Ella Condie Lamb: Finances

"The Crystal (Portrait of Gertrude McMannis)
by Ella Condie Lamb

"With the passing of Joseph Lamb in 1898 and his brother Richard in 1909, the next generation moved to pick up the reins and lead the J. & R. Lamb Studios into the 20th Century. Charles pulled it all together and ran the firm. The Studios expanded rapidly under him and his brother Fred. Not only did it provide 'everything for the church,' it also decorated interiors of libraries and private homes. 

In this position he had to cope with an upsetting aspect of the finances: the necessity of reminding clients to pay their bills. A letter from Charles to Ella describes his great reluctance in this matter, 'I hate to do it! I can't stand it! I wish I didn't have to do it!'

Ella not only saw how the pressures affected her husband, especially when the market for the work fell away, but also felt deep frustration and bewilderment herself. She began to question the role of the artist in society. Did the artist exist only to execute a client's desires or the decree of an architect? Sometimes she desperately struggled with the question of why an artist was to paint - what useful purpose did painting have? Why did one feel such urgency, such need, especially if the world was indifferent to what was produced? But sometimes the pain of the inexplicable divergence between the offer of the artist and the needs of an indifferent society overcame her emotional restraint.

She wrote in her diary in anguish: 'They say easel pictures are purposeless and useless, that everything must have its place to which it is destined to be applied. But how can such fine frenzy be harnessed to waiting for a job of decoration? Can inspiration wait on architecture? Shall the sonnet, the epic poem, the song, the symphony, all truly spontaneous creations, never be born?'"

To be continued

(Excerpts from "Ella's Certain Window" by Barea Lamb Seeley.)