G.F. Watts: Upon His Death

"Emily Tennyson, Wife of Lord Alfred Tennyson"
by G.F. Watts

"Upon the death of G.F. Watts on July 1, 1904, recognition was generous. In the newspapers the tributes to him were many, and critical words were absent. To the private service which took place in the studio at Little Holland House, on the Sunday evening, when he lay there for the last time, the Archbishop of Canterbury came to officiate, and on July 7 a memorial service was held at St. Paul's, where a great concourse of friends and strangers gathered to pay a reverent farewell. During the week the casket lay in the chapel at Compton, heaped about with signs of love and reverence, and once a day the bell upon which he had had inscribed 'Be my voice neither feared nor forgotten' was tolled. On Friday July 8 his ashes were laid in the Compton graveyard. All was in harmony, nature serenely radiant, and such lovely voices as he would have liked to hear sang words of praise and farewell, while just beyond the labourers were at work ploughing fresh furrows for the harvest of another year.

As far as was possible all his expressed wishes were, and are still being carried out. The collection of his pictures in his private gallery remains intact, and has been much augmented, and also the necessary additions to this gallery have been made. Although it was never at any time his intention to bequeath to the nation work that was not included in the class he called 'ethical reflections,' as to do this on the ground of artistic merit would, he often maintained, be great presumption on his part, there were pictures for which he had mentioned certain destinations. 

Not long after his death the President of the Royal Academy, Sir Edward Poynter, took the initial step to form a committee to consider a public memorial for Watts. However, at or before a preliminary meeting, a letter was shown to Sir Edward Poynter, which had been written by Watts before his death, confiding to him the strong personal objection he had to this idea. Only when his reiterated desires which had been expressed to his wife on this subject were added, was the matter finally abandoned. His friends thus regarded his great wish, that only after centuries of critical opinion had been passed upon his work should such a national distinction be bestowed. He used to say that only then, all bias of friendship on the one hand, and on the other all feeling of obligation to subscribe would have been removed by time."

To be continued

(Excerpts from "George Frederic Watts" by Mary S. Watts.)

G.F. Watts: One Last Time

"Sir Galahad" by G.F. Watts

"G.F. Watts had a presentiment that he would die in the year 1904. On May 16th I saw him in the crowded Queen's Hall when Joachim was receiving the ovation of thousands on the occasion of his jubilee. As I spoke to Watts the feeling came to me that the end was near. It was not that he looked more ill - indeed I have seen him at times look more weary and more exhausted; but there was on that evening the peculiar look of failing life in the face which is unmistakable. Among the stalwart musicians and the vigorous physiques of the important personages gathered together, he looked so very small - so pathetically fragile. He seemed to be conscious of some incongruity, for he began saying to me apologetically, 'No personal motive would have brought me here...' I lost the rest as I had to move on to introduce a friend to Joachim.

I am glad that was not the last time I saw Watts. This was some ten days later, when he was working in his garden on the figure of his equestrian statue, 'Vital Energy.' Very old he looked, but the light in the eye was kindled afresh with the fire of aspiration as he laboured on. Yes, he was right when he wrote but a few weeks before, 'I think aspiration will remain as long as there is consciousness.' 

Every struggling to improve - the hope, the effort seemed to impart new life. Working away in a peasant's smock, he was eager as ever to reach a something which he aspired to as the best, but which seemed to elude him as the mountain summit eludes the traveller - that farthest summit which rises ever beyond the height attained!

There on the same lawn where nearly thirty years ago we had stood together before the design in embryo, which now, when eighty-seven years old, he was trying to improve - on that evening when he had so eagerly exclaimed "...One thing alone I possess, and I never remember the time I was without it - an aim towards the highest, the best, and a burning desire to reach it!' There on the same spot I saw him for the last time."

To be continued

(Excerpts from "G.F. Watts: Reminiscences," 1906, by Mrs. Russell Barrington.)

G.F. Watts: Friendship with Frederic Leighton

"Portrait of Frederic Leighton" by G.F. Watts

"G.F. Watts was in Surrey when artist and president of the Royal Academy, Frederic Leighton died. Watts wrote the same day: 'This is dreadful!... No one will ever know such another. Alas! alas! alas!' Further on in the letter he said that the loss to the world was so great, that he almost felt ashamed to let his personal grief have so large a place, but he had enjoyed an uninterrupted and affectionate friendship of five-and-forty years with Leighton, and this was a great sadness for him. He ended by writing that, for the moment, he felt as if he could never go up the Academy steps again.

Watts was one of the first artists to settle in the Holland Park area, moving into Little Holland House with Sara and Thoby Prinsep in the 1850s. His stay was only meant to be temporary, but he ended up living with the family for around 20 years, establishing a studio in the house. It was here that Watts and Leighton probably first met, and it was Watts’s proximity at Little Holland House that encouraged Leighton to purchase the lease on the plot of land on Holland Park Road in 1864 to build his own house and studio. 

As neighbours, the two would often call on each other using a gate that connected their gardens. Mary Watts, the artist's second wife, wrote: 'Scarcely a day passed without a meeting between the two brothers-in-art; and young people coming home from their balls in London would often come across Leighton running in, soon after dawn, to have a few words with Signor [Watts] before the day's work began.' At Leighton House, Watts’ portrait of Leighton was displayed prominently on the staircase of his home for the rest of his life and can still be found in the same location today. His landscape "Haystacks" hung in Leighton's drawing room, along with works by Corot and Constable.

And every picture Leighton painted was a subject of the greatest interest to Watts. When referring to them he would say, that Leighton's paintings and statues were 'achievements,' his own were only 'suggestions.' Watts maintained that Leighton's drawings and sketches in chalk and pencil were as fine or finer than anything of the kind that had ever been done in the past or in the present. 

Watts' admired the man's character as well. He described Leighton as having 'A magnificent intellectual capacity, an unerring and instantaneous spring upon the point to unravel, a generosity, a sympathy, a tact (perhaps one of the most valuable qualities in our modern times), a lovable and sweet reasonableness, yet no weakness. . . . For my own part, I tell you life can never be the same to me again.'

They both believed that an artist's character was essential to the quality of his work. Leighton reflected on this in a lecture in 1881 by concluding: 'Believe me, whatever of dignity, whatever of strength we have within us, will dignify and will make strong the labour of our hands; whatever littleness degrades our spirit, will lessen them and drag them down. Whatever noble fire is in our hearts will burn also in our work. Whatever purity is ours will chasten and exalt it, for as we are, so our work is, and what we sow in our lives, that, beyond a doubt, we shall reap for good or for ill in the strengthening or defacing of whatever gifts have fallen to our lot.'"

To be continued

(Excerpts from "G.F. Watts: Reminiscences," 1906, by Mrs. Russell Barrington and from "Friends in Art: G.F. Watts and Leighton" from the Watts Gallery Artists Village blogpost. .)

G.F. Watts: Paolo and Francesca

"Paolo and Francesco" by G.F. Watts
1872-1884 . Oil on canvas, 60"x 50.98"

"G.F. Watts was captivated by the subject of Paolo and Francesca and painted the subject four times over a period of four decades. The couple were adulterous lovers in Dante's 'Inferno', part of his 14th-century epic poem the Divine Comedy. When their affair was discovered, they were murdered by Giovanni, Francesca's husband and Paolo's brother. Condemned to the Second Circle of Hell, the lovers were doomed to spend eternity in the black winds of the underworld. In this final and most complete version of his four works, the exhausted lovers still hold each other tenderly.

The portion of Dante's poem that inspired this image was: 

Th' Infernal hurricane, that knows no sleep,
Propels the spirits with its ruinous force,
Whirls, smites, torments them in its reckless sweep.
As through the air doves to the cherished nest,
With wings firm set and wide expanded, fly,
By loving instinct borne along, and press'd,
So forth came these from Dido's company,
Speeding their way through the dim air malign
So potent spake the tender, loving cry.'

The artist endeavoured to record in the countenances of these lovers their hopeless, tender love abiding through endless suffering; the passion of love imprinted for ever on their souls. Francesca's head leans on her lover's shoulder. Both faces are dimmed by the ashy pallor of a death passed through. With joined hands and arms clasped round each other, they are being whirled like faded leaves before the wind, their drapery caught back into the turbid currents.

Dante so far respected their passion that, in ordaining their punishment, he spares them at least the pain of separation. This picture and the 'Fata Morgana,' are the only two the G.F. Watts ever painted which are simply illustrations of written poems.

To be continued

(Excerpts from "G.F. Watts: Reminiscences," 1906, by Mrs. Russell Barrington.)

G.F. Watts: Story of "Choosing"

"Choosing" by G.F. Watts

 

The story behind "Choosing" 

"The strength of feeling evoked in George Frederic Watts by his first wife, actress Ellen Terry, is evident in this small, almost devotional, painting that celebrates her youthful beauty. It is at once a portrait and an allegory: Ellen must choose between the spectacular yet scentless camellias to which she inclines, and the small bunch of sweet-smelling violets cradled in her left hand. Whilst the latter symbolise innocence and simplicity the former signify worldly vanities, in this instance the empty vanity of the theatre, from which the artist sought to rescue her. A legal document produced at the time of their divorce in 1877 records his motivation for the marriage: ‘although considerably older than his intended wife he admired her very much, and hoped to influence, guide and cultivate a very artistic and peculiar nature and to remove an impulsive young girl from the dangers and temptations of the stage’. 

The marriage ceremony took place on 20 February 1864 at St. Barnabas Church in Kensington, an event Terry clearly recalled in her 1908 memoir: ‘The day of my wedding was very cold. Like most women, I always remember what I was wearing on the important occasions of my life. On that day I wore a brown silk gown which had been designed by William Holman Hunt, and a quilted white bonnet with a sprig of orange-blossom, and I was wrapped in a beautiful Indian shawl.’ The same Renaissance-style dress is worn by Ellen in this portrait, which was probably executed soon after the wedding. 

The marriage began positively. Ellen claimed that for the length of their union and her retirement from the stage ‘I never had one single pang of regret for the theatre. This may not do me credit, but it is true.’ Instead, she greatly enjoyed modelling for Watts in his studio. Her presence triggered a period of artistic productivity and she sat for a succession of portraits and subject pictures. It is clear from studying these works that beyond his protective instincts, the nature of the artist’s interest was deeply romantic.

The portrait was finished by April 1864, when it was exhibited at the Royal Academy under the title 'Choosing.' At this stage the painting had already been purchased by Thomas Eustace Smith MP, who saw it on a visit to Watts’s studio and asked to buy it. The artist agreed but requested that he be allowed to keep the picture for a time, presumably to send it to the Summer Exhibition, where it was well received. Tom Taylor, who had introduced Terry to her husband, devoted a section of his review in 'The Times' to its praise: ‘It is an almost solitary example here of the poetry of painting and its harmony of hue and tender suavity of line transform the trivial yet not ungraceful little incident into an idyll which delights the eye and stamps itself on the memory.’

Unfortunately the relationship was to break down within a year. A major factor was the 30-year age gap; the wedding took place a week before Ellen’s seventeenth birthday and just as Watts was about to turn 47. Her youthful exuberance and natural high spirits were at odds with the quiet dignity of the middle-aged artist. By the beginning of 1865, tensions between Watts and Terry had developed to the extent that a deed of separation was drawn up and signed on 26 January. Robertson argued that the couple ‘were much misrepresented to each other by kind friends, and they both knew it afterwards. 

But of course they could never have settled comfortably down together. To marry Ellen was an absurd thing for any man to do. He might as well marry the dawn or the twilight or any other evanescent and elusive loveliness of nature. Despite the failure of her first marriage, Terry harboured no ill-feeling towards the union and according to Robertson 'Choosing' remained her ‘favourite of all the portraits painted of her’.

To be continued

(Excerpts from the National Portrait Gallery's catalog entry on "Choosing" by Elizabeth Heath.)  Elizabeth Heath

G.F. Watts: Materials

"Hope" by G.F. Watts

"G.F. Watts went to Windsor & Newton for his colours, and from the first had given them strict instructions never to send him any colour, even if he had ordered it, which was not known to be absolutely safe. He gave me the book which Windsor & Newton had published giving the analyses of the colours and how to use them with safety, 'Field's Chromatography; or, Treatise on Colours and Pigments as used by Artists' by Thomas W. Salter. 

Watts committed one wholesale piece of extravagance. He had bought a large bottle of pure ultramarine (ground lapis lazuli) in the powder. He used no blue but this, thinking every other inferior and less precious in quality. Not only were the colors but the grounds subjects of endless experiments by Watts. The quality he disliked most was that of an oily 'painty' surface. He was long seeking for a ground which would at the same time be absorbent and safe. He tried canvasses rubbed over with gesso, but found the gesso was apt to work up into the paint. He also tried painting on an absolutely raw canvass without any preparation whatever; but this entailed too lengthy a process for ordinary work, the mere getting the colour on involving so much labour.

Often he would paint over his canvasses with some colour which would be opposed to the tone he intended a picture to have, on the same principle followed by the artists who painted the famous old Venetian and Cordovan leather. They spread a silver ground for designs which were to be carried out in gold, and a gold ground for designs which were to be carried out in silver. 

Watts dried the oil out of his colours by putting them on blotting paper, reducing them to a texture like putty by keeping them under water. His colours, when he used them, were nearly as dry as pastel, but without, of course, the crumbling quality.

Quite new brushes were, he said, almost useless to him. He would wear the outside bristles down on a background, or by merely rubbing them on a hard surface till they became a stiff little pyramid the shape of a stump used for chalk drawings, and then they became great treasures. He said he believed the worst thing to paint with was a paint brush, 'except the wrong end'! He would use a paper or leather stump or the handle of an old toothbrush filed down to a point, but the best of all, he thought, was the finger.

When the putty-like pigment which he put on the canvass in distinct touches was nearly dry, he would sometimes take a paper-knife, and, using the flat part, would rub it over the touches, smearing them together. He would not touch the painting again till the smeared surface was quite dry. Then he would work partially over it. In this way he contrived to get a bloom of atmosphere into his painting, a quality which he invariably aimed at.

Watts possessed an extraordinary amount of ingenuity, and thoroughly enjoyed using it, the actual playing with the paint being a source of great interest and pleasure to him."

To be continued

(Excerpts from "G.F. Watts: Reminiscences," 1906, by Mrs. Russell Barrington.)

G.F. Watts: Sculpture

G.F. Watts working on "Physical Energy"

In early student days, before Watts went to Italy, he had become familiarized with the modern methods of sculpture while frequenting Behne's studio, where he drew from the antique casts of which he found there. As soon as the Elgin Marbles had been placed in the British Museum, Watts paid frequent visits to these matchless sculptures from his rooms in Charlotte Street. In this way he obtained his best training in the understanding of noble form from sculpture before he received his best inspirations from the paintings he saw while in Italy. But it was only after he returned from Italy that he began actually to work at sculpture. Whilst there he had seen great artwork in sculpture and painting from the masters Orgagna, Leonardo da Vinci, and Michaelangelo. 

In his sculptor's studio attached to the new Little Holland House, the conditions in which his work was carried on were delightful to him. His large works, like 'Physical Energy' were begun with a small model which was then cast.  Then his assistants would follow the proportions and build a strong full-size skeleton of wood and metal to support the weight of the final model. This armature would usually be hung with loops of wire and criss-cross pieces of wood to grip the modelling material better. A large photo in the Sculpture Gallery shows 'Physical Energy' in progress with its original wooden supports. Watts had the internal armature of the legs made with joints so he could change their position as his ideas evolved. 

Then with his team, he would model the final sculpture. Usually, Victorians modelled in clay, but this had to be kept damp with wet blankets while the sculpture was in progress to stop it drying and cracking. However any contact with damp, or even damp in the atmosphere, gave Watts rheumatism. In wet weather he could not work at all in his sculptor's studio. Happily, an Italian assistant, Fabbrucci, introduced him to Gesso Grosso which he used for his big sculptures. It was a mixture of chalk, glue and fibre, which can be allowed to dry out, then carved into or supplemented with more gesso. Using this instead of clay, his problem with rheumatism was overcome. These large sculptures, meant to be displayed outdoors, were mounted on trolleys and run out on rails into his garden, so that for the most part it was in the open air that he worked on them.

Two years before his death in 1902 when he was 85, the sculpture was cast in bronze. Watts gave the statue of 'Physical Energy' to the British government as a 'symbol of that restless impulse to seek the still unachieved in the domain of material things.' The government then had it erected as part of the Rhodes Memorial near Cape Town, South Africa. Other casts, both large and small, were made and put on display, fulfilling Watt's desire that his art would serve as an inspiration to the nation.

To be continued

(Excerpts from "G.F. Watts: Reminiscences," 1906, by Mrs. Russell Barrington; Wikipedia article on "Physical Energy (Sculpture)"; and from "George Frederic Watts' Sculptural Techniques" by Hilary Underwood.)

G.F. Watts: Italy

"Edith Villiers, later Countess of Lytton"
by G.F. Watts

"As George Frederic Watts described his early life to me, he talked of his stay in Italy while the guest of Lord and Lady Holland, which came about in this wise. He had been given a letter of introduction to Lord Holland, but being absorbed in the wonders of art in beautiful Florence, had not thought to present it till the day before he intended to leave. Upon doing so, Lord Holland asked him to dinner, and this resulted in his remaining as Lord Holland's guest for four years. He became as one of the family.

He met those whose work was linked with the important interests of the world. He felt an echo in his own nature to those larger views which are developed by important responsibilities, living the while in that gracious Italy whose buildings, paintings, sculptures all still are evidences that the culture of beauty in olden days held a place in the governing of the country and in grave matters of State; that the influence of the Arts was ever present to lend a grace to the action of all classes. His own aims were encouraged and strengthened, and his ambition kindled, to place the art of his country on the same level which was claimed for her in the truly greatest civilizations.

In the great art of Italy he found better teachers than any he had had. Italian art awoke the fervour, the feeling for grace and distinction latent in his nature. It was Titian's painting which inspired his greatest admiration. He told me he was always seeing 'Titian in nature.' One evening as we were standing on the lawn in his garden at Little Holland House and the warm light of late afternoon was weaving threads of glowing gold through the branches of a group of thorn trees, I remember Watts exclaimed, 'There, is that not Titian?"

The paintings done in Italy, and during the first years after his return, evinced Watts' natural love of brilliant colour and his exceptional power of drawing, but hardly his own nature and temperament.While staying with the Hollands he drew and painted many pictures of their friends. Even in those where the work in pencil was generally small and delicate, a sense of style and size is to be traced. But neither the paintings nor the drawings, nor the work he sent home for competition for the prizes offered by the Royal Commission, showed the full genius of his individuality. The aims and serious intentions he wished to carry out in his work necessitated the independence and the solitude which he could only fully command if he lived alone."

To be continued

(Excerpts from "G.F. Watts: Reminiscences," 1906, by Mrs. Russell Barrington.)

G.F. Watts: Purpose

"Margaret Elizabeth Hughes" by G.F. Watts

G.F. Watts had built his new house in Melbury Road, in one respect, on the same plan as that on which Leighton had built his house in Holland Park Road. To obviate any possibility of staying guests there was only one bedroom, besides those for servants. Watts had gone even one step further, since there was also but one sitting room, the rest of the ground floor being occupied by three painting studios and one sculptor's studio. Shortly before the time we became his neighbours, Watts had had to face life from a fresh point of view. Circumstances had occurred which made him more than ever desirous of consecrating the whole of his life to his work. 

The aims and ambitions which had from the first guided his art, had strengthened as his gifts ripened. He repeatedly told us that his sole desire was to give his entire life unremittingly and with single-hearted earnestness to his work - to use his gifts in the cause of raising art to the same level of culture in England as that on which great poetry and great music stand. No less from patriotic than from artistic aspirations did Watts long to see the art of England placed in the first rank among the serious concerns and interests of his country.

He said: 'If I were asked to choose whether I would like to do something good, as the world judges popular art, and receive personally great credit for it, or, as an alternative, to produce something which should rank with the very best, taking a place with the art of Pheidias or Titian, with the highest poetry and the most elevating music, and remain unknown as the perpetrator of the work, I should choose the latter.' Whatever else I did or did not find in Watts during the many years of our friendship, unwavering consistency in aiming at the highest, and unvarying industry in endeavouring to reach it, was the keynote of his art."

To be continued

(Excerpts from "G.F. Watts: Reminiscences," 1906, by Mrs. Russell Barrington.)

G.F. Watts: Seeing the Good

"Self-Portrait Aged Seventeen," 1834
by G.F. Watts

"It was at Freshwater that G.F. Watts gave me my first lesson. I was painting a pretty thatched cottage in one of the lanes when he opened his little garden gate and stood over my easel. I remember his saying I had painted the old chimney of the cottage as the Venetians would have painted it - cleanly and frankly with no smudge edges. Besides desiring always to see the best in everything, Watts had a natural gift for doing so. This gave a very flattering tone to his criticisms, and these have at times unfortunately raised hopes never to be realized. It was not insincerity which made him say nice things. It was a genuine wish to discover anything that might be good in it, combined with an absence of the critical faculty. 

The mistake he made was, I think, that, having a habit of mind which depreciated his own work, he did not realize the weight which every word he spoke had in the minds of students, who not unnaturally exaggerated the value of the performances he had praised. I do not remember being over-elated by Watts' kindness, for I had just got far enough to know that I could paint nothing as I wanted to paint it, and being critical by nature, I had within myself my harshest fault-finder. But his sympathy with me in my small efforts certainly tended to make us friends. 

When we were leaving Freshwater, he asked us not to forget to come to see him in his studio in the new Little Holland House which he had built in Melbury Road. So I took him the work I was doing, and we had long talks together, in which he explained to me very exhaustively his views about his own art."

To be continued

(Excerpts from "G.F. Watts: Reminiscences," 1906, by Mrs. Russell Barrington.)

G. F. Watts: Introduced in the Studio of Rossetti

"Lady Lilith" by Dante Gabriel Rossetti

"A long time ago - so long ago it seems almost to belong to a previous existence - I was sitting one afternoon in Rossetti's studio watching him painting on the 'Lady Lilith.' My first master, not counting the schoolroom drawing master, was Ruskin, who was very kind to me.  He had advised me, if I could get the chance of studying with Mr. Arthur Hughes, to do so. This delightful artist, belonging to the pre-Raphaelite school, consented to take me as a pupil. As part of my art education he took me from time to time to Rossetti's studio.  On this particular afternoon the picture just completed, 'The Beloved,' was placed on an easel in the middle of the studio for a few friends to view. As I watched Rossetti painting on the 'Lady Lilith' and listened as he talked to me about art, I thought I had never before heard any voice of the same curiously beautiful deep-toned quality. I sat very happily watching his brush and listening to him.

The door opened, and a party, consisting of one man and a few ladies, came in to see the newly-finished picture. The man absorbed all my attention. Habited in a long sealskin coat he was small but in no wise insignificant - on the contrary, he was distinguished in appearance. His face was handsome, with a serious countenance suggesting a latent weariness and melancholy hidden under a crust of reserve. His words were few, but he gazed intently at the new picture. From something Rossetti had said when they entered the room I had realized that this quiet self-contained personality belonged to G. F. Watts.

I had only then seen on the walls of the Academy, his painting on panel called 'Choosing,' a picture which once seen is never forgotten. It was enough to single him apart from ordinary mortals. I was young, and art was my passion, so I felt greatly excited and interested in watching the perpetrator of this exquisite work. From the corner behind the canvas of the 'Lady Lilith,' I watched his party come and go."

To be continued

(Excerpts from "G.F. Watts: Reminiscences," 1906, by Mrs. Russell Barrington.)

Anders Zorn: Some Personal Recollections . Pt. 3

"Midsummer Dance" by Anders Zorn

"After tea we went across to the small house which Anders Zorn had built for his mother, and met the old lady, perfectly charming in her Dalecarlian peasant dress with white headcloth. She used to spend much of her time on sunny days sitting outside the door, smoking an old iron pipe, and she worshipped her son.

Midsummer's day throughout Sweden is a public holiday. Upon all the hilltops and in all the villages, maypoles are erected and the people spend the whole of the daylight night in dancing. At Mora, no dancing would begin, nor would the maypole be erected, until Zorn appeared. He was certainly the 'uncrowned king' of Dalarne; and his charities and good deeds throughout the district were uncountable. It is entirely due to his influence that the picturesque costumes of the peasantry have never been discarded, and it is to be hoped that his memory may be kept alive by their retention.

He had been failing in health for some weeks, but the illness of which he died was sudden. Dr. Helling was called, and found that it was too late. An operation was performed as a last chance - but he sank under it. He was sensible almost till the last, but at 1 a.m. unconsciousness supervened and his hands began to go through the motions of painting. He spoke of colours, and of Liten, his little dog, and quietly passed away. As an artist he is a loss to the world; but as a man his death will leave an unfillable void in the heart of every Dalecarlian."

(Excerpts from "Anders Zorn: Some Personal Recollections" in "The International Studio," 1897.)

Anders Zorn: Some Personal Recollections . Pt. 2

"Girl Knitting" by Anders Zorn

"It was in midsummer 1916 that I made Anders Zorn's acquaintance, when staying at Fuloberg hut as the guest of Dr. Helling, who attended him in his last illness. Fuloberg is one of those hilltops to which the cattle are driven to make the most of the short summer, and eat the grass which is not found lower down. The hut, a solid wooden building, originally belonged to Zorn but was given by him to Dr. Helling; it was built in the early seventeenth century.

Zorn's own house is in the valley, near Mora Church, and has a verandah with a beautiful view overlooking the river. Upon entering the drawing room I saw Zorn, a huge and rather corpulent man, sitting in an armchair with the tiniest little Yorkshire terrier sitting upon his shoulder. He shook hands and introduced me at once to 'Liten' (little fellow) the dog. 'He is an Englishman too, and he comes from Yorkshire and weighs three and a half pounds, which is less than his master weighs!' He spoke English perfectly, but with a strong foreign accent; his face was much lined, and had a tired, kind look. He told me about his visits to America and England.

Liljefors, the animal painter, then came in, but unfortunately he spoke no English. Mrs. Zorn then asked me to come to see the studio, and there I found wonderful old Dalecarlian tapestries, and solander cases full of Zorn's etchings. 'Some English people are very queer,' said Zorn. 'A man came to see me once and spoke about my etchings, but I could see that he didn't know what an etching was.' I brought him here (in a little side room full of porcelain trays and dishes) and told him that this was where I bit my plates. He looked very astonished, but after thinking a little asked me, 'But don't you find that it injures your teeth?'"

To be continued 

(Excerpts from "Anders Zorn: Some Personal Recollections" in "The International Studio," 1897.)

Anders Zorn: Some Personal Recollections

"Self-Portrait," 1889 by Anders Zorn

"Mora, where Anders Zorn was born and died, is a little village by the shores of Lake Siljan, in the heart of Calecarlia, which itself lies in the very heart of Sweden. Hills surround the lake, and the country for miles in all directions is timber land, dotted with lakes, and intersected by rivers. In this country, in the year 1860, Zorn was born. His father was a German and employed in a brewery; his mother was of old Dalecarlian peasant stock. The boy first showed his talent for drawing at school at Enkoping, and when about fifteen years of age some of his father's friends subscribed 400 kronor (21 pounds) to enable him to attend the Academy school at Stockholm.

Even in the seventies twenty-one pounds would not go far for a growing boy, but it sufficed for the school fees, and he kept himself in food by selling pencil portraits at fifteen shillings each. In later days he used to tell how his mother reproached him when, after a couple of years' study, he returned to Mora penniless. 'If you had done as I wished and gone to learn to be a tailor, you would be getting four kronor a week now!' By 1882, however, he had saved enough money to come to England, where he stayed with a friend at Richmond, Surrey. But his money was soon exhausted, and on his friend's advice he went to one of the principal dealers in the Haymarket to try and sell an oil painting - a portrait of himself. He asked sixty pounds for this, and the dealer offered three pounds. Zorn angrily left the shop and vowed never to have anything to do with art dealers again. Penniless, he boldly took a studio in Brook Street at a rental of five pounds a week; got some elegant cards printed, and soon received a commission to paint various members of the Swedish Legation. In a few months all anxiety for the future was gone.

To be continued

(Excerpts from "Anders Zorn: Some Personal Recollections" in "The International Studio," 1897.)

Elizabeth Nourse: The Last Medal

 

"Les Heures d'Ete" by Elizabeth Nourse

"In 1921 Elizabeth Nourse received one last public honor that evoked much publicity in the French and American presses. The University of Notre Dame in South Bend, Indiana, awarded her the Laetare Medal, given annually to a Catholic layperson for distinguished service to humanity. For this occasion Elizabeth overcame her customary shyness and addressed a crowd of more than two-hundred people assembled to honor her. The Paris edition of the 'New York Herald' described the ceremony, which was presided overd by the Papal Nuncio in Paris, and called Nourse 'the dean of American woman painters in France and one of the most eminent contemporary artists of her sex.' The 'Chicago Tribune,' simply referred to her as 'the first woman painter of America.' Elizabeth may not, however, have been completely happy with such tributes. She once told her friend Anna Schmidt that she wanted to be judged as an artist, not as a woman.

Louise Nourse died in January 1937 at the age of eighty-four. Almost immediately, Elizabeth became ill and was hospitalized. A friend reported to Elizbeth's niece, Melrose Pittman of Cincinnati, that because Elizabeth had lost all interest in the world around her, refusing even to have letters read to her, she had been sent home with a nurse to care for her. She spent her days looking out over the Luxembourg Gardens and by the fall of 1938 had begun to speak of 'going with Louise.' She died on October 8, 1939, shortly before her seventy-ninth birthday. At her request she was buried beside ehr sister in Saint Leger in the habit of the Third Order of Saint Francis of Assissi and with no flowers or wreaths as becomes a member of the Order of Penitence.'"

To be continued

(Excerpts from "Cincinnati Societaire" by Mary Alice Heekin Burke in "Elizabeth Nourse, 1859-1938: A Salon Career) 

Elizabeth Nourse: Changing Times

"Interior with Mother and Child" by Elizabeth Nourse

"After the Armistice it appeared that the artistic life of Paris would simply continue much as it had before the way. In 1919 Elizabeth Nourse showed paintings and her Breton dolls at four exhibitions, selling a watercolor at the New Salon. Despite her robust activities during the war and after, she appears to have been suffering as early as 1915 from an undiagnosed illness. She consulted several doctors during the next few years but not until early 1920 was it discovered that she had cancer of the breast. A mastectomy was performed in March of that year. As a result she was unable to paint at her easel for some time, but while she was convalescing she amused herself by sketching watercolor views of the Luxembourg Gardens as they appeared by day and by night from her studio window. 

Nourse participated in her last Salon in 1921 with one oil and two pastels. An oil version of 'Consolation' was left in her estate and her scrapbook contains a photograph dated 1914 showing the models posing for it. Painted in warm colors of russet, blue and orange, the oil must have seemed distinctly old-fashioned to the postwar public, which by then had seen a rapid succession of modern styles.

Realist subject matter, at least the type that had been presented at Paris Salons for so many years, appeared to have little future. Nourse must have recognized this because in 1924 she ceased to exhibit and continued to paint only for her own pleasure. She was then sixty-five years old and unwilling to accept recent trends in the art world that seemed to negate the importance of recognizable subject matter.

Six years later, in 1930, she wrote: 'There is little in art since the War to make one enthusiastic. I do not hold at all with the latest fads, the Cubistes - the Fauves - as they are called. Do you know Camille Manclair's 'La Farce de l'Art Vivant'? He expresses my opinion very clearly."

To be continued

(Excerpts from "Cincinnati Societaire" by Mary Alice Heekin Burke in "Elizabeth Nourse, 1859-1938: A Salon Career) 

Elizabeth Nourse: WWI in France

"Volendam, Head of Little Girl" by Elizabeth Nourse

"During World War I, Elizabeth and Louise Nourse kept in touch with Elizabeth's former models, whose husbands and sons were at the front, and gave them comfort - or funds - if they were needed. Elizabeth also donated money and paintings to many benefits held in Paris for war victims. She sold dolls she had fashioned from wire and plaster and dressed in Breton costumes to raise funds for her charities, and exhibited several in the Exposition des Jouets Francais held in Paris in 1915, 1916, and 1917.

In a letter printed in the 'Boston Evening Post' in September 1916, Elizabeth described the effects of the war on the village of Penmarc'h, where she and Louise had recently spent several weeks. More than sixty village women had been widowed by the war and the remaining able-bodied men had been conscripted, leaving the women all the farm work as well as the care of their homes and children. Although neither of the Nourses was young - Elizabeth was fifty-seven and Louise was sixty-four - they helped out, apparently ignoring the advice of their doctor who had ordered them out of Paris for a rest. 'It is quite a sight to see us bringing in the cows and tossing hay, besides feeding ducks, chickens, and picking off cabbage and beet leaves for the cattle,' Elizabeth wrote. She and Louise probably also helped care for the children, for  Elizabeth painted at least three watercolors of Breton babies at this time as well as the carefully modeled pastel 'Baby Asleep.'

In May 1918, in spite of the fact that the Germans were on the offensive in Amiens, within sixty-five kilometers of Paris, there was a Salon exhibition for the first time in three years. Nourse had devoted so little time to painting since the war began that she showed only a single watercolor of a Breton mother and child. By November, however, she was able to exult: 'Victory! Victory! . . . everyone is singing on the Place de l'Opera. I made my debut there, too, singing with a million others, while the avions [airplanes] whirled and shimmered over our heads.'"

To be continued

(Excerpts from "Cincinnati Societaire" by Mary Alice Heekin Burke in "Elizabeth Nourse, 1859-1938: A Salon Career) 

Elizabeth Nourse: WWI

"Flower Study" by Elizabeth Nourse

"During the first months of World War I, Elizabeth Nourse kept a diary of her activities, which Anna Schmidt published in December 1914. She described the preparation of Paris for siege as the French and English armies were swiftly overrun. Those who were not French citizens were advised to leave and most oof the American expatriates did, but the Nourses decided to remain. 'We shall stick it out and retire to the cellar,' Elizabeth wrote. 'It is a pretty nice cellar and not too dirty or damp.' Louise expressed the same sentiments to her niece: 'All the Americans are going . . . but we will stay right here. I should feel like an ungrateful wretch to run away - as though I fled from some hospitable roof when smallpox breaks out.'

Elizabeth wrote of her dismay at the sight of artillery fire over the Luxembourg Gardens, which she could see from her studio window, yet viewed the beleaguered city with a painter's eye:

'Paris is too beautiful now, so quiet, so exquisite in the pale autumn sunshine. And the nights! Nights of beauty - with the most wonderful effect of light and shade - because there are so few street lamps, and the great masses of shadow - the moon beams like silver - all like a wonderful painting - painted by God.'

The Nourse sisters worked tirelessly to care for the refugees who flooded into Paris. Elizabeth enlisted the help of many French and American friends in collecting food, clothing, and coal for the homeless and the poor. 'The bell rings every other minute,' she reported, 'so many poor coming and so many nice ladies with bundles to distribute.' She solicited donations from friends in the United States and Canada, and Anna Schmidt was particularly active in raising funds for her in Cincinnati, Boston, and Gloucester. Elizabeth was especially concerned with aid to artists whose lives had been disrupted by the war. In 1919 the board of the New Salon presented her with a silver plaque in recognition of her charitable work on behalf of indigent artists and their families."

To be continued

(Excerpts from "Cincinnati Societaire" by Mary Alice Heekin Burke in "Elizabeth Nourse, 1859-1938: A Salon Career) 

Elizabeth Nourse: At Her Peak

"Les Volets clos" by Elizabeth Nourse

"In the fall of 1909, Elizabeth and Louise Nourse spent five weeks in Alsace at the summer home of the Marquise de Roy. She filled a sketchbook with views of the area and more studies of women and children and also work on 'Les Volets clos,' which became the most important work of her career when it was purchased at the 1910 New Salon by the French Ministry of Fine Arts for the state's contemporary art collection in the Musee du Luxembourg. Much publicity was generated in France and the United States about the painting. Inclusion in this collection placed Nourse among some of her most prominent American contemporaries: Alexander Harrison, Winslow Homer, Gari Melchers, John Singer Sargent, J. Alden Weir, and James Whistler.

'Les Volets clos' shows a contemplative Louise standing before a bureau in an interior of carefully graded tonal harmonies. As one critic described the atmosphere, 'The sunlight enters in vivid gold bars through green wooden shutters. The yellow of the sun and the green of the shutters borrow something from each other and give the color scheme for the entire picture. The mirror on the dresser reflects the rest of the room where the yellow and green still dominate.'

Nourse was at the peak of her career in these years just prior to World War I. Her scrapbook is filled with favorable reviews of her work in exhibitions from Paris to San Francisco, where 'L'ete' was awarded a gold medal at the Panama-Pacific Exposition. She worked prodigiously to take advantage of all requests to exhibit her paintings. In 1913, for example, she prepared six oils and six works on paper for the New Salon, two oils and four watercolors for the Anglo-American Exposition in London, as well as numerous canvases for other major exhibitions. 

The year 1914 began auspiciously. Elizabeth was made an honorary member of both the Association of Women Painters and Sculptors of New York and the MacDowell Society in Cincinnati for her 'distinguished achievements.' She was also elected a member of the Philadelphia Water Color Club. In July, however, the German army invaded Belgium. World War I had begun, making the end of the art world that Nourse had known."

To be continued

(Excerpts from "Cincinnati Societaire" by Mary Alice Heekin Burke in "Elizabeth Nourse, 1859-1938: A Salon Career) 

Elizabeth Nourse: Happy Days

"Les jours heureux (Happy Days)" by Elizabeth Nourse

"In the fall of 1907 Anna Schmidt joined the Nourse sisters and the three explored a different area of Brittany. For six weeks they stayed in a convent in Plougastel-Daoulas, a small village just south of Brest, where Anna occupied herself with her writing and Elizabeth and Louise went on painting expeditions in the surrounding countryside. Pleased with the subjects she found there, Elizabeth completed at least four oils and about a dozen watercolors. She also filled her sketchbooks with landscapes done mostly during excursions by carriage through the countryside. These excursions, or 'treats,' as Louise referred to them, were financed by Anna through gifts from their Cincinnati friends. As a result the Nourses were able to go as far as Camaret to the south and the Ile d'Ouessant and Folgoet to the north.

Nourse soon had opportunities to exhibit the watercolors that had become her great interest. She was invited by Gaston La Touche, president of the Societe Internationale de la Peinture a l'Eau, to exhibit with this group in 1908. The eight watercolors and two drawings she submitted were hung beside works by Albert Besnard, Frank Brangwyn, Walter Gay, Lucien Simon, and John Singer Sargent. Most of these watercolors were also sent by Nourse to the annual exhibition of American painting at the Cincinnati Art Museum  in 1910 and seven were included in the annual Philadelphia Watercolor Exhibition the same year. Louise priced the watercolors containing figures at $250 and the landscapes at $150.

Elizabeth was particularly gratified in May 1909 when 'Les jours heureux,' an affectionate scene of family life was awarded first prize at the first exhibition of the International Art Union in Paris, and was purchased under its English title, 'Happy Days,' for the Detroit Institute of Arts. Despite difficulties in selling her paintings, Nourse could look back on numerous accomplishments during this period of her life. She had achieved the goal of all Salon painters, particularly expatriates, by her election to full membership in the New Salon in both categories in which she competed. Further, her work was in great demand at all of the important international exhibitions, additional evidence that the art world recognized her talent. All that remained for her fulfillment was the public acclaim she was to receive in the next few years."

To be continued

(Excerpts from "Cincinnati Societaire" by Mary Alice Heekin Burke in "Elizabeth Nourse, 1859-1938: A Salon Career) 

Elizabeth Nourse: Artistic Preferences

"Lavoir, Paris," watercolor by Elizabeth Nourse

"Although Elizabeth Nourse never publicly discussed her artistic preferences, in 1902 she expressed some of her views on contemporary painting saying: 'While I admire Monet, Raffaeli, and the pronounced realistic paintings, I see more with the eyes of Cazin and of Dagnan.' Art history has taught us to think of Impressionists like Monet as completely at odds with the Realists who showed at the Salon, but Nourse and her contemporaries viewed them more as a part of the same movement. She allied herself with Cazin and Dagnan-Bouveret because they were more interested in rural themes and worked in a variety of styles between the poles of Impressionism and traditional academic painting. She considered the Impressionists' scientific rendering of light and color as too experimental for her subject matter, but she was just as anxious to avoid the sleek classicism of Alexandre Cabanel and Bouguereau, which would have been equally unsuited to her interests.

In a further attempt to sell her work, Nourse entered an increasing number of exhibitions from 1903 to 1908. She sent paintings to Liverpool again and, for the first time, to Antwerp, Rouen, Nantes, and Liege and to the annual Philadelphia Watercolor Exhibition. She was invited to enter the newly inaugurated exhibitions of American painting at the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., and several women's groups, such as the Lodge Art League in Paris, provided other opportunities for her to show her work. She also exhibited in 'la Quatorzieme exposition annuelle des Femmes artistes' with the Union de Femmes peintres et sculpteurs, and at the International Art Union of Paris in 1909, an annual art exhibition held by the International Young Women's Christian Association (YMCA).

To be continued

(Excerpts from "Cincinnati Societaire" by Mary Alice Heekin Burke in "Elizabeth Nourse, 1859-1938: A Salon Career) 

Elizabeth Nourse: The Exposition Universelle

Study for "La Veillee" by Elizabeth Nourse

"Elizabeth and Louise Nourse were in Paris in April 1900 for the opening of the giant Exposition Universelle, a celebration of the entire century's progress in the arts and sciences that had been ten years in the planning. Elizabeth sketched the Eiffel Tower, constructed as the centerpiece of the fair, but the standard of French taste remained more traditional. This was shown by the two new art palaces which housed the exposition's fine arts displays, the Grand Palais and the Petit Palais, built in the exuberant Baroque style of the Belle Epoque.

The space allotted to American paintings at the exposition was so limited that Nourse was restricted to one entry, 'Dans l'eglise a Volendam,' which was awarded a silver medal. The New Salon found temporary quarters on the Left Bank, however, and the artist was able to show more paintings there. She was featured in the Hearst periodical 'Cosmopolitan,' in an article about four expatriate artists at the Salon, in which the author who extolled the paintings he saw in Nourse's studio: ' . . . all these pictures you would have said were the work of a man, of one whose tenderness was based on the strength of a man who had Millet's feelings for form and Baudry's sense of color. In any case , a strong man . . . No American woman artist stands so high in Paris today as Miss Nourse. Indeed, she is one woman painter of our country . . . who ranks in the world as a painter and not as a woman who paints.'

Among the fifty million visitors flocking to Paris to attend the Exposition Universelle were many Cincinnatians who came to Elizabeth's studio. The two sisters remained in Paris through the summer, pleased to see old friends and to sell a number of Elizabeth's paintings. Louise wrote: 'We have about $1,000 in the bank . . . we have tried our best and put down prices and sold a lot of studies and watercolors - heads, etc., of course, the big picture 'La Veillee' brought $600. This will pay our rent and give us $50 a month for a year - then in the meanwhile if we sell any more we will be rich.'"

To be continued

(Excerpts from "Cincinnati Societaire" by Mary Alice Heekin Burke in "Elizabeth Nourse, 1859-1938: A Salon Career) 

Elizabeth Nourse: New Salon Societaire

"Enfants de Penmarc'h" by Elizabeth Nourse

"Elizabeth Nourse showed four oils and four works on paper in the 1901 New Salon, at which exhibition Carolus-Duran, the incumbent president, announced that she had been elected a 'societaire' in the category of drawing, pastel, and watercolor. She was said to be the first American woman, and only the second female, to be so honored. Nourse was elated by the news and was deluged with letters, flowers, fruits, and even a case of champagne from her Parisian friends. This recognition not only added to her reputation in the eyes of the public, but permitted her to have works on paper hung without examination by the jury, and to serve on the jury itself for this category. By 1904 she was elected 'societaire' in oil painting as well, which meant that she could enter six oils and six works on paper without submitting them to the jury.

"La Mere" by Elizabeth Nourse, 1888

"La Petite Soeur" by Elizabeth Nourse, 1902

It was on her return to Penmarc'h in the summer of 1901 that Nourse probably painted 'La petite soeur,' a beautifully composed variation on the mother and child theme. It is instructive to compare this work to her first Salon painting, 'La mere,' to understand the development in Nourse's style. Studio highlights and a dark, spacious background characterize the earlier example, whereas the natural light in 'La petite soeur' reveals the entire shallow space into which the figures are compressed. Certain elements of both paintings remain similar, such as the triangular grouping of the figures, but the vivid contrasts of color in the later work and the oblique view of the cropped figures suggest a more experimental approach. It is obvious that Nourse brightened her palette over the years, adopted a more vigorous method of applying pigment, and redesigned her paintings to give them a less formal, more impromptu effect.

'La petite soeur,' 'Enfants de Penmarc'h,' and 'Dans l'ombre a Penmarc'h' were shown in 1904 at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition in Saint Louis. Louise wrote proudly that it was a great honor - many American artists were represented by one or possibly two paintings, but those with three had to be approved by a unanimous vote of the jury. Nourse also received a silver medal at the exposition."

To be continued 

(Excerpts from "Cincinnati Societaire" by Mary Alice Heekin Burke in "Elizabeth Nourse, 1859-1938: A Salon Career)

Elizabeth Nourse: The American Woman's Art Association

"Baby Charles Looking over
His Mother's Shoulder" by Mary Cassatt

"From 1899-1900, Elizabeth Nourse served as president of the American Woman's Art Association (AWAA), a group of women that met at the American Art Students' Club at 4, rue de Chevreuse, just a block from her studio. Founded in 1892, the primary aim of the association was to organize exhibitions for American women artists in Paris. Her artwork was first mentioned in conjunction with their 1894 show and then for many years afterwards.

In the year of her presidency, the association's sixth annual exhibition, was judged by American artists Augustus Saint-Gaudens, Alexander Harrison, Edward Frederick Ertz, and John White Alexander. 'The New York Herald' European edition published a front-page review of the show noting that over 100 works were on display (89 paintings, miniatures and watercolors; 9 pieces of sculpture; and some porcelain designs). Several artists and individual works were praised including Elizabeth Nourse for her 'Holland Interior' and 'an amusing sketch, ‘The Sleepy Baby’'.

Mary Cassatt, a member of the club, may have given her pastel 'Baby Charles: Head and Arms' to Nourse at the time in recognition of her service to the group. It is inscribed: 'To my friend / Elizabeth Nourse / Mary Cassatt.'"

To be continued 

(Excerpts from "Cincinnati Societaire" by Mary Alice Heekin Burke in "Elizabeth Nourse, 1859-1938: A Salon Career" and "American Woman's Art Association.")

 

 

Elizabeth Nourse: Tunisia and Algiers

"Head of an Algerian" by Elizabeth Nourse

"In the winter of 1897, Elizabeth and Louise Nourse were able to sublet their apartment and embark on an adventurous trip to Tunisia, which Elizabeth called 'the land of sunshine and flowers and lovely Arabs.' Always fascinated by native costumes and crafts, the artist hired an Arab guide to go out with her each day while she made many sketches and watercolors of Bedouins. She also painted a series of small portraits in oil on board, which she later exhibited at the Societe des Orientalistes at the Grand Palais in 1904 and 1906.

These were far outshone, however, by her virtuoso performance in 'Head of an Algerian,' a portrait of richly contrasting colors and textures probably painted while the artist was on a side trip to Biskra, Algeria. The French interest in their newly acquired African colonies reinforced the vogue for orientalisme begun earlier in the century, and Nourse gave way to the exotic appeal of her subject.

Nourse's three-month sojourn in North Africa undoubtedly reinforced her inclination to adopt a brighter palette. From this time on she tended to use more vivid greens, blues, and violets in her landscapes and showed a preference for lighter shades of blue, lavender and rose in her other oil paintings."

To be continued 

(Excerpts from "Cincinnati Societaire" by Mary Alice Heekin Burke in "Elizabeth Nourse, 1859-1938: A Salon Career.")

Elizabeth Nourse: Developing Connections

"The Sewing Lesson" by Elizabeth Nourse

"During the winter of 1895 Elizabeth Nourse painted a portrait of the sculptor Clement J. Barnhorn as a gift to her former Cincinnati classmate. Barnhorn had been awarded a scholarship for study abroad by the Cincinnati Art Academy and was to remain in Paris from 1895 to 1900, exhibiting at the New Salon with Nourse. He then returned home and executed many public commissions while teaching at the Cincinnati Art Academy and designing for the Rookwood Pottery. He became a well-known and beloved figure in the community and was extremely helpful to Nourse in publicizing her work locally. He also directed to her Paris studio many Cincinnatians who were traveling abroad. [He was also a good friend with Frank Duveneck and designed his memorial crypt at the Mother of God Cemetery.]

The following spring Nourse's five entries in the New Salon were well received, and the board voted to make her an associate member. [Her entries, which included "The First Communion," hung alongside paintings by such artists as Alfred Stevens, Frits Thaulow, Alfred Sisley, James Jebusa Shannon, Julius Rolshaven, Peder Severin Kroyer, and many more well-regarded painters.] As a result she found her work in demand at all of the international exhibitions and received invitations to show at the annual exhibitions of American paint in Chicago and Philadelphia, and at the Carnegie International Exhibition in Pittsburgh. Her work was shown in these cities, as it was in Cincinnati, almost every year until the onset of World War I in 1914. This exposure served to make her name known to the American public even though she did not return periodically to the United States, as many expatriate artists did."

To be continued 

 

(Excerpts from "Cincinnati Societaire" by Mary Alice Heekin Burke in "Elizabeth Nourse, 1859-1938: A Salon Career.")

Elizabeth Nourse: The First Communion

"The First Communion" by Elizabeth Nourse

"In her fourth-floor Parisian studio/apartment at 80, rue d'Assas, Elizabeth Nourse set to work on the largest oil she ever painted, 'La premiere communion (The First Communion)', a favorite subject of Salon painters and one that she had sketched in Saint Gildas-de-Rhuys, a coastal village in Brittany. She began with a simple line drawing of the composition - a nun in rich black as a foil for the filmy white dresses and veils of the two communicants - then made a board oil sketch from the drawing. She also painted a portrait study of the smaller of the two little girls, a child whose broad, flat features indicate her Breton origin. The final painting is a study of subtly contrasting tones and textures arranged within a shallow interior, and of the refined emotions shared by the two young girls and the devoted nun."

After being exhibited in the New Salon and two other exhibits in 1895, the painting was finally purchased in 1904 by Cincinnatian, Mrs. Susannah Walsh Hinkle, who initially hung it for a number of years at her estate, Belcamp, before giving it to the Cincinnati Catholic Women's Association, an organization of which she was a member and served as president. Both at their initial headquarters on 4th Street near the Taft Museum, and later on Marian Avenue near Xavier University, it was a beloved treasure and hung in the reception room for seventy years. But as the years passed, they realized that Nourse's masterpiece needed to be in a museum, and contacted the Cincinnati Art Museum's curator of American Art and Sculptor, Julie Aronson, 'who knew at first glance she wanted the painting. Over the years, the Cincinnati Art Museum curator had seen photographic reproductions of 'The First Communion,' but when she stood in front of the original 118-year-old, oil-on-canvas painting, she couldn’t help but be stunned by its beauty and scale. 'I immediately brought our director to see it,' says Aronson. 'Nourse was the only female painter from Cincinnati who achieved an international reputation during her lifetime.' 

After the purchase, an exhibition was put together around the new acquisition with 27 other paintings, watercolors, drawings and cloth dolls which the artist had completed between 1880 and 1913. 'Elizabeth Nourse: Rites of Passage' was a wonderful show, and the painting has remained displayed in the Cincinnati Wing of the museum. I have loved standing before 'The First Communion' many times to admire and study it.

To be continued 

 

("The First Communion" by Elizabeth Nourse. Excerpts from "Cincinnati Societaire" by Mary Alice Heekin Burke in "Elizabeth Nourse, 1859-1938: A Salon Career," ""Ritual Reflections," https://www.ohiomagazine.com/arts/article/ritual-reflections by Damaine Vonada, and "Timeline - Cincinnati Catholic Women," https://cincinnaticatholicwomen.org/timeline/)

Elizabeth Nourse: Return to France

"Self-Portrait" by Elizabeth Nourse

On September 12, 1893, Elizabeth Nourse's twin sister Adelaide died. Her body was placed in an elaborate oak coffin designed by Benn Pittman and carved by Henry Fry, one of Cincinnati's premier craftsmen, and was then taken to Pittsburgh for cremation - a funerary practice endorsed by her Swedenborgian husband that was not then approved by the Roman Catholic church. Their sister Catherine having died in 1885, Louise and Elizabeth were left by Adelaide's death as the only surviving members of their immediate family. It was a tragic loss for Elizabeth, who had always felt a special closeness to her twin.

After leaving the United States the next spring in April, the Nourses stopped in London for a visit and then returned to Paris to search for a new studio. They could locate nothing suitable, however, and in May went for the first time to Brittany to explore the seacoast that was to become their favorite vacation spot for many years. Elizabeth wrote enthusiastically about the beauties of Brittany and the hospitality of the many friends she and Louise made among the peasants there.

In October the sisters returned to Paris and at 80, rue d'Assas found studio accommodations in which they were to reside for the rest of their lives. The new studio was very near their former quarters but offered the advantage of providing splendid views from the Nourses' fourth-floor quarters. A Cincinnati visitor, Julia Walsh, described the apartment as being divided by a long, narrow hall with, on the left, three domestic rooms that overlooked the placid garden of the Couvent de Sion. On the right, a long studio served as living room and work place. This room had a large window with a low sill that offered a view of the Luxembourg Gardens from almost all parts of the room. Louise showed her visitor the kitchen with the many wooden cabinets she had carved and Elizabeth had decorated and explained laughingly, 'No, we don't eat in the kitchen, we cook in the dining room.'

To be continued 

(Excerpts from "Cincinnati Societaire" by Mary Alice Heekin Burke in "Elizabeth Nourse, 1859-1938: A Salon Career.") 

Elizabeth Nourse: The World's Columbian Exposition, Chicago, 1893

Cincinnati Room at the World's Columbian Exposition,
Chicago, 1893

"The five years Elizabeth and Louise Nourse had allotted themselves in Europe had come to an end, but they could easily measure the rewards and experience gained during that time: acceptance at both the Old and New Salons, exposure to a cosmopolitan circle of artists in Paris, and extensive European travel. All had served to mark an end to her student years and to add a mature polish to her work. After shipping three paintings selected for the Palace of Fine Arts at the forthcoming World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago, Elizabeth and Louise left for New York on April 21, 1893.

At this time most of Elizabeth's close friends were involved in final preparations for the installation of the Cincinnati Room in the Woman's Building at the Exhibition in Chicago. This building had been conceived by the dynamic Mrs. Potter Palmer of Chicago as a means of promoting women's work and demonstrating that in many industries women could compete successfully with men. One of only three cities to answer the challenge, Cincinnati filled an entire room with the work of their women. The same group that had committed itself to the establishment of the Cincinnati Art Museum and Art Academy, worked hard to raise funds and to gather carving, pottery, needlework, furniture, sculpture, and paintings for exhibition.

Agnes Pitman painted a wall frieze to decorate the Cincinnati Room, in which her work, as well as carvings by Adelaide Nourse Pitman, May Nourse, and Mary Rawson were shown. Two of Elizabeth Nourse's paintings, 'Le pardon de Saint Francois d'Assise' and 'Peasant Women of Borst' were loaned for the exhibition. These were hung with canvases by Mary Louise McLaughlin, Caroline Lord, Alice Pike Barney, Maria Longworth Nichols Storer, and Henriette Wachman.

Nourse had other reasons to be interested in the exhibits at the fair. No doubt she wished to see the murals by Mary Cassatt and Mary Fairchild MacMonnies - two of her fellow members in the American Woman's Art Association of Paris - that decorated the Women's Building, and undoubtedly studied the Loan Collection of modern French painting that had been assembled from American collectors and museums, which included Romantic and Barbizon paintings and a large number of Impressionist works. Then, too, she had received a medal for three additional paintings she was exhibiting in the Palace of Fine Arts, 'The Reader,' 'The Family Meal,' and "Good Friday.'"

To be continued 

(Excerpts from "Cincinnati Societaire" by Mary Alice Heekin Burke in "Elizabeth Nourse, 1859-1938: A Salon Career.")