy to travel to Europe to further train as an artist. She studied at the Académie Julian with Robert-Fleury and Lefebvre and at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière with Menard and Simon, honing her skills as a painter and producing scenes of peasant life in France and Holland. She also became known for intricate market scenes and some landscapes. Her paintings appeared in the February 1914 AWAA exhibition at the Girls’ Art Club. At the time of her death in Paris in 1934, she was living and working at a studio at 7 Impasse du Rouet. She apparently died of accidental asphyxiation from cooking gas. Bower is buried in the Cimetière de Thiais.
Sculptor Janet Scudder (1869-1940), originally from Terre Haute, Indiana, was one of the most prominent women artists ever associated with 4 rue de Chevreuse. Her work can be found in major museum collections all over the world. For a comprehensive exploration of Scudder's life and work in Paris, see here.
Brooklyn native Alice Searle was a miniaturist who studied for several months in Paris, residing at 4 rue de Chevreuse. Her teacher was the famed Mme Debillemont-Chardon. Searle showed some of her miniatures at the 1902 AWAA show at 4 rue de Chevreuse and a portrait of Searle, comfortably seated in an easy-chair holding a bouquet of roses, executed by painter Elisabeth Kruseman Van Elten was exhibited at the same show. She returned to the United States in 1903 and moved into a studio in the Ovington building in Brooklyn Heights. Searle frequently hosted exhibitions at her studio and taught portrait miniature classes there.
Lydia Amanda Brewster was born in North Elba, New York in 1859 to a family descended from William Brewster, one of the passengers on the Mayflower. She was a painter of mostly portraits and genre scenes who enjoyed a great deal of success. Her mural, “Arcadia,” won a bronze medal at the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago. Brewster studied at the National Academy of Design and also with Sartain and Chase at the Art Students League as well as Gifford and Volk at the Cooper Union. Like many of her contemporaries, Brewster’s next step was to train in Paris, where she enrolled in the ateliers of Bouguereau and Robert-Fleury at the Académie Julian. Brewster had one painting accepted each year in the 1886 and 1887 Salons des Artistes français, as well as two portraits accepted in 1888. She married Robert Van Vorst Sewell in 1888 and they lived in Fleetwood House, designed by Sewell, in Oyster Bay, Long Island. He was also affiliated with the National Academy of Design and was a self-taught sculptor whose medieval-inspired wood carvings and decorations ornamented their home. She opened a portrait studio in New York, painting flattering canvases depicting wealthy society wives, but she also continued to paint genre scenes which won awards at international expositions. Lydia also showed several Dutch landscapes at the 1899 annual AWAA exhibition at 4 rue de Chevreuse, though by this time she and her family were no longer residing in Paris. She became an Associate National Academician in New York in 1904 and served as an executive/jury member for the Woman’s Art Club of New York. Sewell died in Florence, Italy in 1926, two years after her husband’s death, also in Florence.
Portrait miniaturist Zelda Shanfield (1885-?) was born in Manchester, England. She spent time in New York and in Paris, studying and exhibiting her work. Shanfield's miniatures were featured in the 1910 AWAA exhibition at 4 rue de Chevreuse and she also exhibited at the 1909 and 1910 Salons des artistes français. In the Salon catalogues for both years, her address is listed as 9 rue Campagne-Première and her teacher was Mme Laforge, noted French miniaturist. Around 1912-1913, Shanfield was living in South America, with a large exhibition of her miniatures installed at a hotel in Buenos Aires.
Born in 1854 to a prominent family, Rosina Emmet Sherwood was an extremely successful painter and illustrator. Her mother, Julia Pierson Emmet, was also a painter and illustrator, and Rosina’s sister, Lydia Field Emmet, and first cousin, Ellen Emmet Rand, were also painters. Rosina, Lydia, and Ellen all spent time in Europe together, including at a summer art colony in Giverny. Rosina studied with William Merrit Chase in New York in the 1880s and began publishing her illustrations in Harper’s Magazine. She went to Paris in 1884 with her friend, fellow artist Dora Wheeler, to study with Robert-Fleury at the Académie Julian. Rosina was among the exhibitors at the 1899 annual AWAA show at the Girls’ Art Club. In 1887, she married Arthur Sherwood, with whom she would have five children, including Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright/screenwriter, Robert E. Sherwood. Rosina continued painting and producing illustrations, including a mural for the Woman’s Building at the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago. Later in her career, particularly during a trip around the world in 1922, she painted many watercolors. She died in 1948.
Artist, illustrator, metaphysical writer, and New Thought spiritual teacher Florence Scovel Shinn (1871-1940) is best known for her 1925 book, The Game of Life and How to Play It. Originally from Camden, New Jersey, she was descended from Francis Hopkinson, the earliest documented American composer and a signer of the Declaration of Independence. Florence studied at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, where she met painter Everett Shinn, member of famed insurgent art group, “The Eight.” They married in 1898 and began living in a studio at 112 Waverly Place in New York, near Washington Square, which became a haven for artists and writers. The Shinns frequently summered at the Cornish Art Colony in Plainfield, New Hampshire and traveled to Paris in 1900, joining many of their American contemporaries and friends for a few years of intense training and painting. Florence Shinn is listed among the members of the Girls’ Art Club in 1902. During this period, she focused on illustration, producing images for publications like Harper’s and Century Magazine as well as for books like Cheerful Americans (1903) by Charles Battell Loomis. The Society of Illustrators elected her to an Associate Membership in 1903, nearly two decades before the organization admitted women to full membership. Following her divorce from Everett Shin in 1912, Florence turned toward religion and developed her New Thought teachings and philosophies.
A sculptor and painter originally from Yonkers, Eugenie Shonnard (1886-1978) had a father who served in the Union Army during the Civil War and a mother who was descended from Francis Lewis, one of the signatories of the Declaration of Independence. She studied at the Art Students League with James Earle Fraser and at the New York School of Applied Design with Alphonse Mucha. In 1911, she went to Paris to continue her training with Bourdelle and Rodin. Her work was exhibited at the February 1913 AWAA show at the Girls’ Art Club and at the March 1914 AWAA sculpture show. She was an exhibitor at the Paris Salons in 1912, 1913, and 1922, though it is not clear which Salons accepted her work. Among her most famous sculptures are portraits of Mucha and Dinah, the Bronx Zoo’s first gorilla. In 1926, Shonnard was invited to move to Santa Fe, where she was given studio space at the Museum of New Mexico. She became famous for her sculptures of Pueblo Indians, with whom she spent a great deal of time learning their methods and materials for creating pottery. Shonnard continued exhibiting and securing commissions throughout the 1920s and 1930s. She married E. Gordon Ludlam in 1933. A proponent of the “direct carving” style of producing sculpture, Shonnard also developed her own cement, which she called Keenstone, and which she used in her sculptural and architectural pieces.
Claire Shuttleworth (1867-1930) was a painter, miniaturist, teacher, and musician originally from Buffalo, New York. In addition to her detailed portrait miniatures, Shuttleworth became especially known for her paintings of Niagara Falls, the Niagara River, and the surrounding landscape. She lived primarily in Buffalo, where she had studied with George Bridgeman at the local Art Students League, but she also maintained a summer studio in Chippawa, Ontario. Shuttleworth spent time in New York City in the 1890s before going abroad for five years to train with Frank DuMond and with Merson, Collin, and Leroy at the Académie Vitti in Paris. Shuttleworth was a darling of the Salon des Artistes français, showing her work in 1896, 1897, 1898, 1899, 1904, and 1905. From 1896-1899, she exhibited paintings at the Salon but by 1904 and 1905 she had moved on to portrait miniatures. Her work was also featured in the 1896 and 1897 AWAA shows at the Girls’ Art Club. By 1900, Shuttleworth had moved back to the United States and settled in Buffalo. She continued painting and exhibiting for the rest of her life, and was active in a number of arts organizations.
An artist identified as Elizabeth Skinner exhibited a painting, “The House—A Memory,” at the February 1913 AWAA exhibition at 4 rue de Chevreuse. Her full name was actually Elizabeth Skinner Cramer (1888-1948) and she was a painter originally from Lake Forest, Illinois. In addition to the time she spent in Paris with her chaperone, Martha Clarke, training under the tutelage of American Impressionist Richard Miller, Elizabeth also stayed in the small village of Trèpied, from where she had to flee when World War I broke out. Her parents were wealthy and prominent figures in Chicago society and she had many advantages, including attending Miss Wheeler’s School in Providence, Rhode Island, an important art institution which often enabled young women to go abroad. In fact, Elizabeth’s first visit to Europe came through a summer program sponsored by Miss Wheeler’s—several girls went to Giverny, living right next door to Claude Monet, and Elizabeth became friends with fellow painter (and Girls’ Art Club affiliate) Mildred Burrage. In 1916, Elizabeth married fellow Lake Forest resident, James Gore King McClure, Jr., a Presbyterian minister and president of the Farmers Federation Cooperative. They eventually moved to North Carolina to raise their two children.
Among the artists who exhibited at the annual 1902 AWAA show at 4 rue de Chevreuse was Charlotte Elizabeth Smith (1874-1936). There are very few details about her early life. We know that she married fellow artist Willard D. Paddock in Paris in 1902 and that they were related to photographer Edward Steichen and friends with photographer Gertrude Kasebier. The Paddocks owned a small farm in Connecticut in the 1920s and 1930s—photographs of their lives and the farm are held in the archives of Yale University. Prior to moving to their farm, Smith and Paddock worked in a studio in Manhattan. Willard Paddock was also an art instructor at the Pratt Institute.
A painter from a prominent Michigan family, Henrietta (Letta) Crapo Smith (1862-1921) grew up in elite social circles in Detroit. In 1890, Letta went abroad to study in Paris at the Académie Julian, where she was critiqued by Bouguereau and Robert-Fleury. She became the first woman artist from Detroit to have her work accepted at a Salon. Known for her striking ability as a colorist, Smith exhibited her paintings at the Woman's Building during the 1893 Columbian Exposition in Chicago. In addition to her years in Paris, Smith spent the summers of 1901 and 1902 in the Netherlands enrolled in George Hitchcock's summer school in Egmond. In an 1896 directory of artists in Paris, Smith was listed as a resident at 4 rue de Chevreuse, though she had many studios and apartments while abroad. Once her European studies were completed, Smith returned to the United States and created an art studio in her parents' home. She studied with Julius Rolshoven, another important Detroit artist and Académie Julian alumnus, and participated in a number of exhibitions, including one in 1910 at the Detroit Institute of Arts. Smith became president of the Detroit Society of Women Painters in 1907, a position she would hold until 1915, when tuberculosis forced her to give up painting.
An American sculptor, identified only as "Mlle H-F Smith" and a resident at 4 rue de Chevreuse, exhibited a sculpture, "Tete en bronze" at the 1904 Salon des Beaux Arts. This is likely Helene F. Smith (dates unknown) active in the early 20th century, who also exhibited a sculpture called "Suzanne" in 1910 at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. Her address in 1910 was given as 350 West 55th Street, New York City. Smith gifted a bronze statuette to the Cleveland Museum of Art in 1909 but there are no current records of this item in the collection.
Born in Providence, Rhode Island in 1879, Hope Smith was a painter, mostly in oils and watercolors, of rural and urban Rhode Island, including its seascapes. Her education was extensive and varied: at Miss Wheeler’s in Providence, with C.H. Woodbury in Ogunquit, Maine, at the Rhode Island School of Design (painting classes in 1905-1906), with William Merritt Chase at the Art Students League, and then in Paris at the Académies Julian and de la Grande Chaumière. In 1911, Smith exhibited a painting of Chartres cathedral by night at the annual AWAA show at the Girls’ Art Club. She was a member of the Providence Art Club, which owns two of her paintings. Smith died in 1965 but details on her later years are not extant.
Miniaturist Katherine Adams Smith (?-1903), originally from Lebanon, Pennsylvania, was studying in Paris from at least 1898 when she died suddenly at a friend's apartment at 5 rue de la Paix in December 1903 of unknown causes. She had exhibited a small collection of 8 miniatures at the 1898 Salon des Beaux Arts and was serving as a vice president of the AWAA in 1899. A number of her miniatures were exhibited posthumously in 1909 at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, lent by her mother.
An artist named Gertrude Sorver served on the hanging committee for the February 1906 AWAA exhibition at 4 rue de Chevreuse.
Among the miniaturists featured in the annual 1903 AWAA exhibition at the Girls’ Art Club was Margaret Spicer-Simson (1874-1968). Born Margaret Schmidt in Washington, D.C., she studied in Berlin with Ludwig Knaus and in Paris with Boutet de Monvel and Eugène Carrière at the Acadèmie de la Palette. She met sculptor and medallist Theodore Spicer-Simson in Paris and they got married in 1896. In 1899 and 1900, her work was accepted into the Salon des Artistes français—she showed four miniature portraits in 1899 and two in 1900. In 1905 and 1907, Margaret exhibited her work at the rival Salon des Beaux-Arts, showing a miniature portrait of Mrs. Money-Coutts in 1905 and two more miniature portraits in 1907. Her address in the Salon des Beaux-Arts catalogues was 3 rue Campagne-Première—she and her husband were very active in the Montparnasse art scene in the years before World War I. As with many artistic couples, his career soared, with portrait medal commissions coming from many prominent political and literary figures, while hers was gradually diminished. Even today, she is often only acknowledged in reference works as the wife of medallist Theodore Spicer-Simson.
In 1907, an artist named Lucretia Spilman exhibited a copper vessel in the objets d’art section of the annual AWAA show at the Girls’ Art Club.
Born in Cimarron, New Mexico, Eva Springer (1882-1964) was a painter and graphic artist who lived at 4 rue de Chevreuse while studying in Paris from 1911-1914. While in Paris, Springer trained under Auguste J. Delécluse, Marie Laforge and Richard Miller; earlier, in New York, she had learned from Will Howe Foote and Kenneth H. Miller. But Springer had also sought a formal education, earning a BA from Highlands University in Las Vegas, New Mexico, and enrolling in graduate courses at Columbia University while in New York. She exhibited miniatures at the Salon des artistes français in 1911, 1913, and 1914, living first at 8 rue Solferino and then at the Girls' Art Club from 1913-1914. Upon returning to the United States, Springer lived and worked in Washington, D.C. for two decades, and later in New York, Philadelphia, and back in her home state of New Mexico. She exhibited widely throughout her career and was a member of the Pen and Brush Club.
Painter and printmaker Maud Hunt Squire (1873-1954) was born in Milford, Ohio to an artist mother and musician father. From 1894-1898, she studied at the Art Academy of Cincinnati, finishing second in her class. Squire first gained recognition for her color intaglio prints and colored pastels, working as a book illustrator while she was still in school. She met her longtime partner Ethel Mars in Cincinnati, and the two would spend the rest of their lives together in the United States and in France. Mars and Squire went to Paris in 1903, studying and exhibiting at the Salons until the outbreak of WWI forced them home. They went to Provincetown, Massachusetts, helping to establish one of the most significant artists’ colonies in the country, but eventually returned to France, where they spent the remainder of their years, except for hiding in Grenoble in WWII, at their home in Vence. Squire exhibited her work in 1910 and 1911 at the Girls’ Art Club, and she served as vice president of the AWAA from 1910-1911, when Anne Goldthwaite was president. She also became a member of the Salon d’Automne and the Société nationale des Beaux-Arts. She and Mars were immortalized in Gertrude Stein’s famed poem, “Miss Furr and Miss Skeene,” a landmark in lesbian literature in which the word “gay” is used for the first time to refer to a same-sex couple.
The 1900 AWAA exhibition included a Miss Katherine Steele who showed painted china frames. There are no other records of this artist.
Miniature painter Viola Steele (dates unknown) was born in Charleston but spent much of her career in New York. In 1912, her studio was located in Carnegie Hall. She exhibited two miniatures at the 1914Salon des artistes français, and her residence was listed as 4 rue de Chevreuse. A member of the Society of Miniature Painters, Steele also exhibited her work in the United States frequently in the first decade of the 20th century.
In February 1913, Eda Sterchi exhibited a painting, “Japanese Sash” at the AWAA sketch show at the Girls’ Art Club. In December 1913, she showed several Venetian watercolors at the AWAA’s annual exhibition. Born in Olney, Illinois, Eda Elisabeth Sterchi (1885-1969) was a landscape, figure, and genre painter. She studied at the Art Institute of Chicago 1908 and then with Lucien Simon, Ménard, and Prinet at the Académie de la grande Chaumière in Paris. She lived at 31 bis rue Campagne-Première while in Montparnasse. As a young artist, she split her time between Chicago and Tunisia, attending the Institut de Carthage and receiving recognition from the Tunisian government for her work. She first visited Taos, New Mexico in 1910 and became inspired by the landscapes and Native Americans of the Southwest. She began wintering in Arizona around 1940, continuing to do so until at least 1962. Records indicate that she may have exhibited at least once at both the Salon des Beaux-Arts and the Salon d’Automne though details are not extant.
New Jersey-born sculptor and illustrator Julia Lindsey Morris Sterling (1876-1931) studied in New York at the Cooper Union and the Art Students League. When she went to Paris, her training continued under sculptor Antoine Bourdelle. Sterling was among the exhibitors at the 1910 AWAA show at 4 rue de Chevreuse. She also exhibited a sculpture at the 1914 Salon des artistes français, staying at Eugenie Shonnard's apartment at 11bis rue du Val de Grâce. Julia had married electrical engineer Charles B. Sterling in New York in October 1897. Eventually, the couple moved from Manhattan (at 160 East 81st. street) and settled in Plainfield, NJ. Sterling continued her career throughout her marriage, an active member of a number of arts associations in the Tri-State area. Beginning in 1901, she spent thirty years as an artist and illustrator with the American Museum of Natural History.
Among the artists who exhibited with the AWAA in 1913 was Jessie Long Stillinger (1872-1942), a miniature painter originally from Indiana who occupied a studio at 16 rue de la Grande Chaumière. She had studied at the Art Institute of Chicago and then lived in Paris from 1907 until World War I forced her to return home. She settled in Provincetown, Massachusetts, joining its thriving art colony and reuniting with many artists who had once lived or exhibited at the Girls’ Art Club. She had married a man named Everett Stillinger in her hometown of Columbus, Indiana in 1894 but their marriage ended in divorce after just a few years, the likely catalyst for Jessie to move to Paris and pursue a career as an artist. She died in Fall River, Massachusetts in 1942.
Edith Bristol Stone (1875-1913) was a painter born in Philadelphia to a wealthy family. She showed two paintings at the 1907 Salon des Beaux-Arts, a Dutch interior and “Moulins à vent” and she showed “Au bord de la Seine” at the 1908 Salon des Beaux-Arts, in the drawing section of the Salon. Stone exhibited three works at the 1908 annual AWAA show, a portrait of Miss K., a Dutch landscape, and a still life. An exhibitor at the 1899 AWAA show, identified as “Miss Sheldon Stone from Philadelphia” showed two works, a sketch and a study—it is very likely that “Miss Sheldon Stone” is actually Edith Bristol Stone. Tragically, Stone took her own life in 1913. According to her obituary in the Boston Daily Globe, Stone believed that her mother was fatally ill and would not recover so she inhaled “illuminating gas” at the Elm City Private Sanitarium (July 6, 1913, p. 17). Mother and daughter had been summering in Lyme, Connecticut when Mrs. Stone took ill and was rushed to the hospital. Edith, described as “an artist of considerable ability,” stayed with her mother at the hospital and it was her mother who discovered her body. Unfortunately, there are no other details about Edith’s life and career.
A miniaturist and ceramicist born in Covington, Kentucky, Harriette Rosemary Strafer (1873-1935) studied in Cincinnati before going abroad to Paris to further her education. She trained in Paris under Mary Fairchild MacMonnies, Gustave Courtois, and Raphael Collin. Strafer lived at the Girls’ Art Club when she first went abroad, exhibiting at the 1897 AWAA show and at that year’s Salon des artistes français (one portrait miniature). She was among the chosen women who represented the United States at the 1900 Exposition Universelle, exhibiting a portrait miniature, and she spent the early part of the 20th century in New York, running her own studio and summering in Provincetown. As a student in Cincinnati, Strafer was affiliated with Rookwood Pottery, a ceramics company founded there in 1880. Rookwood was known for employing women and many artists financed their education or launched their careers by working for the company. Strafer was also a devout Christian Scientist; she was married to adventure fiction writer Talbot Mundy from 1913-1924 and she encouraged him to practice her faith during their marriage.
Born in Washington, Pennsylvania in 1865, Maria Judson Strean was a painter and miniaturist known for her portraits. She studied with Kenyon Cox and J. Alden Weir at the Art Students League in New York, eventually moving to Paris to continue her training with Prinet and Dauchez. In 1907, she exhibited a landscape painting, “The River at Pont-Aven,” as well as several miniatures at the annual AWAA exhibition at 4 rue de Chevreuse. Upon returning to the United States, she took a studio in the Carnegie Hall tower and lived there for many years, also serving as the secretary of the Artists of Carnegie Hall organization. Strean served as recording secretary for Art War Relief during WWI and was a member of several important arts organizations, including the American Society of Miniature Painters. Her work can be seen at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Smithsonian, the Brooklyn Museum, and several other major collections. She died in 1949 in Pittsburgh.
Connecticut-born painter Elizabeth Strong (1855-1941) grew up in Oakland, California and studied with Virgil Williams at the School of Design in San Francisco as a young artist. Strong lived with her brother in the Monterey peninsula in the 1880s, sketching and saving money earned from painting portraits of rich clients’ pets. She then went to Paris to study with renowned animal painter Emil Van Marcke for several years and also spent two years in New York at the Art Students League. At the turn of the twentieth century, Elizabeth Strong went back to Paris, staying until 1905, and she exhibited a few works at the 1900 AWAA show at 4 rue de Chevreuse. In 1901, Strong exhibited two paintings at the Salon des artistes français. She then returned to California, living first in Berkeley and then near Carmel, where she died in 1941.
Painter Ellen D. Stuart (dates unknown) was in Paris in 1908. She exhibited two paintings at that year’s Salon des artistes français, with her residence listed as 99 rue Notre-Dame-des-Champs. She also exhibited at the 1908 AWAA show at the Girls’ Art Club. Stuart was in Texas by 1910, included in the Baylor School of Art directory for that year.
Painter and illustrator Maud Stumm (1866-1935) was born near Cleveland, Ohio and began her education in Cleveland. She then studied at the Art Students League in New York with Kenyon Cox and H. Siddons Mowbray before going to Paris. According to the Boston Report (August 11, 1895, p. 15), she was the youngest resident of the Art Club and the most talented illustrator. Her mayflower illustration was purchased by Louis Prang, "in anticipation of its being our state flower. At 15, she had already illustrated Mother Goose, and produced illustrations for Art Interchange and Art Amateur.Though she also produced pastels and oil paintings, Stumm exhibited watercolors at the 1895 Salon des artistes français, and was lauded for her Parma violets. Her address was listed in the Salon catalogue as 4 rue de Chevreuse and her teachers were Merson and Dupré at the Académie Vitti. Also a musician, she was the life of the Club .For most of her career, Stumm lived in New York and enjoyed success as an illustrator and a designer of calendars and advertisements. She began summering in Nantucket around 1916 and became a founding member of the Nantucket Art Colony. As a portraitist, Stumm specialized in depictions of women, including a series devoted to famous actresses of the day, including Sarah Bernhardt.
Pennsylvania-born painter Austa Densmore Sturdevant (1855-1936) earned a BA and MA from Allegheny College. She was married and had two children when she decided to become a professional portrait painter. Sturdevant studied in New York at the Art Students League with James Carroll Beckwith and H. Siddons Mowbray and also participated in two outdoor summer classes with instructor Theodore Robinson. Known for her figure studies, flowers, and portraits, Sturdevant was influenced by Robinson and her other instructors to begin painting outdoors, or "en plein air." She traveled to Paris with her two daughters in the late 19th century, studying and exhibiting there from 1895-1898. Sturdevant was enrolled in Raphael Collin's atelier but she also studied with him in outdoor classes at Fontenay-aux-Roses. She exhibited a painting, "Le Petit Diable," at the 1896 AWAA exhibition at 4 rue de Chevreuse and also participated in the 1895 and 1896 Salons des artistes français. In 1895, she received an honorable mention at the Salon for one of her portraits. Upon returning to the United States, Sturdevant purchased a 300-acre property in Cragsmoor, New York, where she built her dream home and studio and founded an artists' colony.
Baltimore native Bertha Swindell (1874-1951) was a miniature painter who studied at Bryn Mawr College before embarking on her artistic training at the Drexel Institute and Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. She then went to Paris, studying at the Académie Julian with Marie Laforge and with Richard Miller. Though it does not appear that she ever exhibited her work with the AWAA, Swindell was listed as a 4 rue de Chevreuse resident in the catalogue for the 1908 Salon des artistes français, at which she exhibited a miniature portrait of a countess.
Peoria, Illinois native Aline Szold (ca. 1871-1895) graduated from the University of Michigan in 1892 before going to New York and then Paris to study art. She exhibited a number of sketches at the 1895 AWAA exhibition at the Girls’ Art Club but she died tragically a few months later in November 1895 of typhoid malaria.
Harriotte-Lee Taliaferro was born in 1871 in Gloucester County, Virginia. She studied in Alexandria, Virginia as a child and then trained at the Corcoran School of Art in Washington, D.C. Taliaferro next went to New York, studying with Twachtman at the Art Students League and at the Cooper Union, where she won a gold medal. While in New York, she worked as a fashion illustrator before sailing to Europe for additional training in 1897. Taliaferro went to Germany first, studying drawing and the German language in Dresden. Next, she moved on to Munich, where she remained for nearly five years honing her skills as a painter and draftsman. In fall 1902, she moved to Paris and studied with Simon and Mucha. She showed two works at the 1903 AWAA exhibiton at the Girls’ Art Club, a painting of a peasant and a landscape. Her painting, “Etude,” was accepted into the 1903 Salon des Artistes français; her address in the catalogue was listed as 9 rue Sainte-Beuve. Taliaferro returned to the United States in June 1903 and became the director of the Richmond Art Club in Virginia, where she organized exhibitions, taught painting and drawing, and took portrait commissions. She married newspaper editor Jeffry Montague in 1906 and they had one son. Her husband began his army career in 1917, and the Montagues moved all over the world, including postings in Honolulu and the Philippines. Though she continued painting, she stopped pursuing her art career when she became a wife and mother. She died in 1947.
Elizabeth Taylor (1856-1932) was an American artist, botanist, explorer, and journalist. Taylor led an extraordinary life, beginning in her teenage years when she explored the upper reaches of Minnesota and Canada while her father, James Wickes Taylor (nicknamed “Saskatchewan” Taylor), served as United States Consul in Manitoba from 1870-1893. She continued to travel all her life, and her visits to Alaska, Iceland, Norway, and the Faroe Islands were chronicled through sketches and narratives she published in Frank Leslie’s Popular Monthly, the Atlantic Monthly, Forest and Stream, and other periodicals. Between her lengthy expeditions in Scandinavia and North America, Taylor lived in Paris in the 1890s at 4 rue de Chevreuse. She attended the first AWAA exhibition, publishing a review of it in The Churchman in October 1894, and even exhibited her own work at the 1897 show, favorably reviewed in Quartier Latin.
A painter from Grand View, Idaho, Ingeborg Thams (1872-1946) lived at 4 rue de Chevreuse when she exhibited a portrait at the 1905 Salon des artistes français. She was listed as a student of Emile Renard and also exhibited another portrait at the 1907 Salon des artistes français. In December 1911, she married fellow Grand View resident Horace Ashby in Boise, Idaho; the marriage was reported in their local newspaper, the Elmore County Republican. There are no other details about her life or career.
An artist identified as “Miss Ella Thomas” is listed among the exhibitors at the 1902 AWAA show at the Girls’ Art Club. No other information about such an artist is extant. Early African American artist Ella Thomas was born in 1894, making her eight years old in 1902, and thus not possibly the Ella Thomas who was at 4 rue de Chevreuse.
Scant biographical information about Arkansas painter Frances Quarles Thomason (1876-1924) remains. She was born in Van Buren, Arkansas and studied at the University of Arkansas and Art Students League in New York before going to Paris. She exhibited her work at the AWAA shows in 1904 and 1906, living at the Club for several years. Thomason also showed a number of works at the 1907 Salon d’Automne and one painting each at the 1904, 1905, and 1908 Salons des Beaux Arts. Thomason was a friend of fellow painter Anne Goldthwaite, whom Goldthwaite credited with introducing her to Gertrude Stein and the Modernist art world.
From Fresno, California, Marguerite Thompson, resided in Paris from c. 1908-1911. 1910, she exhibited 2 works at the AWAA's exhibit, 4 at the show of the International Art Union, and 1 in the Salon de la Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts (Fresno Republican, September 25, 1910, p. 13).
Painter and sculptor Myra Thompson (1860-1935) was born in Spring Hill, Tennessee on her father’s plantation (he enslaved many people). She was educated at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts and then moved to New York to continue her training under Augustus Saint-Gaudens. Thompson lived in Paris from 1906-1910, exhibiting at the 1910 AWAA show and the 1907 Salon des Beaux Arts. While in Paris, she trained with Injalbert and at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière. After her time in Europe, Thompson returned to the United States, living reclusively on her family’s plantation for the rest of her life and only occasionally accepting commissions for portraits.
Nina Thornton was Julia Morgan's cousin, who joined Morgan and Jessica Peixotto in New York, sailing with them to France In 1896. She lived at the Girls' Club for 4 months.
One of the artists who exhibited at the February 1914 AWAA show at 4 rue de Chevreuse was identified as Kathryn Tileston. Her full name is Kathryn Tileston “Kate” Raymond (1863-1943) and she was a painter from Boston. She worked for several decades in Boston’s Grundmann Studios in the trendy Back Bay neighborhood, known mostly for her watercolors.
Chicago painter Marion Farwell Tooker (1882-1935) graduated from Smith College in 1900 and then went to Paris to further her artistic training. She was among the exhibitors at the 1910 AWAA show and also showed paintings at the 1912 and 1913 Salon des Beaux Arts. Tooker studied under Richard Miller while in Paris. One of her most notable paintings, of the Boxwood Veranda in Old Lyme, Connecticut, can be seen at the Florence Griswold Museum.
California painter Emily L. Travis (1872-1915) was known for her Impressionist canvases featuring French, Belgian, and Canadian landscapes. She had studied at the Mark Hopkins Institute in San Francisco as well as with Gottardo Piazzoni. Travis also trained in New York and in Paris. She seems to have lived in Paris around 1906-1913. Travis showed a painting, “Nature morte,” at the 1906 Salon des Beaux-Arts; her address in the catalogue was given as 108 rue Denfert-Rochereau. She was also listed among the exhibitors at the December 1913 AWAA show at the Girls’ Art Club. World War I likely prompted her to return to the United States where she died suddenly in San Francisco of a heart attack in October 1915 at the age of forty-three.
In March 1914, an artist named Camille Treadwell exhibited several works in the objets d’art section of the AWAA’s final show before World War I. Among her works were a decorative lantern, a tray, a hammered silver salt-holder and spoon, some cuff-buttons, rings and watch fobs and candlesticks. According to an LA Times article from 2004, Camille Treadwell was French-born, served as an American Red Cross nurse in France during World War I, and later worked in Arizona (November 21, 2004). A stack of her letters and postcards were found in the archival collections of the Los Angeles County Medical Association. It is unclear if they are still held by the Association.
A painter born in Chicago, Elizabeth Troeger (dates unknown, name also sometime spelled Troger) had been the director of the art department at Ohio Wesleyan University for three years when she gave up her position to study art in Paris. While in Paris, Troeger trained at the Académie Vitti with Raphael Collin, Tony Robert-Fleury, and Luc-Olivier Merson. Troeger lived at 4 rue de Chevreuse and exhibited a Dutch interior painting at the 1897 Salon des artistes français. When she returned to the United States, Troeger exhibited at a number of major shows before taking the position of Director of the Department of Art at Whitman College in Walla Walla, Washington.
Lucy Parkman Trowbridge (1859-1943) was a miniaturist born in Washington D.C. to a prominent family. Her father, William Petit Trowbridge, had been a Major General in the U.S. Army and enjoyed a successful engineering career that included professorships at Yale and Columbia in the last years of his life. She studied at the Yale School of Fine Arts and later spent three years studying painting in Paris at the Académie Julian and with Frederick MacMonnies. Among her early miniatures was one of Sara Roosevelt, mother of the future President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. While in Paris, Trowbridge first lived at 4 rue de Chevreuse and exhibited 3 miniatures at the 1896 Salon des Beaux Arts. She also exhibited miniatures at the 1897 and 1898 Salons des Beaux Arts. Trowbridge married attorney Francis G. Ingersoll, son of former Governor of Connecticut Charles R. Ingersoll, in 1899. The couple never had children. Even after her Salon days were long since over, Lucy devoted herself to artistic and social circles in Connecticut for the last four decades of her life.
A painter and sculptor from Baltimore, Maryland, Grace Hill Turnbull (1881-1976) lived at the Girls’ Art Club from 1913-1914. She exhibited two paintings at the 1914 Salon des Beaux Arts and participated in the 1914 sculpture exhibition sponsored by the AWAA at the Girls’ Art Club.
Painter and art teacher Grace Eleanor Uhl (1871-1963) was born in Shenandoah, Iowa. She taught art at Tabor College in Iowa from 1896-1897 and eventually went to Paris to continue her studies. Uhl exhibited her work at the 1910 and 1911 AWAA shows at 4 rue de Chevreuse and showed two paintings at the 1911 Salon des artistes français. While in Paris, Uhl studied with Richard Miller and Simon. Uhl resided in Los Angeles from 1914 until her death in 1963.
Georgia Edna Underhill is a painter about whom scattered details are known. She was living in Brooklyn from 1895-1901, when she exhibited a watercolor at the 1895 annual Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts show and two paintings, “Oranges” and “Intruders,” at the National Academy of Design in 1898 and 1899. Underhill appears to have gone to Paris right at the turn of the century—she was among the exhibitors at the annual 1902 AWAA show at the Girls’ Art Club. She married Harvard and Sorbonne-trained philologist John Taggart Clark in London in 1902. They had one son, John Underhill, Clark born in Paris in 1904. It is not clear if Georgia continued painting or pursued an art career after her marriage. Her husband became a professor of Romanic languages/philology, working for many years at the University of California Berkeley.
Born in Flushing, New York to British parents in 1873, Florence Kate Upton was a cartoonist and author, most known for creating the character Golliwogg, featured in a series of children’s books. At the age of 15, Upton (whose family had moved into Manhattan) began taking classes at the National Academy of Design. Her family traveled to England to visit relatives in 1893 and Florence decided to stay, working with dolls on a design for a children’s book that she hoped would supplement her income. She also published illustrations in The Strand Magazine, Idler, and Punch while in England. Florence collaborated with her mother Bertha to produce 13 volumes in the Golliwogg series. In 1896, Florence visited Holland and Paris, eventually settling in London. She gave up children’s books to pursue a career as a professional artist, exhibiting many times over the years at the Royal Academy and also in Paris. In 1902, Upton had her first work accepted into the Salon des artistes français, a watercolor portrait entitled “L’étudiante américaine.” She was listed as a student of Raphael Collin in the catalogue and her address was given as 88 boulevard de Port-Royal. The next year, at the annual 1903 AWAA show at the Girls’ Art Club, Upton exhibited a watercolor of an Italian boy; she also participated in the 1904 AWAA show but it is not clear what she displayed. She became a consistent exhibitor at the Salon des Beaux-Arts, showing works every year from 1906-1910. In 1906, it was a painting, “Le salon jaune (intérieur hollandais)” and her address was now 216 boulevard Raspail. Her painting, “Vieilles maisons ensoleillées” was exhibited in 1907 and by now Upton had been honored as an Associate of the Société nationale des Beaux-Arts. She showed the painting, "Schuilemburg" (Portrait de Mme H...)” in 1908, two paintings in 1909, “Le salon jaune (2e étude)” and “Ephemera (Les portes de Schuilenberg),” and, finally, two paintings in 1910, “Le balai bleu” and “Schuilenberg ensoleilée.” Though poor health prevented her from serving in World War I, she auctioned off her original dolls and drawings at a Red Cross fundraiser at Christie’s, which raised enough money to purchase an ambulance, named “Golliwogg,” to serve at the front in France. She died in her studio in 1922 at the age of forty-nine, following complications from surgery.
Mary Teasdel was born on Nov 6, 1863, the daughter of a successful Salt Lake City merchant. From 1882-1886, she studied music and art at the University of Deseret, with painter George Ottinger. She graduated with high honors at the age of twenty three. Although her biographical profile on the, states that she traveled to Paris in 1899 with two close artist friends, Lara Rawlins (later Chairman) and May Jennings (later Farlow), according to the Salt-Lake City Tribune, she left for Paris on September 9, 1897.
Before leaving for Paris, she studied with James T. Harwood in Utah, then attended the National Academy of Art in New York.
In Paris, she attended the Académie Julian.
She died in Los Angeles in 1937.
Van Buskirk - Zorach
V-Z
Although she served as secretary/treasurer of the American Woman's Art Association from 1900-1901, there is no further historical record on an artist named Charlotte Van Buskirk. She lived at 111 rue Notre-Dame-des-Champs.
Among the exhibitors at the December 1913 AWAA show at 4 rue de Chevreuse was an artist identified as Marietta Van de Verg. It is possible that the artist is actually Anna Carolina van den Berg (1873-1942), a painter known for her still lifes. She had studied in Paris at the Académie Colarossi. Or, perhaps Marietta is her sister or another relation. We don’t have any more information about this artist.
Born in Amsterdam, New York to Dutch parents, Mary Van der Veer (1865-1945) was a painter who specialized in portraits and landscapes, working in oils, pastels, and watercolors. She was stricken with polio as a small child and thus dealt with paralysis and spinal deformities throughout her life. Her interest in art was cultivated by her family, who sent Mary to study in New York at the National Academy of Design. She then went to Paris, training under Whistler, and also spent time in Holland. Mary lived at 4 rue de Chevreuse while in Paris, first exhibiting a self-portrait in the Salon des artistes français in 1900. Van der Veer showed her work again at the Salon in 1902, and later in 1909. She spent most of her life in Amsterdam, New York, living and working in a studio her father had built for her, though she did live for a short while in Holland after WWI, reconnecting with her Dutch heritage. A back injury later in life prevented her from painting large canvases, but she continued to produce landscapes and smaller portraits until the last years of her life.
The daughter of noted Dutch artist Hendrik Dirk Kruseman Van Elten, Elisabeth Kruseman Van Elten Duprez (1875-1934) was a painter who spent her early years training in Paris. Her first appearance in the Salon des artistes français came in 1900, when she exhibited a portrait of her father. Her address was listed as 100 rue d'Assas, just a few blocks from the Girls' Art Club and on the same street where noted artists Elizabeth Nourse and Frances Trumbull Lea also lived. A student of Collin, Courtois, and Girardot, Kruseman exhibited more paintings and drawings in 1901, 1902, 1903, 1904, 1906, 1908, and 1910. She was also active in the AWAA, serving as vice president in 1901 and exhibiting in the 1902, 1903, and 1904 shows. Records show that she married French veterinarian Albert Duprez in 1905 and they may have lived in Algeria for a time.
Rebecca Newbold Van Trump (1839-1935) was a miniaturist originally from Philadelphia. After training at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, She studied in Paris at the Académie Julian with Robert-Fleury, and also with Boulanger, A. Morot, Collin, and Courtois. One of her portrait miniatures was exhibited at the 1893 Salon des Artistes français and her work was also shown in the Woman’s Building at the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago that same year. She was listed among the miniaturists at the 1913 AWAA show at the Girls’ Art Club and it was reported that Van Trump worked out of a studio at 5 rue Nouvelle Stanislas.
Louise Venable (dates unknown) is listed among the exhibitors of watercolors, etchings, and woodcuts at the 1913 AWAA show at 4 rue de Chevreuse. She is listed in the faculty directory of Hollins Institute (now Hollins College) in Virginia for 1905-1906 as Assistant in Art for the Art & Elocution department. The directory indicates that Venable trained at the Museum of Art in Boston.
Born in Brooklyn to British parents in 1867, Isabel Vernon Cook was a painter and lecturer on art and travel. As a young woman, Vernon studied at the Adelphi Academy in Brooklyn and then at Miss Porter’s in Farmington, Connecticut. Her art training began with William Merritt Chase at the Art Students League in New York and continued in Paris, where her teachers were Lucien Simon and Jules Blanche. Vernon was among the exhibitors at the 1904 AWAA show at 4 rue de Chevreuse, where her painting, “The Japanese Print,” was displayed. A devoted traveler and proponent of women’s suffrage, Vernon lived in China, Japan, India, and London in addition to her time in Paris. In 1907, she married real estate agent Jerome Canfield Cook, a Columbia College graduate and descendant of Mayflower Pilgrims. They lived in New York at 35 Morton Street until Jerome’s death in 1936. For the rest of her life, Isabel lived and painted at Colonial Studios on W. 67th Street. Another friend and Colonial Studios resident was Harriet Sophia Phillips, a fellow suffragist and former Girls’ Art Club affiliate. Isabel Vernon Cook died in 1947 and is buried at the famed Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn in her parents’ plot.
Another artist who exhibited in the watercolors, woodcuts, and etchings section of the 1913 AWAA show at 4 rue de Chevreuse was Lillian Hazlehurst Vinton (1881- ca. 1961). Her younger sister, Pamela Vinton Strunz Ravenel (see below), also became an artist, though Pamela seems to be much more well-known than Lillian. A descendant of the prominent Latrobe family on her mother's side, Lillian spent much of her life in Baltimore, Maryland. She exhibited paintings and drawings at the 1913 and 1914 Salon des artistes français. The 1914 catalogue notes that she was born in Boston and was a student of Richard Miller.
Born in Brookline, Massachusetts to a prominent family, Pamela Vinton-Strunz Ravenel (1883-1955) grew up in Baltimore and was a painter who specialized in miniatures and portraits. She won honorable mention for her miniatures at the 1913 AWAA show and exhibited several miniatures at the 1914 Salon des Beaux Arts, while living with her older sister (Lillian Hazlehurst Vinton) as the two studied art in Paris. Pamela trained at the Maryland Institute and College of Art and was associated with the Woodstock, New York art colony as well as an art colony in St. Mary's, Georgia, where many Woodstock artists liked to summer in the 1930s and 1940s. Her first marriage was to German Hans Strunz in 1905; they lived in Dresden and had one son. Her second marriage was to St. Julien Ravenel III, grandson of Confederate physician and agricultural chemist St. Julien Ravenel.
In 1913, painter and musician Blanche Smedley Von Daur showed a Venetian scene at the December AWAA show at the Girls’ Art Club. A longtime Paris resident, Von Daur lived at 59 Avenue de Saxe, though she and her sisters were born in Ireland. Blanche and her two sisters, Sarah and Matilda, were active in establishing the American National Institute in the 1890s in Paris, a program meant to assist young American women studying the arts in Paris. A parallel organization to the Girls’ Art Club, Matilda was the longtime director of the ANI, which was incorporated in New York in 1895. In 1908, a bill was introduced in Congress to transform the American National Institute into a federal corporation. In spite of many signed petitions and testimonials, the bill never became a law and the ANI seems to have dissolved. Blanche had married the ANI’s secretary-general and fellow painter, Count Henri Von Daur, during the first decade of the 20th century. At one time, he maintained a studio at the Van Dyck Studios in New York on 8th Avenue.
Painter Edna Hays Vosburgh (1883-1972) was born in Chicago. She was in Paris in the early 20th century, when she exhibited her work at the 1904 AWAA show at the Girls’ Art Club and designed the 1907 AWAA exhibition poster (unfortunately not extant). Vosburgh, who lived at 9 rue de la Grande Chaumière, also exhibited a painting at the 1907 Salon d’Automne, “Portrait de Mlle X…” She moved back to the United States shortly after her Salon appearance, marrying Col. Bernard Henry Lentz in Denver in 1909. Lentz had trained at the US Military Academy at West Point and commanded Fort Slocum Provisional Training Center in New York during World War II, standardizing the cadence calls/system still used by the army today. He was awarded the Legion of Merit for his service during the war. The Lentzes had one son, Jerome, born in 1914. It is not clear whether Edna continued her painting/art career after her son was born.
Born in Worcester, Massachusetts, Emily Burling Waite (1887-1980) was an etcher and painter of considerable talent. She studied at the Worcester Museum Art School and won a 2-year scholarship to continue her training at the Art Students League in New York. Waite then studied from 1908-1910 at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, winning another scholarship that would enable her to spend two years in Paris. She lived at the Girls' Art Club, exhibiting two portraits at the 1911 AWAA show which were given the place of honor at the exhibition. She also showed a painting, "The Pink Dress," at the 1911 Salon des Beaux Arts. While in Europe, Waite executed her first etchings and traveled through Spain, Italy, and Czechoslovakia, spending summers in the artists' colony at Laren, Holland. Upon returning to Boston, she opened her own studio and continued to exhibit her work throughout the United States. She even painted a commissioned portrait of Supreme Court Chief Justice (and former President) William Howard Taft. Waite was married to Arthur Manchester from 1924-1931 and they resided in Newport, Rhode Island. Following her divorce, she returned with her son to her family home in Worcester, continuing to experiment with etching and painting for the rest of her life.
Known primarily as an etcher of animals, Jessie Aitchison Walker (1871-1938) grew up in New York and studied at the Art Students League before her family moved to London. She became an illustrator of children's books and magazines, discovering her passion and talent for depicting animals. Walker gave up her career as an illustrator to study at the Calderon School of Animal Painting in central London, spending a great deal of time studying, drawing, and painting at the London Zoo. Walker also went to Paris, continuing her studies at the Jardin des Plantes and improving her skills as an etcher. Her etchings were exhibited at the 1910 and 1913 Salons des Beaux Arts and she also participated in the 1910 AWAA show. A member of the Chicago Society of Etchers and a frequent exhibitor throughout her career, Walker was particularly fond of lions, tigers, cats, and dogs, whose likenesses she never tired of reproducing.
An artist identified as W. Walker is listed among the exhibitors at the 1910 AWAA show. Her identity remains a mystery.
Clara Walsh Leland (1869-1949), originally from Lockport, New York, was a painter of landscapes, figures, and portraits. Walsh lived in Lincoln, Nebraska for most of her life, but also studied at the University of Nebraska, at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, and at the Whistler School. She also trained with Mademoiselle de Chaussé and at the Académie Colarossi in Paris at the turn of the century. Walsh lived at 17 rue Boissonade and exhibited a drawing, “Tête de jeune fille” at the 1901 Salon des Artistes français. She also appears to have exhibited a painting at that year’s AWAA show at the Girls’ Art Club. She married Dean Richmond Leland and they had two daughters.
Baltimore native Jeanie Walter Walkinshaw (1885-1976) was a portraitist, figure painter, and illustrator. She studied in Paris with Lucien Simon and Emile-René Ménard for two years, from 1909-1911. Walter exhibited four paintings at the 1909 AWAA show at the Girls’ Art Club, including “Sunset in Maryland.” She returned to the United States in 1911, continuing her training with Robert Henri. She married Robert Boyd Walkinshaw in Baltimore in 1914 and the couple eventually moved to Seattle, where Jeanie was active in the arts community. They had a son and a daughter and the family remained in Seattle for several decades. In 1929, Robert published a local history of the Washington state landscape called On Puget Sound. Jeanie’s sketches were used to illustrate this work. He died in 1963 and she passed away in 1976.
Pittsburgh native Louise Cameron Walter (1881-1963) was a sculptor and painter who studied in Paris in the early 20th century. She lived at 4 rue de Chevreuse in 1906, when one of her miniatures was exhibited at that year's Salon des artistes français. The catalogue indicates that she was studying with Mme Laforge and M. Renard. In 1907, her "Portrait of Mrs. X" was shown at the American Watercolor Society exhibition in New York. Walter married electrical engineer Charles Le Geyt Fortescue in Pittsburgh around 1910; they had one daughter. Her husband was prominent in his field and he secured nearly 200 patents in his lifetime, an impressive achievement. Unfortunately, far less is known about her own career and her artistic accomplishments.
Well-known Impressionist painter Martha Walter was born in Philadelphia in 1875. Known primarily for her beach scenes of places like Coney Island, Atlantic City, and French coastal areas, Walter studied at the Pennsylvania Museum & School of Industrial Art from 1895-1898. She then trained with William Merritt Chase at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and won a Cresson traveling scholarship, which enabled her to travel for two years in Europe, mostly France, Italy, Holland, and Spain. While in Paris, Walter first studied with Simon and Ménard at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière but found them too restrictive in their classical approach so she transferred over to the Académie Julian. Walter again tired of the boundaries in these ateliers so she decided to establish her own studio on the Rue des Bagneaux with a few other American artists. In 1904, Walter had two paintings accepted into the Salon des Artistes français, “Le marché en hiver” and a portrait of an Italian woman. The next year, she exhibited several works at the 1905 AWAA show at 4 rue de Chevreuse, mostly scenes from Capri, the Amalfi Coast, and other landscapes of Italy. She embraced plein air painting and subjects during this period, returning to the United States at the beginning of World War I. Influenced by both William Merritt Chase and Eugene Boudin, Walter traveled back and forth between her studio in New York and France for many years, eventually teaching art for a while in Brittany as well as at Chase’s New York School of Art. She was an avid traveler, visiting Dalmatia, North Africa, and the Southern United States, all of which influenced her paintings. Walter continued painting until just before her death in 1976. Her work can be found at the Woodmere Art Museum and several other collections.
Elsie Ward Hering (1872-1923) was a sculptor born in Fayette, Missouri. Working mostly in bronze and other metals, Ward produced busts, reliefs, and many portraits throughout her career. Her family moved to Denver when Ward was a teenager and she became involved with the Denver Women’s Club, the Denver School of Fine Arts, and other arts associations before moving to New York. She studied at the Art Students League with Augustus Saint-Gaudens, Daniel Chester French, and Siddons Mowbray. Ward was encouraged by Saint-Gaudens to continue her art training in Paris so she went around 1899, eventually residing at the Girls’ Art Club for an unspecified period. Her famous Boy and Frog sculpture, which won a bronze medal at the 1904 St. Louis Worlds Fair and is now in the Denver Botanic Gardens, was created from a live model during her time in Paris. She worked as an assistant in the Paris studio of Saint-Gaudens and later in his Cornish, New Hampshire studio. It was in one of the Saint-Gaudens studios that she met her future husband, fellow sculptor Henry Hering, whom she married in Denver in 1910. Though Elsie had enjoyed her own successful career, including work on several major Saint-Gaudens commissions like “Seated Lincoln,” she essentially became an assistant to her husband after 1910. She died in New York City in 1923, where the Herings had lived on Irving Place for most of their marriage.
A painter mostly of still lifes, Jessie M. Washburn (1860-1942) was originally from Muscatine, Iowa. By the 1890s, Washburn had moved to Los Angeles, where she befriended fellow artist Fannie Duvall. Duvall and Washburn went to Paris around 1909 and shared an apartment while studying with Auburtin. Duvall exhibited two landscapes at the 1911 AWAA exhibition at the Girls’ Art Club. Though Washburn’s name doesn’t appear in any of the exhibition reviews, it seems likely that she too would have shown her work or was at leasted affiliated with the AWAA during her years in Paris. Upon returning to Southern California, Washburn trained with Elizabeth Borglum and was very active in the Los Angeles and Laguna Beach art communities. In addition to oil paintings and watercolors, Washburn also worked in parchment, basketry, and china painting. She died in 1942.
A painter and illustrator from Glastonbury, Connecticut, Bertha Mary Waters (1876-1902) studied in Paris around 1900-1902 with Raphael Collin, Lucien Simon, and Charles Cottet. She exhibited at the 1902 AWAA show and at the 1901 and 1902 Salon des artistes français. Her address in both Salon catalogues was 90 rue d'Assas. A short obituary published in Christian Work (volume 73, 1902, p. 406) indicates that she died of typhoid fever in Paris in September 1902 at the age of 26.
Landscape painter Catherine Watkins (1861-1947) was born in Hamilton, Ontario. She studied art first in Chicago at the Art Institute, and in Paris with Simon, Dauchez, Menard, and Miller, in Madrid with Sorolla y Bastida, and in London with Brangwyn. While in Paris, Watkins exhibited her work at the 1908, 1910, and 1911 AWAA shows at the Girls' Art Club. She also exhibited drawings at the 1910 and 1911 Salon des artistes français as well as paintings at the 1913 and 1914 Salons des Beaux Arts. WWI forced her to return to the United States and Watkins was associated with the Woodstock, NY artists' colony at that time. She later moved to California, living mostly in Los Angeles for the rest of her life, though she did spend a few years in San Francisco.
Born in San Francisco to a prominent family, Susan Watkins Serpell (1875-1913) was a well-known painter in her lifetime. When her father took a job with the New York Sun in 1890, the family was transplanted to the East Coast. Watkins studied at the Art Students League and then, after her father's death, moved to Europe with her mother in 1896, remaining there until 1910. She studied under Raphael Collin, encouraged and financially supported by her mother, who subsidized their trips to Italy, Holland, and the French countryside. Watkins exhibited paintings at the 1900 and 1906 AWAA shows and enjoyed success at the Salon des artistes français. Her first Salon appearance came in 1899, when she exhibited two paintings and a drawing, and she continued to exhibit regularly in the Salon through 1908. Though known as an excellent portrait painter, Watkins also produced remarkable interiors. When she returned to the United States in 1910, she was a highly successful artist but was very ill. She married her long-time suitor Goldsborough Serpell in 1912 but they were only together for eighteen months when Watkins died in June 1913. The high regard in which she was held in the artistic community was demonstrated when the great William Merritt Chase produced a beautiful posthumous portrait of her in 1914, now in the collection of the Chrysler Museum.
One of the artists who exhibited at the December 1913 AWAA show at the Girls’ Art Club was Helen Watkinson. In 1916, Watkinson was living in New York at 53 Washington Square and was a member/exhibitor at the MacDowell Club.
Miniature painter Anna M. Watson (dates unknown) first exhibited her work at the 1904 AWAA show at the Girls' Art Club; she also exhibited a painting and a miniature portrait at the 1910 show. Watson exhibited three miniatures at the 1902 Salon des Beaux Arts, including one portrait of fellow Girls' Club artist Imogen Coulter, and she showed three more miniatures at the 1905 Salon des Beaux Arts. At the 1910 Salon des artistes francais, Watson exhibited a miniature portrait of fellow artist Marguerite Thompson, also affiliated with the Club and the AWAA. In 1902, her address was listed as 4 rue de Chevreuse but in subsequent years she lived at 111 rue Notre-Dame-des-Champs. Further details about her life are not extant.
An artist identified as Elizabeth Watson exhibited a painting at the 1911 AWAA show of a girl picking flowers. She also participated in the 1913 and 1914 exhibitions. Unfortunately, more information about her life and career has not yet been discovered.
At the annual 1896 AWAA exhibition, painter Phebe D. Watt showed one work, a canvas entitled in "In Bosnia." She was apparently from Philadelphia and exhibited some watercolors alongside Cecilia Beaux at an 1885 show at the Boston Art Club's Galleries.
Zoe Belle Weaver, at Club in 1912
Sculptor Mary Hortense Webster was born in Oberlin, Ohio in 1881. She took drawing and painting classes at Oberlin College and also studied painting at the Art Academy of Cincinnati. Webster went to Europe and enrolled at the Académie Julian. Webster was among the summer students of George Hitchcock in Egmond, Holland. After completing her painting studies, Webster decided to focus fully on sculpture. She studied with Lorado Taft at the Art Institute of Chicago, eventually settling in that city to live and work as Taft’s studio assistant. While in Paris, Webster exhibited sculptures at AWAA exhibitions in 1905 and 1906. In 1905, she showed a sculpted head of an old man; in 1906, she showed another head, called “The Dreamer.” Webster was also a Salon exhibitor. She showed a bronze bust, “Reverie,” at the 1906 Salon des Artistes français. After returning from Europe, Webster taught art in various schools in Pennsylvania, Minnesota, and Portland. She died in 1965 at age 83.
Painter and suffragist Cora Alice Weeks (1863-1951) was born in Wisconsin to a family of Norwegian immigrants. Weeks initially studied art in Boston and then in New York at the Art Students League. She exhibited a portrait of "Miss B" at the 1895 Salon des Beaux Arts while training under Merson and living at the Girls' Art Club. Though her work was also exhibited at the Art Institute of Chicago and at the National Academy of Design in New York, the real passion in her life was women's suffrage. After a 1917 protest in front of the White House, Weeks was arrested and sent to prison, enduring deplorable conditions and embarking on a hunger strike that ravaged her body. She was arrested again in 1919 after burning President Wilson in effigy and served more time in a Washington, D.C. jail. Not much is known about her later life, though she was living in New York in the 1930s.
A talented artist from a Jewish family in Philadelphia, Gertrude Weil (ca. 1869-1897) sent shock waves through the American colony in Paris when she committed suicide in the summer of 1897, drowning herself in the Seine. An article in the Indianapolis News (June 23, 1897) noted that she had last been sketching on the banks of the Seine on June 12 and had (allegedly) mentioned suicide to other art students. Weil studied at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts from 1892-1895 and then spent time at the Art Students League in New York before coming to Paris. Just a few months before her death, the poster she designed advertising the Académie Vitti had been prominently displayed at the entrance to the AWAA exhibition, her work praised by the reviewer for Quartier Latin who panned the rest of the show.
Boston native Mary Fraser Wesselhoeft (1873-1971) was a graphic artist, watercolorist, and stained glass artist. She studied at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston before going abroad. Mary exhibited watercolors at the 1910 AWAA show at the Girls' Art Club and had shown a drypoint print and a design for stained glass at the 1909 Salon des artistes francais. While in Paris, she lived at 3 rue Campagne-Première and studied with Castelucho, Courtois, and Collin. Throughout her career, Wesselhoeft worked in New York, Cambridge, MA, and Santa Barbara, California. Many considered her an artist of the American West, as she often depicted New Mexican and Californian landscapes as well as Native Americans. Her stained glass was particularly praised for her use of color and modern techniques. She executed several church windows throughout the United States, including a rose window at the Unitarian church in Santa Barbara.
Among the artists who exhibited their work at the 1895 AWAA show at the Girls' Art Club was Sarah Jesse West (1866-1920). She also showed three drawings at the 1895 Salon des Beaux Arts. Originally from Toledo, Ohio, West had studied at the Art Students League in New York and then at the Académie Delécluse, residing at 4 rue de Chevreuse while in Paris. Records show that she was an instructor at the Toledo Museum of Art in the early 20th century and spent summers on Put-in-bay Island, Lake Erie, where she taught sketch classes.
Born in Canfield, Ohio, painter and art teacher Mary Minerva Wetmore (1867-1940) spent many years training in the United States and in Europe. Wetmore studied first at the Cleveland Art School, then at the Art Students League in New York with William Merritt Chase, at the Philadelphia School of Design for Women, and at the Mark Hopkins Institute in San Francisco from 1897-1898. She then went abroad, studying at the Academie Julian with J.P. Laurens and Benjamin Constant, and at the Academie Colarossi with Raphael Collin and Gustave Courtois. While in Paris, Wetmore lived at 4 rue de Chevreuse and exhibited a painted portrait of an old woman at the 1900 Salon des artistes français as well as a portrait of a little girl at the 1901 Salon des artistes français. Upon returning to the United States, Wetmore lived for many years in Chicago and taught at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Collector, art patron, and sculptor Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney (1875-1942) is one of the most significant figures in the history of modern art. Born into a wealthy family, she married into another wealthy family, ensuring her place as one of the great socialites in the Western world. But her passion for art was the main focus of her life and, in addition to being an accomplished sculptor, she devoted her fortune in 1931 to the creation of The Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City, a monumental achievement. As a young newlywed, Whitney was living in Paris just before WWI, and shared the top prize with Mrs. Maud Miriam Noel (the future second wife of architect Frank Lloyd Wright) at the AWAA's 1914 sculpture exhibition at 4 rue de Chevreuse. She also exhibited her work at the 1911 and 1912 Salons des Beaux Arts and at the 1913 Salon des artistes français.
Painter Emma Cheves Wilkins (1870-1956) was a lifelong resident of Savannah, Georgia whose mother (also named Emma Cheves Wilkins) and grandmother (Charlotte McCord Cheves) were academically-trained miniaturists. Along with her friend Lucile Desbouillons Murphy, Wilkins trained with Carl Brandt at the Telfair Academy of Arts and Sciences before spending the summer of 1895 in Paris. They lived at the Girls’ Art Club and studied with Gustave Courtois at the Académie Colarossi. The two women also worked in ateliers at the Académie Delécluse and received criticism from gallery owner Bernard Boutet de Monvel. Wilkins was dismayed at the modern turn in French art which she viewed at the Salons and employed a more traditional approach in her own portraits, still lifes, and naturalistic landscapes. She earned a living in Savannah through commissioned portraits of prominents citizens, though Wilkins also painted deceased historical figures with deep connections to the South, like Confederate General Robert E. Lee and John Wesley, founder of the Methodist church. Never married, Wilkins was a dedicated teacher who was committed to preserving the legacy of the arts in the South. She even developed a census of paintings that is now part of the Frick Art Reference Library. Wilkins was well-known in her day and exhibited in New York, Savannah, and Charleston, including shows at the Telfair Academy, where she held various positions over the years. Her work can be seen at the Telfair Museum of Art, Morris Museum of Art, and Armstrong State University and her personal papers are held by the Georgia Historical Society in Savannah.
Born in Hartford, Connecticut, tonalist and Impressionist painter Mary Rogers Williams (1857-1907) was known for paintings of her European travels as well as New England scenes, all with high horizons. She studied with James Wells Champney (father of Girls' Club miniaturist Marie Champney Humphreys) and with William Merritt Chase at the Art Students League in New York before taking a job as an art instructor at Smith College, second-in-command to Dwight William Tryon. Williams worked at Smith from 1888 to 1906. She spent every summer in Europe and was able to live in Paris from 1898-1899 in a flat at 6 rue Boissonade, returning for another year there in 1906-1907. Williams exhibited her work at both the 1898 and 1907 AWAA shows at 4 rue de Chevreuse, claiming in letters home that the Club's director, Miss Acly, had raved about her three pastels from the 1898 show. She also exhibited 3 pastels at the 1899 Salon des Beaux-Arts, perhaps the very same works that Miss Acly had supposedly adored. Williams attended Club teas, visiting with friends from Smith like Mary and Julia Gulliver, but she criticized the Club in her correspondence: "It was smelly and dirty and chilly and too many females. ...Isn't it sad to be so fastidious, and to mind smells and bad food. It makes living in Paris expensive, for you have to pay to be clean. ...would not live there if they'd give me the whole place" (Kahn 107). Her death came about suddenly in 1907: she was diagnosed with abdominal tumors in Florence, Italy and died just a few days later. Williams is buried in the English cemetery in Florence and her extensive archive of correspondence and diaries is in a private collection that is promised to Smith College.
Alta Eliza Wilmot, a painter, miniaturist, and art instructor, was born in Ann Arbor, Michigan in 1852. A student of Julian Alden Weir, Wilmot lived in New York in the 1880s, studying art at Cooper Union. She then went to Paris and trained with Courtois, Rixens, Prinet, and Blanc. At the 1890 Salon des Artistes français, Wilmot exhibited an aquarelle, “Portrait of Miss F.” Her address in the Salon catalogue was 203 boulevard Raspail. Wilmot was still in Paris nearly a decade later, when she was listed among the exhibitors at the December 1899 AWAA show at the Girls’ Art Club. She returned to the United States and lived in New York, joining the community of artists in residence at the Van Dyck Studios. Apparently, Wilmot took up miniatures when she became deaf, working in the studio of Aime Dupont, first official photographer of the Metropolitan Opera. One of Wilmot’s miniature portrait subjects was the famed author Mark Twain, whose likeness she captured around 1895-1900. Wilmot’s activities in her later years are unknown. She died around 1930.
A miniature painter from St. Louis, Missouri, Adele Winckler-Schmidt (dates unknown) studied at the St. Louis Museum of Fine Arts, where she won several medals for her achievements in 1903. Winckler also won a bronze medal for a miniature at the St. Louis Exposition in 1904. She was in Paris around 1904, exhibiting miniatures at the AWAA show at 4 rue de Chevreuse, and she later exhibited a painting at the 1910 Salon des artistes français. The 1910 Salon catalogue listed her address as 2 rue Leopold-Robert and her teachers in Paris as Richard Miller and Jacques-Emile Blanche. She was married some time after 1910, as her entry in volume 10 of the American Art Directory for 1913-1914 lists her as Mrs. Adele Winckler-Schmidt and records her new address in London.
Painter and illustrator Eleanor C.A. Winslow was born in Norwich, Connecticut in 1877. She apparently studied at the Art Students League in New York and then with Whistler in Paris. Winslow was identified as one of the artists at the 6th annual AWAA show in December 1899 held at the Girls’ Art Club- but only her last name was listed and no details were given on the works she showed. Later in life, she was identified as an art restorer for paintings (ca. 1939) but it is unclear how she trained to do this work. Winslow was known to be a member of the National Association of Women and Painters and Sculptors.
An elocutionist named Letti Wise was listed among the 4 rue de Chevreuse residents in the 1896 Indicateur guide to Paris.
Painter, illustrator, and art teacher M. Louise Wood (1875- ?), known later as Mrs. John Wright, was born in Philadelphia. She studied at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts before going to Paris, where she trained at the Academie Julian and with Whistler. She also lived for a time in London, studying with F.W. Jackson. In 1902, while in Paris, she exhibited portraits at the annual AWAA show. Her first Salon appearance came in 1900, when she showed a miniature at the Salon des artistes français; the Catalogue indicates that she was studying miniature painting with Noemi Schmitt. She also exhibited a painting at the 1901 Salon des artistes français and 3 drawings at the 1902 Salon des Beaux Arts. She continued exhibiting her work in the United States well into the 1930s.
Born in Washington, D.C. in 1873, Virginia Hargraves Wood Goddard was a painter known to be associated with the so-called Peconic Bay Impressionists, a group of artists on Long Island. Wood’s specialty was portrait painting and one of her most well-known subjects was Gertrude Stein, whose likeness she painted when Stein was very old. Wood had trained with William Merritt Chase in New York and then went to Europe. In 1907, Virginia Wood exhibited some drawings, a pastel portrait of “Miss L.C.,” and a painting, “Monday in Holland” at the annual AWAA show at 4 rue de Chevreuse. Virginia’s brother, Waddy Wood, was a major architect and designer in the U.S. in the 20th century.
Pittsburgh native Anna Woodward was a painter born in 1868. She traveled to Paris as a young woman, accompanied by her mother, and enrolled at the Académie Julian, training with Robert-Fleury, Jules Joseph Lefebvre, and Bouguereau. She also joined a summer art colony in Egmond, Holland, where George Hitchcock was her teacher. During her time in Paris, Woodward exhibited a painting, “Green Pitcher,” at the 1907 annual AWAA show at the Girls’ Art Club. She was also an exhibitor at the 1905 Salon des Artistes français, showing a painting, “La cruche verte.” Her address in the Salon catalogue was given as 22 rue de Châteaudun, chez M. Lemoine. A few years earlier, in 1898, she showed two paintings at the Salon, “Le sabot cassé” and “Récolte des pommes de terre; Holland.” Her address in 1898 was 18 rue Clément-Marot. Woodward remained in Paris for several years, an active member of the Union des Femmes Peintres et Sculpteurs. She stayed through World War I, but severe conditions in Europe led her to be diagnosed with malnutrition and a heart condition, necessitating a move to a warmer climate. Woodward traveled to Africa and then to Hawaii, settling into a studio in Waikiki. She was known for her landscapes, including a number of paintings and illustrations produced for the Hawaii-based magazine, Paradise of the Pacific in the 1920s and 1930s. After nearly two decades in Hawaii, Woodward died in 1935 at the age of 67; her remains were transported back to Pittsburgh for burial.
An artist identified only by a last name, Wrekinson, showed a study for a painting, “First Communion, at the 1895 AWAA show at 4 rue de Chevreuse. Research so far has not enabled us to uncover the true identity of this artist.
Born in Albany, New York, Alice Morgan Wright (1881-1975) was a sculptor, suffragist, animal rights activist, and a writer. One of the first American artists to embrace Cubism and Futurism, her sculptures are strikingly modern and evocative. Wright attended Smith College, graduating in 1904, and studied in New York at the Art Students League from 1905-1909. She then traveled to Paris, living for a time at 4 rue de Chevreuse, and participating in AWAA exhibitions in 1910, 1911, 1913, and 1914. Her first Salon appearance came in 1910, when she exhibited a plaster sculpture of Cain at the Salon des artistes français. She also exhibited sculptures at the 1913 and 1914 Salons des artistes français and at the 1912 Salon des Beaux Arts. Around 1912, Wright shared a studio a 45 rue Vandamme with fellow sculptor and Girls' Club affiliate Elizabeth Edmond. Wright's commitment to suffrage was constant and she was active in the movement in New York, Paris, and in London, where she was arrested for breaking a window and sentenced to two months of hard labor in Holloway Prison. She protested with a hunger strike and was eventually released. Wright returned to New York in 1914, opening a studio in MacDougal Alley, consistently exhibiting her work and agitating for women's suffrage. She eventually returned to Albany with her partner, Edith J. Goode, and the two founded the National Humane Society (now the Humane Society of the United States) to advocate for animal rights.
A miniature painter from an old Baltimore family, Mary Lyttleton Wyatt (dates unknown) was active in the early 20th century. She studied art at the Maryland Institute, then spent a year in Brussels, and finally went to Paris around 1900-1901 to study with Mme Debillemont-Chardon. Wyatt also trained with Raphael Collin and M. Prinet to improve her skills at drawing. She first exhibited a miniature at the 1902 Salon des artistes français, listing her address at the time as 4 rue de Chevreuse. Subsequent Salon appearances came in 1903, 1904, 1907, 1908, 1909, 1910, 1912, and 1914. Wyatt also showed miniatures at the 1910 and 1913 AWAA exhibitions at the Girls' Art Club. Sadly, her 1910 miniature portrait of Mrs. Whitelaw Reid, exhibited at the Club, is not extant. She earned her reputation and made a living from executing miniature portraits of wealthy Americans in Europe, but also spent a great deal of time copying paintings at the Louvre and other major museums, reproducing them in miniature.
Born in Potter, New York in 1842, Emily Lourya Wyman was an accomplished teacher and artist. She had studied and taught at art Cornell University in the 1860s and 1870s, before going abroad to continue her training. While in Europe, Wyman studied in Paris, honing her skill as a portrait and landscape painter. This young artist moved in important circles, supposedly even impressing the noted art critic John Ruskin with her ability to imitate Turner’s style. Like so many other young Americans studying in Paris, she found time to travel as well, publishing a short essay about visiting London Tower for The Ladies’ Repository in November 1872. She eventually returned to the United States and taught art for 14 years at the Wesleyan Academy in Wilbraham, Massachusetts. Retirement seems to have enabled her to travel back to Europe, where she lived for a time at 164 rue de Vaugirard. Wyman participated in at least two AWAA exhibitions, the 6th annual show in 1899 and the February 1905 sketch show, where she showed a portrait and a view of Val de Grace. Illness or old age brough her back to her hometown of Potter, where she died in 1919.
Born in Evanston, Illinois, artist and illustrator Florence Wyman Ivins (1881-1948) moved to France as a young woman with her mother and sister when her parents separated. She was in Paris around 1905 and was listed among the notable exhibitors at the AWAA show at 4 rue de Chevreuse. When she married William Mills Ivins, Jr. (curator at The Metropolitan Museum of Art) around 1910, Wyman was already working professionally as a watercolor portraitist and book illustrator. Perhaps due to her marital connections, Wyman has the distinction of being the first woman artist given a solo exhibition at The Met in July 1921. Though it should be noted that her exhibition was installed in the Education Department, not in the museum’s galleries, likely because her woodcuts, watercolors, and drawings were made for children, it is a still a striking achievement. Her affiliation with the museum continued for a number of years, as she designed the posters for Children’s Story Hours and a number of covers for the museum’s Children’s Bulletin.
A prominent sculptor from Louisville, Kentucky, Enid Yandell (1869-1934) produced public monuments, portrait busts, and garden pieces, including fountains, throughout her career. She attended Hampton College and then began studying at the Cincinnati Art Academy in 1887. She embarked on a tour of Europe in 1891 after graduation and then returned to the United States to work with Lorado Taft and other artists at the 1893 Columbian Exposition in Chicago. She and her female counterparts who worked for two years on the Exposition were nicknamed the "White Rabbits" and some of them, including Yandell, authored a semi-autobiographical account of their experiences in 1892, Three Girls in a Flat. She received a number of commissions in the U.S. before sailing with her sister Elsie to Paris in the winter of 1894. While in Paris, Yandell studied with MacMonnies, sought advice from Rodin, and lived for a time at the Girls' Art Club before moving to her studio, adjoining that of Mr. MacMonnies, in the Impasse du Maine. In 1895, she exhibited 4 sculpture portraits at the fourth Annual Exhibition of the AWAA. In 1898, Yandell became the first woman to join the National Sculpture Society, shortly before producing her evocative "Kiss Tankard" for Tiffany & Co. in 1899, now in the collection at RISD. The Tankard was exhibited in the American Fine Arts Exhibit at the 1900 Exposition universelle in Paris.
Yandell's Salon appearances began in 1896, when she showed two sculptures (one of her sister Elsie) at the Salon de la Société nationale des Beaux-Arts. She returned to the U.S. in May 1897. She exhibited at the Salon des Artistes français in 1897, 1898, 1899, 1905, and 1914. She also exhibited once more at the Salon de la Societé nationale des Beaux-arts in 1904. Yandell eventually returned to the United States, participating with two sculptures in the landmark 1913 Armory show in New York, and died in 1934 in Boston.
A miniature painter active in the early 20th century, Caroline S. Yardley (dates unknown) showed her work at the 1904 AWAA exhibition and exhibited two miniatures at the 1905 Salon des artistes français. She was a member of the Pennsylvania Society of Miniature Painters but little else is known about her life and career.
C. Edwina Yerby, graduate of Fisk University
Born in Colorado Springs around 1887 or 1889, Gladys G. Young was the daughter of a prominent Western painter, Henry Otis Young. Although most biographical accounts of her life note that she worked as an ambulance driver in France during World War I, we know that she was in Paris even before the war, because she was listed as an exhibitor at the December 1913 AWAA show at 4 rue de Chevreuse. It seems that while in Paris, Young studied painting with André Lhote. Young worked in several media, painting watercolors and oils but also experimenting with etching and drawing in charcoal. She lived most of her adult life in New York City and summered in Provincetown, Massachusetts. In August 1940, Young showed three works at one of the large exhibitions hosted by the Provincetown Art Association; she was on the Association’s Trustees. Young also served as a the president of the New York Society of Women Artists in 1945 (and perhaps other years). She remained active in the New York art scene until the end of her life, when she died in 1974.
Pennsylvania native Emilie Zeckwer Dooner (1877-?) was a craftsman and painter who married fellow Pennsylvania artist Richard Dooner. She studied at the Drexel Institute and at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, winning a Cresson Traveling Scholarship from PAFA that enabled her to go abroad. While in Paris, Zeckwer exhibited three paintings at the 1904 AWAA show, "Afternoon Tea at the American Girls Club" (sadly not extant), "The Capucine," and "Memories of Italy." She was a member of a number of Pennsylvania arts association and a frequent exhibitor during her life, though she is not as well-known in the 21st century.
Painter and textile designer Marguerite Thompson Zorach (1887-1968) was born in Santa Rosa, California. While much of her repute has been overshadowed by the fame of her husband, sculptor William Zorach, she earned critical acclaim in the early 1910s and 1920s for her modern work. Today, she is lauded as a significant American Fauvist painter, graphic designer, and textile artist. Though she initially enrolled at Stanford University, Marguerite opted to forego her degree and travel to Paris to join her aunt, an amateur painter, teacher, and friend of Gertrude Stein. Marguerite befriended fellow artist Anne Goldthwaite, was inspired by the works she saw at the Salon d'Automne, and studied at the post-Impressionist Académie de la Palette with Jacques-Emile Blanche, where she met her future husband. Thompson exhibited her work at the 1910 AWAA show and a miniature portrait of her by Anna Watson was shown at the 1910 Salon des artistes francais. Thompson also exhibited an etching at the 1910 Salon des artistes francais as well as a number of works at the 1911 Salon des Independants.
Sources
Many sources were consulted when compiling this index. Salon catalogs, exhibition reviews, and articles from The New York Herald (Paris edition) as well as regional American newspapers are listed on the AWAA Exhibitions page.