Lilla Cabot Perry: We Draw to a Close

"An Easter Morning" by Lilla Cabot Perry

"A moving letter from Theodore Butler in Giverny brought the sad news of Monet's death in December 1926. Lilla was in the midst of preparations for two solo exhibitions in early 1927 - the Guild of Boston Artists show in January and her first exhibition in Washington, D.C. in February. In the first hour in the latter exhibition, she sold works to Gladys Vanderbilt, Mrs. Marshall Field and Perry Belmont. The prices received ranged from $250 to $500.

On May 7, 1928, Thomas Perry died quietly in his sleep after a brief bout with pneumonia. At eighty-three years, though his mind was as brilliant as ever, his body was worn out. 'But,' said Lilla, 'I don't find that having lived with a person you had loved for 54 years plus 1 month makes you miss them less!'

Painting was her primary solace. She explained, 'I am devoting my small remaining strength to what Monet begged me to and said was my forte, plein-air and paysage.' And so she culminated her career with landscapes, which she exhibited at the Guild of Boston Artists in 1929 and 1931. Edmund Tarbell remarked that these very late 'impressions' were among her finest works. He wrote her: 

'My dear Mrs. Perry, Your show at the Guild is perfectly beautiful, and those latest landscapes seem to me the finest you have painted. I don't know when I have enjoyed an exhibition so much... My warmest congratulations and many thanks for allowing us to see some real painting.'

Frank Benson returned five times to view her exhibition at the Guild in 1931. He wrote Lilla: 

'Dear Mrs. Perry, Good for you! I have been to see your show five times and I assure you it looks better to me every time. There never was truer, more direct and sincere painting, and I thought I should feel better to write and tell you so than simply say it when I saw you. I think it is the best show I have ever seen of your work, and I don't see how you have been able to accomplish so much when I know you have often had to lie by on account of your health. I hope you'll have many years of this kind of painting.'

Her most original late landscape is 'Mist on the Mountain,' painted in 1931. Here, an almost formless flush of muted hues suggest that both Mount Monadnock and Fuji were symbols of the same, invisible, Eternal Being. In this very last painting exhibited during Lilla's lifetime, the fusion between East and West had become a reality. Her niece Eleanor Bradly recounted 'Aunt Lilla died [on February 28, 1933] at 86 and was painting the day she died.'"

To be continued

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