Edna Boies Hopkins, 1872 – 1937

Research and text by Jacqueline Yu, B.A. in Art History and East Asian Languages and Culture, Columbia University in the City of New York, 2024. Columbia Global Virtual Intern, 2023 – 2024.

Poynter, William B. Edna Boies Hopkins. Gelatin silver print. Cincinnati Art Museum

Edna Boies Hopkins was born Edna Bel Beachboard in Hudson, Michigan on October 13, 1872. She was the daughter of Clotilda C. Sawyer and David J. Beachboard, the Vice President of the Boise State Savings Bank. Edna grew up in a wealthy and well-respected family but her early life was not free from tragedy. In 1887, her older brother Earl James Beachboard died of diptheria at the age of 16, leaving Edna an only child. In 1892, she married John Henry Boies, a banker eight years her senior and a member of an influential local family. The young couple moved to Chicago in hopes of furthering John’s career; however, just two years later, John would succumb to tuberculosis (Vasseur 1-2). 

Newly widowed, Edna moved to Ohio to study at the Art Academy of Cincinnati (CAA). From 1894 to 1898, she refined her skills in woodcarving, drawing, and illustration. She also befriended Ethel Mars, Maud Hunt Squire, and her future husband, James R. Hopkins (Mary Ryan Gallery 1). After graduating from CAA, Boies relocated to Manhattan to study at the Pratt Institute. It was there, under the tutelage of Arthur Wesley Dow, that she became interested in printmaking, specifically in the Japanese tradition. On her school registration card, Dow described Boies’ work as “very satisfactory – deeply in earnest” (Vasseur 3). In 1900, Boies began teaching design and composition at the Veltin School for Girls. Building on her studies at the CAA and Pratt as well as her own research into Japanese design, she created rich lecture plans while simultaneously drafting ideas for book-covers, lampshades, and jewelry. Her book-jacket illustrations were included in a 1902 exhibition at Pratt. 

Edna Boies Hopkins, Asters and Dahlias
Edna Boies Hopkins, Asters and Dahlias
Edna Boies Hopkins, Asters and Dahlias
Edna Boies Hopkins, Asters and Dahlias
Edna Boies Hopkins, Datura
Edna Boies Hopkins, Datura
Edna Boies Hopkins, Fuchias
Edna Boies Hopkins, Fuchias

In 1904, Edna Boies married James R. Hopkins. As a wedding gift, her father funded the couple’s honeymoon trip around the world. From 1904 to 1905, they traveled to Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), India, China, Egypt, Italy, and most extensively, Japan (Mary Ryan Gallery 1). Edna was quick to incorporate her travel experiences into her artistic practice. Like Japanese masters, she designed her own artist stamp to be printed in red in the lower corners of each work. She also subscribed to Japanese conventions of composition, prioritizing asymmetrical natural subjects set against a simple, neutral background (Vasseur 9).

After completing their world tour, Edna and James settled in Paris. Surrounded by the artistic avant-garde, Edna was inspired to experiment with her own style. By 1910, her friendship with Claude Monet and her repeated visits to his garden led her to employ richer, darker color palettes (Vasseur 13). Edna’s Japanese-inspired woodcuts were popular at the Paris salons. From 1907 to 1914, she exhibited repeatedly with the Société Nationale des Beaux Arts, the Société Internationale des Gravures en Couleurs, the Société de la Gravure Originale sur Bois, the Société de Salon d’Automne, and the Société des Artistes Décorateurs (Mary Ryan Gallery 21). During this time, her prints were acquired by the Bibliothèque d’Art et d'Archéologie via Jacques Doucet in Paris, the Museum fur Kunst und Gewerbe in Berlin, the National Museum in Stockholm, and the Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool (Vasseur 15). In 1913, she exhibited twice with the AWAA at 4 rue de Chevreuse, even earning an honorable mention in the December show (“American Women’s Work Exhibition Opens in Paris” 2). The following year, she served on the hanging committee for the February exhibition alongside her old friends Ethel Mars and Maud Hunt Squire (“American Women Artists Show Pictures of Merit” 2). Outside of her busy exhibition schedule, Edna and her husband frequently traveled throughout France and Europe, visiting the Italian Riviera, Montargis, and Breton among other places.

Hopkins, Edna Boies, Montagnes eneigées, n.d. color woodcut.
Hopkins, Edna Boies, Montagnes eneigées, n.d. color woodcut.
Hopkins, Edna Boies, n.d. color woodcut.
Hopkins, Edna Boies, n.d. color woodcut.
Hopkins, Edna Boies, Two Women on a Hill, n.d. color woodcut.
Hopkins, Edna Boies, Two Women on a Hill, n.d. color woodcut.

When World War I broke out, the Hopkinses, like many of their expat peers, returned to the United States. James found a job teaching at the Art Academy of Cincinnati, tying himself to Ohio for the year. Edna, on the other hand, traveled extensively: to visit her father in Michigan, to work in her studio in New York, and to vacation at her cottage in Maine. Edna went on to spend many of her summers amid the thriving artistic community of Provincetown, Massachusetts, teaching printmaking classes and socializing with Mars, Squire, Mildred McMillen, and Ada Gilmore (Mary Ryan Gallery 3). In 1915, Edna was one of the early adopters of Bror Julius Olsson Nordfeldt’s white line/one block woodcut technique, which came to define the famed “Provincetown Printers” of this period. Nordfeldt’s efficient, color-heavy approach revolutionized Hopkins’ artistic practice, and she experimented heavily with the technique over the next few years. She famously employed the white-line in a famed series of prints depicting the mountaineers and landscapes of the Cumberland Mountain Gap in Kentucky. Created after a trip with her husband, these works were Edna’s first major departure from floral imagery and, given their rural subject matter, were an important precursor to the regionalist art movement in the 1930s and 40s.

Edna’s robust production of prints was matched by an equally robust exhibition schedule. She had two solo exhibitions in 1916 and 1917, one at the Berlin Photographic Company and the other at the Cincinnati Art Museum (Mary Ryan Gallery 21). The latter resulted in the purchase of fourteen of her prints by the museum (Vasseur 23). She also showed at the Pacific International Exhibition in San Francisco, the Detroit Institute of Arts, the Chicago Society of Etchers, the Boston Art Club, the Brooks Reed Gallery, the Brown-Robertson Gallery, and the Cincinnati Woman’s Art Club. Her success as an artist did not shield her from the realities of wartime America. In 1918, James was drafted and sent for training in Louisville, Kentucky. Concurrently, Edna worked as a “reconstruction aide,” teaching crafts to injured soldiers returning from the front. She also worked for a brief stint manufacturing munitions at the Du Pont Engineering Company. The war ended soon after and, by 1919, James was appointed head of the Art Academy of Cincinnati, replacing Frank Duveneck (Vasseur 24).

Hopkins, Edna Boies, Poivrier, n.d. color woodcut.
Hopkins, Edna Boies, Poivrier, n.d. color woodcut.
Hopkins, Edna Boies, Phlox, n.d. color woodcut.
Hopkins, Edna Boies, Phlox, n.d. color woodcut.
Hopkins, Edna Boies, Rose tremière, n.d. color woodcut.
Hopkins, Edna Boies, Rose tremière, n.d. color woodcut.
Hopkins, Edna Boies, n.d. color woodcut.
Hopkins, Edna Boies, n.d. color woodcut.

Edna and James remained in America until April 1921, when they returned to Paris and attempted to resume their prewar life. Although she still exhibited at the 1921 and 1922 Salons of the Société de la Gravure sur Bois Originale as well as the 1922 Salon d’Automne, Edna produced far less work and focused more on an abstract, modern style than in years past (Vasseur 25). Perhaps dissatisfied with the reduced social scene and the changing environment, only two years later, the Hopkinses would leave Paris for Ohio once again. This time, James accepted a position as Artist in Residence at The Ohio State University, which quickly turned into an appointment as Chairman of the new art department. Edna continued her frequent voyages, adding Paris to her rotation of destinations. During the summer of 1923, she returned once more to Provincetown to teach a class at a summer school hosted by her husband (Vasseur 26).

After 1923, it is unclear if Edna continued to produce work. She is recorded taking drawing classes at the Art Academy of Cincinnati in both 1925 and 1929, but there are no extant pieces from this period (Vasseur 28). It is speculated that Edna’s artistic practice was incapacitated by arthritis (Mary Ryan Gallery 3), and her mobility issues were exacerbated when, in 1931, she broke her wrist in a car accident in Florida (Vasseur 28).

Edna Boies Hopkins passed away on March 24th, 1937 in Detroit after battling numerous illnesses. In a 1986 exhibition catalog for Mary Ryan Gallery, Hopkins is described as a woman “unhampered by the rigors of turn-of-the-century travel or social convention” who “lived a life of constant exploration on both a personal and an artistic level” (1).