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| "Dick Lamb" by Ella Condie Lamb |
'J. Carol Beckwith had the Antique and the men's morning Life class ... and C.Y. Turner the women's Life in the afternoons. Less picturesque than either Chase or Beckwith, he was sturdy and sincere and gave us good sound instruction. I learned to study the balance of a figure's masses, to see it as a whole - to 'think not of your drawing but only of what you are looking at...' There were also the evening lectures. Thomas Dewing, just back from Paris, on composition, J. Scott Hartley on anatomy, Frederick Dielman on perspective, and three or four special and inspired talks from George Inness.
From England came the great Hubert Herkomer, to paint portraits... He talked to us also. Tall, his skin dead white, with black eyes and straight hair that hung, intensely black, over his forehead, he was compelling and hypnotic - until he aroused one's antagonism.'
Life class, portrait class, sketch class, seven hours a day, five days a week. It was an intense but fulfilling time.
At this time a catastrophic event occurred in the Condie family. Ella's beloved mother became fatally ill. Ella, being the only daughter still at home, became her nurse. The center of her sheltered, cultured, loving world would soon be taken from her, her sisters, and her father. 'That year of 1883 I gladly gave up most of my study,' she wrote, 'to take care of my mother, who was fast leaving us. In October a 'beautiful, unselfish and noble life' came to an end.
Her father proposed that his talented daughter pursue her studies in Europe. 'My days at the League ended in 1884 ... days and friends I so vividly remember,' she penned, then added that perhaps the most vivid of those friendships were those made with Fannie Abbot, Dick Lamb, and with his brother Charles (of whom we shall hear more). But she bid farewell and departed for London and Paris."
To be continued
(Excerpts from "Ella's Certain Window" by Barea Lamb Steeley.)
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