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.")