Lilla Cabot Perry: Artistic Training

"The Young Violincellist" by Lilla Cabot Perry

"The earliest known painting by Lilla Cabot Perry is a small oil portrait of her daughter Margaret. There is no extant documentation, however, that indicates Lilla ever received any formal instruction prior to 1884 when she was thirty-six years old. Presumably her skills were self-taught, resulting from close observation of family and friends, complemented by frequent visits to both the Boston Athenaeum and the Art Museum. Another source of inspiration was was the exceptional collection owned by the Perrys' close friend Quincy Shaw. As Thomas Perry recalled to a friend years later:

'Mr. Shaw you know was one of Millet's early admirers and had more of Millet's pictures than one finds elsewhere under one roof. Besides the Millets, he had many capital Italian pictures.'

In the summer of 1884 Lilla received her first professional critiques from Alfred Quentin Collins, a portrait painter, who had studied in Paris at the Academie Julian. There is a similarity between Lilla's portrait of her daughter Margaret with her violin, titled 'The Beginner' and Collins' own portrait of young Alexander Wetherill. Just how long she continued with him is unclear. 

By 1885 she had engaged a new critic. 'Mr. Vonnoh, head teacher at the Art Museum, comes two mornings a week to criticize,' she wrote a friend. Robert Vonnoh was another product of Julian's. His portrait of John Severinus Conway, which was exhibited at the prestigious Paris Salon in 1883, launched his career as a portrait painter in Boston. Lilla joyfully wrote as she studied with him: 'I am hard at work at painting. I feel that I am improving fast and that is a delightful feeling! I told Tom the other day that he must not feel offended if I said that I had not been so happy since I was a girl at school!' 

Her excitement continued when husband Thomas announced his decision to join his close friend and colleague William Dean Howells in Paris, to which both men would take their families for a two-year sojourn. Lilla looked forward to studying painting there. To prepare herself she immediately enrolled in painting classes at the Cowles Art School under Dennis Miller Bunker.

Perry herself was extremely impressed by Bunker, whose 'power of drawing' she wrote, 'is amazing!' She had chosen her instructors wisely from the new crop of young realists temporarily on the Boston scene. Collins, Vonnoh and Bunker represented three exceptional portraitists, all trained in Paris at the Academie Julian. All of them reacted strongly against the insipid 'candy-box' images which covered America's walls 'as much like good pictures as 'Mary had a little lamb' or 'Twinkle, twinkle, little star' are like good poetry,' to quote Thomas Perry's cynical appraisal of many American paintings of the day. 

She was up for the challenge and relished all of the instruction, saying: 'I enjoy it very much, partly because it is so difficult.' Study and life in Paris would be wonderful!"

To be continued

(Excerpts from "Lilla Cabot Perry: An American Impressionist" by Meredith Martindale.)