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"Lady with a Bowl of Violets"
by Lilla Cabot Perry |
"George Moore believed that 'the story of a painter's mind may be read in every picture,' and Lilla Cabot Perry's view of the Boston State House in 1910 revealed her pleasure in coming home. She rarely painted urban views, although she had visited far more cities in Europe and Japan than most artists of her day. It is significant, therefore, that she began this new chapter in her life with a lovely landscape of the Boston skyline perceived through a delicate, almost oriental, pattern of barren trees across the Boston Commons.
This painting was included, along with landscapes from Giverny and Japan, in Lilla's solo exhibition at the Copley Gallery in 1911. This was followed by a new series of children's portraits, one of her most popular series, and which largely contributed to her bronze medal at the prestigious Panama-Pacific International Exposition in San Francisco in 1915.
With conservatism being the dominant trend of the day, it was no
wonder that the International Exhibition of Modern Art, or as it is more
widely referred to 'the Armory Show,' which presented a selection of
European avant-garde artists in Boston, created such a negative stir in
1913. The event no doubt prompted the establishment the following year
of the ultra-conservative Guild of Boston Artists. The driving force
behind this collective action, led by Tarbell, was Lilla Cabot Perry.
The seeds for this counterrevolution may well have been sown in Paris in
1907, when the Perrys encountered 'modern art' to their 'horror,' as
exemplified by Henri Matisse. Two decades previously Perry actively
contributed to impose Impressionism among Boston patrons. She now,
however, bitterly opposed the latest avant-garde trends from France.
In
1920 Frank Benson, the guild's president, presented Perry with a
commemorative silver bowl honoring her six years of loyal service. A
congratulatory letter signed by all the members accompanied the gift:
'To your personal influence [the guild] owes its inception and to your
untiring efforts on its behalf we feel its success is largely due, and
with the continuation of this happy condition we are confident that its
future success is assumed...' Her husband recorded the event in a letter
to his daughter Alice. 'Nothing could have been more surprising for
although Lilla has worked much for the Guild, we never knew they knew
much about it, but they did.'
To be continued
(Excerpts from Lilla Cabot Perry: An American Impressionist" by Meredith Martindale.)
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