Gertrude Partington, 1875 - 1959
British-American etcher, illustrator, and landscape painter Gertrude Partington Albright was born on September 11, 1875 to artist John Herbert Evelyn Partington and Sarah Mottershead in Heysham, England. While most accounts attribute 1874 as her birth date, her petition for naturalization clearly identifies 1875. Her family emigrated to the United States in 1889 and settled in Oakland, California, where her father became a national success for his pen and ink work. One of her three brothers, Richard, also became a renowned illustrator, with a studio in Piedmont, California. Two of her three sisters were noted musicians.
Except for a few lengthy trips abroad, Gertrude remained in the Bay area for her entire life. As a young girl, she was mainly home-schooled and demonstrated her artistic talents at an early age:
Gertrude was definitely interested in art, but, although several attempts were made to give her a formal art schooling, she refused all instruction but that of her father. She felt she could not concentrate in the midst of a class room and so studied and progressed with her father with the result that she was only sixteen when her first art work was sold (Hailey 32).
In her early twenties, she produced illustrations, mostly portraits and courtroom sketches, for the San Francisco Examiner and Scribners (1895, 1896), but also for thematic souvenir calendars that were sold commercially and enjoyed great success (1897, 1898, 1899). She and her brother Richard both taught day and evening classes for several years at the Partington School of Magazine and Newspaper Illustration, founded by their father in 1895. In her early twenties, Gertrude exhibited some pen and ink drawings with the San Francisco Art Association (1895), at the Exposition Building (1897), at the Press Club Rooms (1898), and she drew sketches of Monterey where she and her mother had vacationed (Oakland Tribune, April 24, 1897, p.4). Gertrude’s portraiture was especially praised – and that praise would only increase in years to come, since she was said to make faithful reproductions of her sitters that also captured the essence of their personalities:
Gertrude Partington’s "Portrait," 117, is one of great strength. The subject was an admirable one for a characterful portrait and the accomplished artist fully improved her opportunity. A more vigorous, assertive example of portraiture is seldom seen (Sacramento Daily Union, September 16, 1897, np).
In 1899, Gertrude's father died suddenly of heart failure at the age of 54. At the time, she was in London, working for Thomas Wanamaker’s newspaper, The North American. She traveled to Paris in August 1900 with The San Francisco Call reporter and friend Alice Rix to work for Century Magazine and further pursue her art studies. For the magazine, she mainly produced illustrations of the 1900 Exposition Universelle. Gertrude initially resided at the Girls’ Art Club, but also had a studio at 7 cité Falguière in the 15th arrondissement. It appears that she and Oakland organist Virginia de Fremery “had taken rooms together” in 1901 (Oakland Tribune, April 25, 1901, p. 4), but their place of residence is unknown. In December 1902, Gertrude and a friend traveled by train to Madrid, about which she sent a lengthy description to the San Francisco Call and Post (December 30, 1902, p. 6), followed by a trip to Italy.
In Paris, Gertrude enrolled at the Académie Delécluse for a few months, adding painting and drypoint etching to her set of artistic skills. She also studied under painter and illustrator René-Xavier Prinet who took a special interest in her work and felt she had a bright future ahead of her (San Francisco Call, August 4, 1903, p. 6). She showed her painting “Pan Joyeux” at the 1903 Salon des Beaux Arts, where other members of American Woman’s Art Association (AWAA) were also represented (Elizabeth Nourse, Florence Esté, Grace Gassette, Lucy Lee-Robbins, and Ethel Sands). She sold this painting to the Carnegie Museum in Pittsburgh (1906) after it was shown in their 10th annual exhibition (November 1905-January 1906).
Gertrude returned to California in the summer of 1903, where she opened a studio in San Francisco. In October, she exhibited three paintings she had completed in Paris at the Vickery, an interior design firm and art gallery: “Laughing Pan,” “Madame Parisienne,” and “The Weavers.” She also contributed a full-page illustration to the Christmas edition of Sunset Magazine. Gertrude went back to Paris in 1906 under the patronage of John Wanamaker, and sent home etchings and oil portraits to be exhibited at Memorial Hall in Philadelphia. It is certain that she stayed at the Girls’ Art Club in February 1906:
Again the feminine love for bargain hunting proves what real girls they all are. A constant patter on the steps brings out the fact that one’s next door neighbor has announced a sale of studio effects on the bulletin board that morning. You can get things wonderfully cheap from that board if you only hit what you want – therein lies the great trouble. However, the sales are always worth investigating, and such is the general opinion. I believe the lot I have in mind went to Miss Gertrude Partington for a mere song. She had just arrived (after an absence of four years in America) to work in the Louvre and to make some more of those wonderful pen and ink portraits, so like etchings that won her fame at the Salon of 1902 [sic]. It was quite a reunion when Miss Partington came (Times Herald, February 18, 1906, p. 32).
For the 1906 AWAA show at 4 rue de Chevreuse, she showed “[...] a little canvas, the scene of which is laid in Florence, along the Arno [...] with a good effect of the rears of tall houses abutting on the river” (New York Herald, February 18, 1906, p. 3).
Gertrude traveled back to the U.S. in November 1907 in order to complete several commissions for a contest of “beautiful American women” contracted by John Wanamaker and Philadelphia art dealers. Her plans were completely upended when she arrived in San Francisco, as one of her sisters suddenly passed away in early December. She remained in California until at least April 1908, executing portrait commissions in Arizona and contributing illustrations to McClure’s Magazine (1907) and later Sunset Magazine (December 1908). She also exhibited several drypoint portraits at the Paul Elder art store (February 1908), including one of Mercedes da Cordoba, which she had completed in Paris, and a number of portraits “representing a variety of types of American Beauty” – notably that of Marie Louisa Wanamaker, the 11-year-old granddaughter of her faithful patron John Wanamaker (San Francisco Examiner, February 23, 1908, p. 44). In April, Gertrude’s drypoint portrait of Mercedes was featured in an exhibition at the Ruskin Art Club, facing one by famed French painter and drypoint etcher Paul César Helleu, whose work she was said to rival.
It is difficult to track Gertrude’s whereabouts after April 1908, though several newspapers indicate that she had planned to return to France that month. Her mother died on October 26, 1908, and she may have had to postpone her French trip or return early for the funeral. Although most secondary sources date her return to San Francisco in 1912, her 1936 United States naturalization form lists 1907 as the last time she left Paris to return to the U.S.
Gertrude was definitely in San Francisco in 1909, since she attended the trial of Patrick Calhoun, President of the United Railroads, in January and sketched courtroom scenes for the Examiner.
Sometime during that year, she opened a painting and printmaking studio on Russian Hill, where she executed and exhibited a life-size portrait of Virgilia Bogue, the Queen of the Portola Festival, who sat for her in the studio (October 1909). Amid the controversy that arose around another portrait of Bogue completed at about the same time by Jules Mersfelder, Bogue responded:
“I posed for Miss Partington [...] and she is the only artist in San Francisco who has any right to paint my picture. As for Mersfeld, I never sat for him [he based his portrait on a photograph of Bogue]; I know nothing about this portrait, and I do not care to. I am thoroughly satisfied with Miss Partington’s work” (The Evening Mail, October 5, 1909, p. 3).
A review of Gertrude Partington's accomplishments was published by Margaret Marshall Doyle in the San Francisco Call and Post:
Gertrude Partington whose clever painting of Virgilia Bogue has been receiving the greatest praise for the last fortnight since it was first exhibited at the St. Francis, contemplates doing a series of portraits this fall and winter. What renders this artist’s work doubly attractive is that she succeeds not only with her brush and palette in the faithful portrayal of likenesses, but she is even more skillful with her dry point [sic] sketches, a number of which are on view in her home. [...] and as she is one of the only three artists in the world who do dry point etching her studies in this line are all the more invaluable. [...] and she is certainly to be congratulated on the point of perfection to which she has brought her talents in this line (October 31, 1909, p. 30).
There are no records of Gertrude’s activities in 1910 but a brief notice in the Los Angeles Herald claims she was studying in Paris (October 28, 1911).
Her name appears again in San Francisco newspapers in July 1911, when she attended a luncheon of the Outdoor Club. In December, Gertrude sent invitations to an exhibit at her studio at 220 Post Street, Nob Hill. She showed paintings of San Francisco Bay, foothills, Mount Tamalpais, the waterfront, and Chinatown, as well as drypoint portraits, including one of Cecil Kern, who had specifically come from the East coast to sit for her. She organized another studio exhibition of her latest work (50 paintings and etchings) in December 1913. After each show, she sent her work to be exhibited in New York. A reporter who visited her studio in 1912 described her approach to painting:
Miss Gertrude Partington has recently sent a number of canvases to New York, where they are to be exhibited later on. She is busy at present sketching on the water front and elsewhere and has a formidable number of canvases started at her studio. None of these, however, is carried beyond the preliminary stage of the ground tone, with the composition roughly blocked in and a few notes of color. Miss Partington is in the habit of keeping a dozen or more paintings "going" at the same time, working on this one or that as the fancy – or perhaps It would be more precise to say the mood – strikes her. In the case of one of her "starts," it is already possible to discern the promise of an interesting picture. It is to be a scene in Chinatown on a rainy afternoon. As far as one can Judge from this vague foreshadowing, it bids fair to realize the opportunities offered in composition and in color (San Francisco Call, July 14, 1912, p. 55).
Between 1914 and 1917, she exhibited a drypoint portrait with the California Society of Etchers, won a bronze medal at the Panama-Pacific Exhibition (1915) for her portrait painting of her relative Mrs. Jack Allen Partington titled “La Estrellita.” She also exhibited at the Golden Gate Park Museum (April 1915).
Gertrude married German artist Herman Albright in August 1917 and soon began promoting his work:
Among the artists she helped promote was her husband, who had turned his photographic skill toward painting. He had often teased her about modern art and when he began to paint to prove he could do as well as many, she found him talented and sincere in his art understanding. He therefore spent his spare time sketching alone or with her and in April of 1918 H. Oliver Albright gave his first exhibit of his oil paintings and has since attained professional standing (Hailey 38).
She joined the faculty of the California School of Fine Arts in the academic year 1917-1918, teaching classes in etching and costume and figure sketching. Much later, in fall 1932, she was appointed associate professor of painting and drawing by the Regents of the University of California.
In February 1918, Gertrude served on a committee of the San Francisco Art Association to promote local art activities, annual exhibitions, and traveling exhibitions. She also sat several times on the "Jury" of exhibits organized by the San Francisco Art Association and the San Francisco Society of Women Artists.
Besides teaching and embarking on weekend sketching jaunts around San Francisco with her husband and other artists, she showed her work in exhibitions staged at San Francisco museums (M. H. de Young Memorial Museum at Golden Gate Park), art galleries (Tolerton, Beaux Arts), clubs (Sequoia, Commercial), the California School of Fine Arts, the Palace of the Legion of Honor. Most were organized by the California Society of Etchers (of which she was a charter member), the Seattle Fine Arts Society, and the San Francisco Society of Women Artists.
After years of teaching, painting, etching, and exhibiting, Gertrude Partington Albright died at the age of 85 in September 1959, five years after the death of her husband.