Gertrude Fiske: Lifelong Involvements

"Jade" by Gertrude Fiske

"Gertrude Fiske was one of the founding members of the Ogunquit Art Association and the Guild of Boston Artists. She participated in local civic organizations including the Weston Public Library and the Weston Historical Society, and was an active member of the Boston Society of Etchers, Concord Art Association, and the National Association of Women Painters and Sculptors. Her art continued to receive critical acclaim both locally and nationally, and she maintained an active exhibition schedule into the 1950s. She exhibited in more than eleven solo shows and always selected a wide cross-section of her work both in size and subject matter.

Although a tremendous body of her work survives, Gertrude Fiske's popularity waned with the decline in demand and appreciation for the Boston School's paintings after 1930. She continued to paint women and children, landscapes, and portraits through 1930, but by the 1950s, when her health failed, Fiske was no longer actively painting. She died at her home in Weston on April 18, 1961. In her lifetime, telephones, televisions, cars, and airplanes became commonplace. She was born the year Thomas Edison invented the incandescent light bulb and died at the advent of the space age.

Gertrude Fiske was a modern woman ahead of her time committed to supporting the arts and artists through her leadership and contributions to the arts community locally and nationally. Her professional career as an acclaimed artist spanned two world wars and the Great Depression and saw the passage of women's right to vote. She saw this modern world, life, and art as being so very interconnected. In her words: 'Science has put into our hands the means by which we may veritably rebuild the world - the world of man's creation and handiwork - and the artist's conceptions - appreciated and supported by an enlightened people - can make that world beautiful in new and wonderful ways.'"

(Excerpts from "Gertrude Fiske: American Master" by Carol Walker Aten (Author), Lainey McCartney (Author), Richard M. Candee (Author) and Gerald W.R. Ward. (Editor).)