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)