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.") 

Elizabeth Nourse: Holland

"In the Church at Volendam" by Elizabeth Nourse

"In July 1892 Elizabeth and Louise Nourse traveled with their Cincinnati friends Henriette and Laura Wachman to Holland and setted in Volendam, a small fishing village on the Zuyder Zee. The picturesque seacoast and costumed villagers had long since attracted numerous artists, and Elizabeth and Henriette, who had trained with her at McMicken as a carver and painter, may well have been following the lead of such prominent American colleagues as Gari Melchers and Walter MacEwen, who also painted on the Dutch coast.

The Nourse sisters rented a house on the village dyke with a kitchen shared by the four women, and Henriette and Laura rented a house on the sea that the two painters used as a studio. Clara MacChesney, a friend of Nourse's and a fellow exhibitor at the New Salon who often wrote about Elizabeth's activities shared:

'One is struck by the variety of her subjects . . . her sense of color is good; but perhaps her best quality is her handling of light and shade. Her work stands between the premier-coup of the average Salon pictures and the more finished tone-work of the Barbizon school . . .  Her canvases are nearly all large, and painted with a vigor that one seldom sees in a woman's work. She sometimes has the good quality of hardness, which nearly every artist of note has early in his career, but which becomes lost later in life. . . . She is mainly direct in her work, making but few slight sketches first, in pencil and in oil. She paints very rapidly and does not repaint, nor work for tone and quality, but generally carries her first conception through to the end.'

Working prodigiously during her happy three months in Holland, Nourse produced some twenty-two small pictures as well as four large ones. She returned to Paris in the fall with Louise and Charlotte Gibson Miller, another friend from her McMicken class who had come to visit. Charlotte wrote an article for a Cincinnati newspaper describing Elizabeth's new studio at 72, rue Notre Dame des Champs, which the Nourses had rented just before their departure for Volendam. She noted that Whistler had his atelier in the same block, as did Bouguereau and Elizabeth Gardner."

To be continued

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

Elizabeth Nourse: Peasant Women of Borst

"Peasant Women of Borst"
by Elizabeth Nourse

"After a stay of more than seven months in Rome following their Assisi sojourn, Elizabeth Nourse and her sister Louise left Italy and journeyed to Borst, a mountain village in southern Austria, in search of different peasant subjects. Borst was so remote that the last part of their journey was made by oxcart. As they were later to do in Brittany, they chose a small Catholic hamlet that offered no hotel accommodations for tourists and enlisted the aid of the local priest to help them find lodgings and models for the artist. In this way they could live very economically and immerse themselves in the life of the village.

Elizabeth's sketches from Borst show that she was as fascinated by the peasants' costumes as she was by their customs. As an accomplished seamstress who enjoyed designing and making her own hats and clothes, she was able to appreciate the peasants' skills in weaving and embroidery. She painted several oils during her stay, including 'Peasant Women of Borst,' an intriguing composition that shows devout villagers approaching the viewer in a religious procession. Her first drawing of the scene and its subsequent watercolor are almost identical, but several major changes were made when she transferred the composition to canvas. The dramatic impact of the oncoming figures, for example, was enhanced by enlarging them to fill the canvas and by giving greater variety to the circle of women's heads. For the same reason, perhaps, the festive touches of red and blue in the watercolor have been eliminated in the oil, giving the latter a more somber and dignified aspect.

In 1892 seventeen prominent Cincinnati women purchased the painting for their art museum, where it was hung in a carved oak frame donated by Benn Pitman. Many of these women were old friends of the artist's and had been active in forming the Women's Art Museum Association of Cincinnati in 1877 to 'advance women's work, more particularly in the direction of industrial art.' Their goal had been the establishment of a museum in the city based on the South Kensington model, together with a school for training draftsmen and designers to provide employment for women and to encourage their creativity. Their efforts had culminated in the opening of the Cincinnati Art Museum in 1886, and the following year, of the adjacent Art Academy, which replaced the school in which Nourse had studied. Cincinnati would always prove to be a receptive market for Elizabeth's work, especially among women who consciously set out to promote employment opportunities for their sex."

To be continued

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

Elizabeth Nourse: Religious Work

"Cappuchin Monk" by Elizabeth Nourse

"Elizabeth Nourse's oeuvre contains only a few religious pictures, of which two were painted in Assisi and Rome, the historic centers of her faith. Assisi was a place of religious pilgrimage for Elizabeth and Louise, both of whom had become members of the Third Order of Saint Francis, a lay group that observes a modified version of the Franciscan rule. Certain religious practices are required, but the primary rule is that members perform acts of personal charity in the spirit of Saint Francis, a requirement the Nourses took very seriously and incorporated into their daily lives. The result was their becoming deeply involved in the lives of Elizabeth's models, feeding their children, helping the sick and elderly in their families, and performing innumerable personal services for them. Because Elizabeth shared in their lives, she was able to portray urban and rural working people with a depth of understanding that eluded artists who knew them only as picturesque models.

In a letter from Assisi to her twin, she described one of them, 'Le pardon de Saint Francois d'Assise,' her most ambitious work to date, as 'a huge picture in the church with at least twenty models and numerous dabs which represent another twenty. On loan from its owner, a Cincinnati woman, this painting and 'Peasant Women of Borst' were exhibited in the Cincinnati Room at the World's Columbian Exposition of 1893 in Chicago. [Sadly its current location is unknown.]

Nourse's Italian sojourn produced at least twenty-five paintings that she was to exhibit later, including 'A la fontaine.' The reception this work received in Paris in 1891 proved that the artist's decision to join the New Salon was a fortunate one. Both 'A la fontaine' and another work were illustrated in the Salon's livret, an honor that would never have been accorded a young American's entries in the Old Salon."

To be continued 

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

Elizabeth Nourse: The New Salon

"Fisher Girl of Picardy" by Elizabeth Nourse

"It was on a trip to Italy in 1890, while in Rome, that Elizabeth Nourse received an invitation to join the Societe Nationale des Beaux Arts - hereafter called the New Salon - a recently formed group of artists that had broken away from the Societe Nationale des Artistes Francais. Artist Ernest Meissonier led the dissidents in planning a separate Salon, ostensibly because of a dispute over the awards given at the 1889 Salon. In fact, this action was a revolt of the moderns, such as Puvis de Chavannes and Carolus-Duran, against the conservative standards of the established artists who served on the jury of what we'll call the 'Old Salon.' 

The latter group included many of the great painter-teachers from the Academie Julian's various schools - men such as Bouguereau, Benjamin Constant, Lefebvre, and Tony Robert-Fleury. A number were also stockholders in Rodolphe Julian's academies, so that in effect, those affiliated with Julian dominated the Old Salon. The younger artists of the New Salon included Albert Besnard, Jean-Charles Cazin, Pascal Dagnan-Bouveret and Auguste Rodin, all of whom were to become close friends of Nourse's in the years that followed.

Nourse promptly sent he four entries she had intended for the Old Salon to the new group's exhibition at the Champs de Mars. It took courage for her to turn her back on the prestigious Old Salon, where she had met with success, and join forces with the progressives. As it happened, the New Salon provided her not only with sympathetic associates but with a much greater opportunity to show her work and have it reviewed. She took the risk, however, that the new group might fail to gain public acceptance and that she would lose her opportunity to establish her reputation as a Salon painter. Both European and American collectors of the late nineteenth century considered the approval of a Salon jury necessary to guarantee the quality of their purchases."

To be continued

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

Elizabeth Nourse: Russia

"La Petite Soeur" by Elizabeth Nourse

"In January 1889 Elizabeth took a trip without Louise to Russia with her friend Tolla Certowicz, a sculpture student at the Academie Julian. The two women journeyed to the Certowicz estate near Kiev by way of Warsaw and were six days en route. Elizabeth wrote a vivid account of this adventure to her twin sister, Adelaide:

'At length we reached the last station, and there we found the sleighs which had been waiting for hours. There were three of them - four horses each, one for us, one for the baggage, and one carrying an immense torch, close to the ground, to drive off the wolves and to show the way.

I shall never forget my first arctic night; at least it answered all the purposes of an arctic night. . . . The scene was ravishing, I was perfectly delighted, forgetting all my woes, my hunger, my fatigue, the cold - everything - for there was something intoxicating in that long night's ride. 

The drivers were so picturesque, the sleighs, the prancing horses, with their hundreds of bells, and then the beautiful blue sky above us, glittering with stars, and the snow, snow covering everything.

I was anxious to see some wolves, but probably the torch kept them off. However, it was better not to have been eaten up, although I would rather have liked to be able to describe it afterwards. I was sincerely glad when we had to cross some water, which was considered rather dangerous, and when we lost our way, my joy was complete . . . and when we arrived here the servants all came out to meet us and kissed our hands.'

Elizabeth spent six weeks in the Ukraine and made many sketches and some watercolors there, but she found it impossible to paint the peasants because it was not customary for the landowners to go into their cottages and she herself could not communicate with them. She therefore took some peasant costumes back to Paris and in 1895 fashioned an interior in her studio to resemble a Russian cottage, blocked the light to simulate its small, high windows, and painted 'Les fileuses russes.'"

To be continued

 

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

Elizabeth Nourse: Barbizon

"Head of a Breton Woman (Jeune fille de Plougastel)"
by Elizabeth Nourse

"In Elizabeth Nourse's continuing struggles to support herself and her sister, Louise was an indispensable assistant. Not only was she a frugal housekeeper but an astute business manager and secretary who took care of all shipping arrangements to the hundreds of exhibitions that Elizabeth entered over the years and handled all related financial details. As a result, Elizabeth was left completely free to devote herself to her work. A rapid painter, she always had a number of works on exhibition at the same time. It should be noted that all of the exhibitions she entered were juried. It was thus a testimony to her stature as an artist that her work was concurrently shown all over Europe and the United States.

Nourse's first trip outside Paris that summer was in the nature of a pilgrimage, to visit the village of Barbizon, locale of Jean-Francois Millet, the French artist she most admired and emulated. Deeply attracted to Millet's subject matter and to his simplicity in portraying it, she must have studied his work with care at his retrospective exhibition in Paris earlier that year, for her very first sketch upon arriving in Barbizon was of the cottage in which Millet had lived and worked. She sought out the woman who had been Millet's model for 'The Angelus' and made a fine character sketch of her, inscribed 'La mere Adele' and even bought the cloak the woman had worn when she posed for Millet, as well as a spinning wheel. Her admiration for the French painter was apparently well known to her friends, several of whom gave her reproductions of his paintings for birthday and Christmas gifts.

Louis wrote glowing descriptions to her sister Adelaide of the summer in Barbizon where, she said, Everywhere you look you see a Millet picture.' The sisters were delighted to be in the countryside, which moved Louise to exclaim, 'Oh, the beautiful country, la Belle France! We have found it at last.'"

To be continued

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

Elizabeth Nourse: The Paris Salon

"La Mere" by Elizabeth Nourse

"After only three months of study at the Academie Julian, Nourse was advised by her teachers to leave and work alone because they found her drawing excellent and felt that too much academic training might interfere with the development of her original style. She immediately set to work on 'La Mere,' her first Salon entry, and went to Jean-Jacques Henner and Carolus-Duran for criticism. The painting was not only accepted by the jury of the Societe Nationale des Artistes Francais, but was hung 'on the line,' a signal honor for a new exhibitor. She signed 'La Mere,' 'E. Nourse,' as she did all her early work, because she apparently thought it would be more favorably received if the public did not know she was a woman. In 1891 she began to sign her full name, 'Elizabeth Nourse,' on her Salon entries and this became her standard signature by 1904, except for small canvases on which she must have felt her full name would be obtrusive.

'La Mere' demonstrates how well Nourse understood the academic standards admired by the jurors of the Salon. First she painted an oil study of the mother's head, for which Louise carved a frame in the Pitman style. She then worked on the major painting, as she had on the study, with small brushstrokes and careful tonal gradations to give both works the finish that the more trditional French painters admired. The result displays her greatest strengths: solide draftsmanship and masterful handling of light and shadow as well as an emotional quality that never becomes sentimental.

For all its rich, dark color and academic finish, 'La Mere' was modern by nineteenth-century standards in its simplicity and realism. There are no anecdotal details and the oblique view of the figures is reminiscent of candid effects made popular by an earlier generation of French painters.

This was an auspicious beginning for the young Cincinnatian in Paris, but the next important step was to sell her work in order to support herself and Louise. Some seven years and exposure at five exhibitions, in Paris, London, Glasgow, Cincinnati and finally Washington D.C., were required before Nourse sold 'La Mere,' presumably for $300 by Parker Mann, an artist. in 1894. By 1914 was hanging in the Princeton study of Woodrow Wilson, then governor of New Jersey, along with Mrs. Wilson's own paintings."

To be continued

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

Elizabeth Nourse: Paris

 

"La Fête de Grand-père (Grandfather's Birthday)"
by Elizabeth Nourse

"Like most American artists of her generation, Elizabeth Nourse dreamed of studying in one of the famous Paris ateliers. So to this end she and Louise studied French and saved money. By 1887 they had accumulated five thousand dollars from the sale of their art and from the residue of their father's estate. They stored their furniture because they planned to return, then sailed on the 'Westernland' from New York on July 20th. Elizabeth was then twenty-eight years old. 

During this journey Nourse kept a notebook in which she recorded her thoughts as they departed. 'Such a melancholy feeling! There is so much we will see and do before we come back - and then, will we ever come back?'

Arriving in Paris in late August, the sisters checked into a hotel for women on the Left Bank, and immediately set out to see the mural decorations in the city's churches and public buildings. The very first noted were Thomas Couture's in Saint Eustache, which she pronounced 'exquisite.' She also studied paintings by artists including Jules Bastien-Lepage, Paul Baudry, Leon Bonnat, Jules Breton, Julien Dupre, Jean-Paul Laurens, and Leon Lhermitte at the Musee du Luxembourg, unaware that she would be showing her work with paintings such as theirs in the 1888 spring Salon of the Societe Nationale des Artistes Francais.

The Nourses found an atelier at 8, rue de la Grande Chaumiere near the Luxembourg Gardens in the Latin Quarter, where most of the American artists lived. The rent for such a studio was 40 francs (about $8) for six weeks. She proceeded to enroll at the Academie Julian for women, where Gustave Boulanger and Jules Lefebvre were teachers. Rudolphe Julian, the director, had been the first to offer art training in Paris exclusively for women. He was so successful in this enterprise that by 1892 he was operating five different studios, three for women only. The latter offered rooms arranged to satisfy different sensibilities - one for drawing from the nude model, one for working from a draped model, and a third, with a separate entrance and staircase, for those who did not even wish to glimpse a nude model.

Nourse's studied drawing of a class model indicates that she chose the more exacting discipline of drawing from the nude. She also made two sketches of Lefebvre in his role as teacher at Julian's with these words issuing from his mouth: 'Not bad - not bad at all.'" [One wonders if this had been his comment to her!]

To be continued

 

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

Elizabeth Nourse: Supporting Herself through Art

"Emerson Pitman" (1885) by Elizabeth Nourse

"Elizabeth now had to confront the problem of supporting herself and her sister. She continued to earn money in a variety of ways, one of which was painting decorative oil panels for Cincinnati homes. Benn Pitman, her brother-in-law, probably secured many of these commissions for her as the interior of the unique Gothic structure he had recently designed and built for his home became the model for many local projects that followed. Pitman's house, inset with carved marble panels and stained glass, was located on a hill overlooking the Ohio River. On the exotic interior woodwork - cherry, black walnut, ebony, oak and rosewood - were carved superb original design based on local flora and fauna that remain in place today. Elizabeth painted the dining room walls and the panels set above the mantel, and made architectural drawings of the rooms and furniture so that Pitman could publicize these examples of his Ruskinian  formula for American designs and handicrafts.

At least one other of Nourse's decorative commissions survives. This panel, 'Flock of Geese,' was commissioned by Alice Pike Barney, a wealthy Cincinnatian who was one of the many interesting women to support the artist. Barney studied with Nourse, whom she commissioned to paint a portrait of her daughters, and encouraged by Nourse, went to Paris for further art study in 1887.

Elizabeth's sketchbooks of this period also contain many drawings of Austin and Walter Schmidt, sons of close friends, as babies, and Emerson Pitman, the second son born to Adlaide and Benn Pitman. In a strong but sensitive drawing of Emerson in charcoal and chalk with gouache highlights, she handles the media with an almost painterly touch as she molds the facial structure with bold contours and softly textured shadows. Her interest in painting infants and mothers and children, which she shared with Mary Cassatt, seems to have begun with the births of Walter and Emerson and continued throughout her career.

In 1885 Elizabeth returned to McMicken School of Design to take advantage of the school's first course (under Thomas Noble) to offer study from the nude to women. Together with her fellow classmates from four years earlier, Caroline Lord and Laura Fry, she studied in the life class for two years before she left to study in Paris."

To be continued

 

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