The Red Rose Girls: Violet Oakley, Pt. 2

Violet Oakley

Study for "Abraham Lincoln
Delivering the Gettysburg Address"

"Violet Oakley grew up in Bergen Heights, New Jersey, the youngest of three sisters. Her mother had cast aside her own professional ambitions when she married, yet she encouraged all three of her daughters in art, and they spent many hours sketching. The young Violet had an eye for detail and was careful with her drawings. Although her early drawings were cheerful and unconstrained, her childhood was not entirely free from care. She suffered from both asthma and extreme shyness. 

When her older sister was sent to Vassar College, Violet stayed home, studiously copying the Old Master engravings that both her grandfathers had collected on their numerous trips to Europe. When she was twenty years old, her parents finally felt secure enough about her health and permitted her to begin her formal art education. She accompanied her father on the early train to New York City and attended classes at the Art Student's League, where she studied with Irving R. Wiles and Carroll Beckwith.

In the winter of 1895 Violet's family went to Europe to visit her Aunt Juliana's family in France. Violet and Hester seized the opportunity for art instruction. The sisters were admitted to the Académie Montparnasse to study with Edmond Aman-Jean and Raphael Nevin. The atelier was the typical all-female class: a mixture of the serious student and the dilettante, the ambitious and the merely bored. Violet plunged into her studies and was captivated by the Parisian aesthetic and the graceful paintings and posters of the Art Nouveau movement. That summer the sisters traveled to Rye, England, to take a class with Charles Lazar, the artist Violet credited for helping her conceptualize her paintings. 'Work it out alone,' Lazar told her. 'Work it out with yourself and Nature.'"

To be continued

(Excerpts from "The Red Rose Girls: Art and Love on Philadelphia's Main Line" by Alice A. Carter.)

The Red Rose Girls: Violet Oakley, Pt. 1

"Unity, a mural by Violet Oakley, installed at the
Pennsylvania State Capitol

Violet Oakley working on "Unity"

"Violet Oakley, the youngest of the 'Red Rose Girls,' was born in New York on June 10, 1874, into an artistic dynasty. Twelve of her ancestors were artists. She once described her own interest in the field as 'hereditary and chronic' and with rare humor remarked that she was born with a paintbrush in her mouth instead of a silver spoon. 

Her grandfather, George Oakley, maintained a keen interest in art and returned to Europe many times to copy the works of the Old Masters. He eventually taught himself to paint well enough to be elected an Associate of the National Academy of Design. He encouraged Violet's father, Arthur, to pursue a career in art, and although Arthur eventually established a career in business, he maintained an interest in painting.

Violet's maternal grandfather enjoyed a long, successful career as a professional artist and made his living as a portrait painter in Massachusetts, where he gained fame as 'The Gainsborough of Nantucket.' He was elected to the National Academy in 1836. Swain passed his ability on to his daughter Cornelia, Violet's mother. Cornelia Swain studied in Boston with William Morris Hunt. Two of Violet's aunts, Juliana and Isabel Oakley, also had artistic ambitions and studied in Europe, including studies in Munich with American painter Frank Duveneck. 

Violet was justifiably proud of her talented family. In her later years she made several starts at an autobiography but unfortunately never got past the table of contents and a few brief pages. Her first chapter, 'Goodly Heritage,' began with a quote from the Psalms of David: 'The lines are fallen unto me in Pleasant Places: Yea, I have a goodly heritage.'"

(Excerpts from "The Red Rose Girls: Art and Love on Philadelphia's Main Line" by Alice A. Carter.)

The Red Rose Girls: Elizabeth Shippen Green, Pt. 2

"The Five Little Pigs" by
Elizabeth Shippen Green

"Elizabeth Shippen Green was an unusually ambitious and resourceful young woman. She learned the technical aspects of the illustration field from her father. At the age of seventeen she set up a studio in the corner of her bedroom, produced a series of drawings, and sold them to the 'Philadelphia Times.' These first published illustrations appeared in the 'Times' on her eighteenth birthday (one month before she began taking classes at the Academy), as an accompaniment for her own charmingly naive rhyme about a child and her doll, 'Naughty Lady Jane.'

The remuneration for these illustrations was hardly enough to earn Bessie Green financial independence (fifty cents for a one-column drawing, a dollar for two columns, and occasionally three dollars for a very large drawing), but the success of these illustrations led to other commissions for the publication, and the modest fees were enough to pay the $8-per-month tuition at the Academy. The young artist was so anxious to see her work in print that she willingly tested the stamina that would sustain her long professional life. While working diligently in the Academy's Antique class, seeking to gain her instructor's recommendation for promotion to the Women's Life class, she also produced a series of illustrations each week for the 'Philadelphia Times.'

Elizabeth also began to solicit new clients who would give her the opportunity to showcase more impressive drawings. Her first magazine cover was published in December 1890, two months into her second year at the Academy. She was nineteen years old. The drawing, executed in a sure and fluid line, appeared on the December cover of the humor magazine 'Jester' and depicted a young couple in evening dress at a holiday party. Her drawing, entitled 'Every Bud Has Its Thorn,' was captioned:

HE: I assure you, Miss Jacqueminot, I get thoroughly battled when I talk to a debutante, just lose my head completely y'know.
SHE: Indeed? What a pity. Well, Christmas is not far off, and perhaps Santa Claus will bring you some presents of mind.

She also established herself as a regular contributor to the 'Philadelphia Public Ledger.' Her assignments were all fashion illustrations: a corseted woman in a broad-shouldered gown that emphasized her tiny waist, a straw hat trimmed with Mercury wings. Although her drawings were competent, they were prosaic and virtually indistinguishable from those of the many other fashion illustrators plying their trade. She had yet to hit her stride."

To be continued

(Excerpts from "The Red Rose Girls: Art and Love on Philadelphia's Main Line" by Alice A. Carter.)

The Red Rose Girls: Elizabeth Shippen Green, Pt. 1

"A Petal from the Rose" by Elizabeth Shippen Green

"Elizabeth Shippen Green was a graduate of the Pennsylvania Academy. Bessie, as she was known, was described by her friends as 'a delightful person, and full of fun, who didn't mind making herself look ridiculous.' Small, slim, dark-haired and bright-eyed behind her spectacles, she began her studies in 1889 and completed them in 1893.

She was the third child of Jasper and Elizabeth Boude Green, born in September on the first day, in 1871. Her sister Katherine was just a year older. The family home was near the heart of Philadelphia. They were not wealthy but they had impeccable old Philadelphia connections through both the Green and the Shippen families, which provided Elizabeth with entrée into the best social circles throughout her life.

Like most Victorian parents, it was important to Jasper and Elizabeth Green that their daughters have every possible social advantage. Elizabeth was sent to private Philadelphia schools. Her interest in art began at a very young age. Encouraged by her father, a former Academy student, woodcarver, and artist-correspondent for 'Harper's Weekly' during the Civil War, she began illustrating her school notebooks at the age of eight. Her parents allowed their talented young daughter to enroll at her father's alma mater when she was just eighteen.

Unlike Jessie Smith, Elizabeth Green never thought of pursuing a career in the fine arts. Her focus was always on illustration. It is often forgotten that in the last quarter of the nineteenth century illustrated books and periodicals were the only vehicle for bringing images of the world into American homes - that weekly magazines with serialized stories generated the same anticipation as a a favorite weekly television program. Since eighty-eight percent of all the subscribers to American periodicals were women, magazine editors actively sought out qualified artists who could delineate a feminine point of view - and there were few female artists skilled enough to complete the assignments. Elizabeth's father could see that she had talent and that the climate favored her success - so it was not surprising that he had high hopes for her future."

To be continued

(Excerpts from "The Red Rose Girls: Art and Love on Philadelphia's Main Line" by Alice A. Carter.)

The Red Rose Girls: Jessie Willcox Smith, Pt. 2

"Round the Ring of Roses" by Jessie Willcox Smith

"Jessie Willcox Smith was twenty-one years old when she enrolled at the Philadelphia School of Design for Women. The tuition was inexpensive, $100 for a term of five months, and the school was elegant. By 1884, it was housed in its sixth location, an impressive mansion that had been the home of the actor Edwin Forrest. Situated in a fashionable neighborhood, surrounded by gracious homes on large, well-tended lots, it was a beautiful setting for an inferior education.

But Jessie's patience with the structured and outdated method of teaching drawing from the flat did not last long, and although there would be significant changes for the better just a few years in the future, at that time the only new innovation was the hiring of a professor to teach a class in carpet and upholstery design. Jessie wanted more. She convinced her family to allow her to enroll at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, where she came under the tutelage of the school's director, the notorious and volatile Thomas Eakins.  

Although Smith confided in her friends that she thought Eakins was a 'madman,' his classes improved her work. Under his tutelage she studied anatomy, perspective, and photography, yet she objected to his approach. Her own artistic vision, which was more romantic than realistic, never meshed with Eakins' insistence on rigorous confrontation with nature. She persisted in her studies at the Academy, working with Thomas Anshuntz and James B. Kelly, two of Eakins' former students who carried on the intent of the curriculum after his dismissal as director.

She never publicly discussed her presence at the school during this most turbulent time in the institution's distinguished history. Conflict of any kind caused her to feel profoundly uncomfortable. Her penchant for avoiding acrimony ruled her personal and professional life and manifested itself in her idealistic and often joyous paintings."

To be continued

(Excerpts from "The Red Rose Girls" An Uncommon Story of Art and Love" by Alice A. Carter.)

The Red Rose Girls: Jessie Willcox Smith, Pt. 1

"Curly Locks" by Jessie Willcox Smith

"Jessie Willcox Smith was born in Philadelphia at a time when the city still retained much of its original charm, typified by tree-lined cobblestone streets and brick-walled gardens fragrant with the scent of the clematis flower. Jessie like to tell her friends that she was not born in the month of September, but in the month of Clematis, on the sixth day, in the year 1863. She was the fourth of four children and enjoyed a childhood of comfort, if not privilege. Her middle-class family managed to make ends meet but was never part of Philadelphia society, a closed circle that included only the descendants of the Colonial founders and the very wealthy. 

The Smiths were supportive of both their daughters. Jessie was sent to the Quaker Friends Central School in Philadelphia and then to Cincinnati, Ohio, to attend high school with her cousins. After graduation, she remained in Cincinnati. Because she had always loved children, she secured a job as a kindergarten teacher, trusting that a career in education would prove to be rewarding as well as somewhat profitable. It did not take her long to realize that she had no aptitude for her new vocation, and began to look for some other means of support.

One of her friends developed an interest in art and when she began to offer lessons, Jessie joined in as a student. It immediately became apparent that she had considerable talent. When her friend's mother, who was an artist, commented favorably on her drawings, Jessie abruptly changed her plans. Many years later she wrote about the accidental beginning of her auspicious career: 

'I knew I wanted to do something with children, but never thought of painting them, until an artist friend saw a sketch I had made and insisted I should stop teaching (at which I was an utter failure) and go to art school - which I did.'

She returned to Philadelphia, and on October 2, 1884 was admitted to the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts.

To be continued

(Excerpts from "The Red Rose Girls" An Uncommon Story of Art and Love" by Alice A. Carter.)

The Red Rose Girls: The Academy Centennial

"Self-Portrait" by Violet Oakley

"Kept In" by Jessie Willcox Smith

"Giséle" by Elizabeth Shippen Green

"The date is Thursday, February 23, 1905. Teddy Roosevelt is about to be inaugurated for a second term. It costs $150 a year to attend Harvard University, a standard Oldsmobile Runabout may be purchased for $650 and a house for $2,000. Women will not vote in national elections for another fifteen years.

On this particular night Jessie Willcox Smith, Elizabeth Shippen Green, and Violet Oakley leave their communal residence for a banquet celebrating the centennial exhibition of the nation's oldest art institution, the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. Forty-one-year-old Jessie Smith, the oldest of the trio, approaches the evening with her status at the Academy already assured. At the 1903 exhibition she had garnered the institution's prestigious Mary Smith Prize for the best painting by a woman and is firmly established as one of the nation's foremost illustrators. Elizabeth Shippen Green, thirty-three, is also at the top of her career. The only woman under contract with 'Harper's' magazine, she will be awarded the 1905 Mary Smith Prize within the week. The youngest, thirty-year-old Violet Oakley, enjoys a national reputation as an illustrator and muralist.

Speeches are made, toasts given. The prizes are last, after coffee and cigars. Sculptor Alexander Calder is awarded the Lippincott Prize. The Temple Gold Medal goes to marine painter William Trost Richards. Then a surprise announcement: a special gold medal in honor of the Academy's centennial is awarded to the illustrator Violet Oakley. She is the youngest person ever to receive the award. The hall erupts in applause, and Violet is pelted with rose petals and carnation blossoms. Jessie and Elizabeth join the standing ovation.

After the banquet, the three women return in triumph to their leased estate in Villanova: the beautiful and elegant Red Rose Inn. Awaiting their arrival is the woman behind the women: the fourth member of the household, Henrietta Cozens. She was not a working artist, yet her assistance is invaluable. She manages the estate, tends the gardens, even knits the nightcaps. It was this unconventional living arrangement that freed Smith, Green and Oakley simultaneously from both the domestic responsibilities and the artistic isolation that still inhibit many capable artists. Together they are known as 'The Red Rose Girls.'"

To be continued

(Excerpts from "The Red Rose Girls" An Uncommon Story of Art and Love" by Alice A. Carter.)