Making History
Hawthorne Fine Art’s latest exhibition surveys the contributions of American women artists to the fine arts throughout the decades
Featuring the work of both established and emerging artists, Triumphant Lives:american Women Artists (1795-1950) at Hawthorne Fine Art illuminates the contributions of women to the fine arts from colonial America through the midcentury modernism period. Ranging from the Hudson River School to American impressionism and beyond, the still lifes, landscapes and portraits exhibited illustrate the progression of styles and subjects these women handled from each new artistic movement to the next.
“I am delighted to see this discovery of hidden talents and the use of true connoisseurship to evaluate a work by its merit versus the status of the artist,” says Jennifer C. Krieger, managing partner at Hawthorne
Fine Art. She adds that she hopes the exhibition shows “how talented and successful these women were in spite of the encumbrances and obstacles they faced.”
One such obstacle was access to formal training, since most academic institutions did not open their doors to women artists until the late 19th century.“if a formal education was not accessible, then male artists would assist in their informal training,” explains Krieger.“these artists were often related as fathers, brothers or friends of the family.”
This is how Ellen Wallace Sharples (1769-1849)—wife of portrait artist James Sharples—trained.after moving to Philadelphia, the couple began associating in elite American circles where they made contacts with figures such as George and Martha
Washington, James Madison and Alexander Hamilton. Ellen once wrote in her diary that she began copying her husband’s work so they could generate more income. She was also known to have sat in on his sessions with his subjects—possibly even drawing them herself. Included in Triumphant Lives is her painting Portrait of George Washington, completed circa 1800.This is just one of her many works depicting the president, which include watercolors, pastel drawings and even silk needlework.
Catherine W. Newhall (1840-1917) is exceptional among the women artists of the mid-19th century as she was given formal training at Cooper Union (formerly known as the Cooper Institute), where she studied from 1963 to 1964. During her residency in Brooklyn, New York, in the 1860s and 1870s, Newhall became known for her signature brushy New England landscapes, including Lake George. “Her works reflect the polish of her artistic training in their careful use of perspective and refinement of detail,” says Krieger.
Among the lesser-known artists in the
exhibition is Ida Stebbins, born in 1851, who painted View of South
Pond, New York in 1879. Born in Massachusetts, Stebbins had a natural inclination toward New England and the Hudson River Valley, though the only known retrospective of her work took place at the Wisconsin University Club in 1948.
Triumphant Lives also features the work of Dorothea Litzinger and modernist painters Wilhelmina Weber Furlong, Jane Peterson and Grace Cochrane Sanger.
Sanger’s oil The Red Cloche shows a lanky woman in profile wearing a bright red-orange hat and cloak while surrounded by nature that has also been dabbled with red dots.the effect of total submersion in bright, overwhelming shades reveals the influence of French
modernists like Paul Gauguin and Henri Matisse. “When we unwrapped The Red Cloche, we unexpectedly found a handwritten note attached to the stretcher bearing the thoughts of the artist: ‘I am painting a girl in a beautiful dress that changes from yellow to blue, but I have to keep remembering that it isn’t a dress I’m concerned with but a piece of light.’ It offered such a rare opportunity to glimpse into the thoughts of the artist and her ambitions,” says Krieger.
Another featured work, The Artist, by 19thcentury painter Benoni Irwin gives insight into how women of this time dressed and composed themselves—his figure portrayed as a pensive, serious and true “artiste.”
Triumphant Lives: American Women Artists (17951950) will be on display at Hawthorne Fine Art’s Newyork showroom through January 18, 2020.