Ella Condie Lamb: Student at the National Academy of Design

"Old Man Model" by Ella Condie Lamb

"The National Academy of Design was established in 1825. Samuel R.B. Morse (inventor of Morse code) was its first president. Ella Condie Lamb was overjoyed to be a student there, her intense longing for serious training was being met. 'I spent day after day of seven hours of absorbing work which passed only too quickly.'

To be in the 'Antique' class meant that a student drew from plaster casts. Capable of great concentration, she accepted the discipline of routine study.

'Professor Wilmarth started me on block head, feet, and hands. In the late afternoon we had a sketch class where we took turns posing, experimented with mediums, and admired each other's results as never in serious class work. Life classes - the men worked mornings, the women, afternoons - were all presided over by Professor Wilmarth. There were lectures in the evening, Frederick Dielman on perspective, J. Wells Champney gave us anatomy and brought us a human hand to show us how the tendons worked.'

Ella also met her two best friends, Laura Opper and Fannie Lee, at The Academy. All of them serious students, the three kindred spirits were also always ready for any fun, such as sketching expeditions and picnics in the spring. These were friendships that were broken only by death, forty-five years later.

Especially joyful were visits to the studios of professional artists. 'Every year, they kept open house. A studio was a mysterious place which filled my soul to the brim. The joy of being admitted to see intimately the surroundings and workshops of well-known artists! I went from room to room with awe and admiration.' She knew she had found her place, and wrote, 'I belonged to that world.'

To be continued

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