Art for All
An exhibition at the Columbus Museum of Art brings watercolorist Alice Schille back to life in time for her 150th birthday
Through September 29
Columbus Museum of Art 480 E. Broad Street Columbus, OH 43215 t: (614) 221-6801 www.columbusmuseum.org
Now considered the “American medium,” watercolor painting was once reserved for women, children, amateurs and commercial artists, not to be taken seriously as a respectable art form.
But, as Kathleen A. Foster, senior curator of American art at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, writes, “...the disdain for watercolor faded as the energy of a new society and the liberality of its exhibitions won recruits from across the American art world, including women who had learned the technique at home as girls.”
At the forefront of this movement was Alice Schille (1869-1955), who pursued a career in watercolor painting before it became a medium for all. On view through September 29, In a New Light:alice Schille and the American Watercolor Movement at the Columbus Museum of Art reexamines the work of the prolific artist just in time for her 150th birthday.
Although her contributions to the art world were largely forgotten after World War II, Schille was one of the most celebrated American watercolorists during the 20th century. “Ambition and remarkable skill were required for any artist to succeed on a national scale, but particularly for an unmarried woman from a small city in the Midwest,” says Tara Keny,
guest curator of In a New Light and the Modern Women’s Fund curatorial assistant in the department of drawings and prints at The Museum of Modern Art.“alice Schille’s remarkable aptitude for watercolor, her intellect and her passion for the arts contributed to her lifelong success. She was really a wonderfully curious, talented and tenacious artist.” After graduating from the Columbus Art School in 1893, Schille moved to Newyork to attend both the
Art Students League and the Chase School of Art, where she studied figure drawing with Kenyon Cox and painting with William Merritt Chase. Impressed by her work, Chase exchanged one of his own paintings for her work Boating Days, and later
purchased her watercolor Interrupted Work from the 15th Annual Exhibition of Watercolors and Pastels at the Art Club of Philadelphia. Schille went on to receive a scholarship to attend one of America’s largest and most well-known late19th-century plein air summer schools, The Shinnecock Hills Summer School of Art, which was directed by Chase. In 1903, she moved to Paris, France, enrolling in courses at the Académie Colarossi—one of the few schools at the time that admitted women and allowed nude figure drawing of both male and female models. During this time, she also took private lessons with Raphael Collin, René-xavier Prinet, Gustave Courtois and Chase.
“Schille saw the rising status of
watercolor painting coincide with the proliferation of new exhibition venues and art schools that welcomed women,” writes Foster.“many of these schools were led by women, such as the watercolorist Rhoda Holmes Nicholls, or my liberal-minded men, such as William Merritt Chase…”
From 1905 through 1914, she returned to Europe for summer painting trips across France, Holland, Belgium, Dalmatia and England— sometimes traveling alone, and sometimes traveling with fellow artists like Olive Rush and Martha Walter. “She’s traveling the world to be at the forefront of her field,” says
Keny, adding that In a New Light was organized geographically to illustrate Schille’s many travels and her “incredible concept of place.”
“She has this way of utilizing so many techniques that you can tell she’s visited all these major museums in Europe, but she does it her own way,” says Keny.“they’re just so alive and dynamic, combining pointillism and post impressionism, but she does it in her own way. She very much adapts her style to the place that she’s painting.” While Schille continued to travel throughout her career painting daily life in New Mexico, Central America and North America and chronicling her journeys along the way, she called Columbus her home, frequently returning to the Midwest to share the techniques she learned abroad.“she was very dedicated to her students in Columbus,” Keny says.
An early supporter of the feminist movement, Schille is perhaps bestknown for her watercolor Mother and Child in a Garden, France, which she submitted to Macbeth Gallery in New York City for its 1915 fundraising exhibition for women’s suffrage.the work, which depicts a doting mother sitting in a wicker chair in her garden holding her child, is an example of her aptitude for depicting a difficult subject, childhood imagery, with ease.
“It was this very public statement,” Keny says, adding,“using imagery of
children in the show emphasized the generational importance of the cause.” Schille’s involvement in the exhibition caught the attention of several notable publications, garnering her high praise that she would continue to earn throughout her career, which spanned until her retirement in 1948. “It was alarming how many articles on Schille I found throughout my research,” says Keny, who helped write a 100-page catalogue on Schille for
In A New Light, along with James
Keny and Foster. Keny explains that the majority of these articles were unavailable until recent years when they became digitized.“i think her reception will be surprising to people,” she adds. “She was known as one of the best American watercolor painters alive, and I want people to see that—bring her back to life both as a painter and someone who really made an impact on other artists and critics alike.”