Byam Shaw: A Studio of Their Own

"The Blessed Damosel" by Byam Shaw

"June 1893 saw Byam Shaw and his fellow student and friend Gerald Metcalfe settled in a studio of their own at 95 Cheyne Walk, Chelsea. The studio was formerly Whistler's, and was attached to a charming house, three hundred years old, which Gerald's mother had taken. Here Shaw finished 'Silent Noon' and set to work on a watercolor for the Academy schools competition, the subject being a decoration, 'Abundance', and also the life-sized cartoon in charcoal of one of the figures to accompany it. The prize was won and both the watercolor and 'Silent Noon' were well hung in the Academy of 1894.

It was the right atmosphere for the production of good work. The friends, believing in each other in each other's work, had the encouragement they required, and an additional backing from Shaw's sister, Glen, and from Mrs. Metcalfe, who had character, as well as being gentle and sympathetic, with a quaint and original sense of humour that delighted Byam. Shaw now began a portrait of Miss E. Pyke-Nott, who had been a student with him, both at St. John's Wood and the Academy schools, and in the summer they became engaged - the first step in a very happy life shared together.

For many years there existed a club for students of all art schools called 'The Gilbert-Barrett Sketch Club'. Subjects were set and each school contributed a panel of work. The figure subject for 1893 was 'An Idyll'. Byam painted the story of 'The Princess and the Swineherd' from Hans Andersen, and won the first prize. Another picture of large size, entitled 'The Blessed Damosel' was then begun. [It was based on a poem of the same name by artist and poet Dante Gabriel Rossetti.] In the summer he was making studies for it at Lyme Regis, from whence he wrote: 'I want to get on with my apple tree and rose bush in the big picture as I have only slight studies for them. I want to work at them while they are fresh in what I am pleased to call my mind.' The picture appeared in the Academy of 1895, and at once brought the painter into most favourable notice. Its success was immediate. It was hung on the line and sold for three hundred pounds."

To be continued

(Excerpts from "The Art & Life of Byam Shaw" by Rex Vicat Cole.)

Byam Shaw: Progress at the Academy

"Silent Noon" by Byam Shaw

"Similar drawings to those required for entrance had to be repeated on admission, and upon acceptance of these, Byam Shaw became a student of the Royal Academy Schools. At this time I began studying landscape out of doors, and for a few years I saw very little of him. 

The routine at the Academy was in those days very strict. After the entrance exam came a test of two monochrome paintings of antique statues, and a head from life in colour, to pass into the life-class - which meant figure and head models on alternate days, painted in colour, the figure model at the evening class drawn in chalk. For instruction, there was a day-visitor and an evening-visitor, which changed each month, who were members or associates of the Academy. Among the most active amongst these were Hubert Herkomer, Luke Fildes, Val Prinsep, F. Dicksee, John Waterhouse, Alma Tadema, Solomon J. Solomon, and not unoften the President, Sir Frederick Leighton. 

At the lectures either the Keeper or the President sat in a high-back armchair in front of the students, and facing the lecturer. One evening Sir Frederick Leighton was in the chair at a rather prosy chemistry lecture and dropped off to sleep. A demonstration of what should happen to a certain pigment under heat having conspicuously failed, was greeted with ironical applause. This woke the President, who, mistaking its purport, joined heartily in the clapping.

In the winter of 1892, Shaw designed 'Rose Marie', conceived from Rossetti's poem, a remarkable effort for a student of twenty, busy with school work. It was painted in his father's old dressing-room, which was a very small one It was his first exhibited picture, being hung at the Academy of 1893. The hands and head were painted from his mother. 

He had now spent three years of regular work in the schools and, having passed for his second term of two years, reached the stage when students were encouraged to work more on their own. In a hired studio he began his first large picture (size 43" x 26"). 

'Silent Noon.'

'This close companioned inarticulate hour
When twofold silence was the song of love.'  Rosetti

In it we see a girl (painted from his sister) lying on the grass in the speckled sunlight, with a man in purple velvet sitting beside her. It shows the admiration he then had for John Waterhouse (R.A.)."

To be continued

(Excerpts from "The Art & Life of Byam Shaw" by Rex Vicat Cole.)

Byam Shaw: Life Class

"Studies of Men and Women in Medieval Dress"
by Byam Shaw

"The innovation of a life-model was a great event. We trooped in and began our drawings with stumping-chalk and plumb-line, as we had been taught over the Antique casts! Soon charcoal found more favour, and that led to charcoal smeared, and worked over with a dry paint brush. The phase culminated with rubbing it with a rag, which created a superficial surface remarkably like flesh, though apt to be a trifle boneless. Shaw's drawings from Life were usually in Conté, rubbed, or in pure line. They showed exceptional thoroughness and accurate study of form, but little inspiration.

The Principals aimed at passing students into the Academy Schools after a short training, and they had success. Their only rival in the field was Cope's - the school run by Arthur Cope and Erskine Nichol. Very little beyond a realistic representation was attempted.

To the lower schools of the Academy a student had to submit drawings from the Antique. We sent them in at the appointed time, afterwards made enquiries of the Academy porter (as the custom was), only to hear we had failed to pass. Before Shaw tried again, an additional test, more to his liking, had been added - that of a head and arm, life-size, from the living model - and in 1890 he passed as probationer.

Some of the students of our time have entered different professions, others have followed various branches of art with success - most of them as figure-painters and draughtsmen. Among these are G. Spencer Watson, G. Stuart Davis, the late Allan Davidson, Gerald Metcalfe, Hugh Rivière, Lewis Baumer, Isabel Codrington and her elder sister, Mrs. Byam Shaw. Harry Dell and I have devoted ourselves to landscape, Benard Gribble to marine painting, and Roland Wheelwright almost entirely to animals. Teaching claimed Robinson and Sydney Evans."

To be continued

(Excerpts from "The Art & Life of Byam Shaw" by Rex Vicat Cole.)

Byam Shaw: First Years at St. John's Wood Art Schools

"The Prodigal's Return" by Byam Shaw

"It was at St. John's Wood Art Schools that my friendship with Byam Shaw began. I had just left Eton to begin my art training, and Shaw joined the schools in 1887.  In our early days there was no Life class - that came later. Our task was to draw from the Antique for five and a half days a week, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Attendance was registered and even a day off noted.

The big 'Antique' room was packed with girl and boy students, with the usual sprinkling of elderly folk, the girls outnumbering the boys by about ten to one. Silence was the order, and we were given printed rules for observation. One, I think, ran thus: 'Talking between male and female students is not allowed except in the rests, and then only on matters relating to art'!

Casts of the Hermes and Illyssus, Theseus, Venus, Caocoon, The Gladiator, Faun, and Discobolus were relieved with improvised backgrounds of white against a pale green distempered wall, wainscotted with wood of darker tint. On this hung a row of plaster cats - masks, and the separate features of the face fo Michelangelo's David, spaced by numerous busts set on pedestals.

As a newcomer, one stood awed by the reality of the highly stippled drawings produced by the older students, and I think the sole ambition of us all was some day to rival their realistic excellence. These prodigies of labour were evolved by an acquired manipulation of stumps and powdered chalk with 'sticky' or hard india-rubber. Their accuracy was the result of severe study of relative light and shade, the testing by plumbline and ruler, and seeking for knowledge of form through opera glasses.

We drew the casts in a set order. First, a fortnight was spent in imitating the light and shade of a cup and ball; followed by a cast of ornament in high relief. Next came six outlines and one drawing, of each of the features. After these, drawings of hands and feet, a mask, the head and bust, and, finally, a cast of the whole figure. For those who were being crammed, as it were, for the entrance exam, to the lower schools at the Royal Academy, the course was now complete, and they stretched their sheet of 'Double Elephant' Whatman paper ready for the three months of labour which were to be expended on it.

As a training for hard work the system was all for the good. No one, unless he was determined to be a painter and felt sure of himself, could have borne such incessant drudgery for one or two years without the intellectual relaxation that colours, a living model or composition could have given him."

To be continued

(Excerpts from "The Art & Life of Byam Shaw" by Rex Vicat Cole.)

John Byam Liston Shaw: Early Influences

"Love's Baubles" by Byam Shaw

"John Byam Liston Shaw was born on November 13th, 1872, at Ferndale, Madras, India. His father was Registrar of the High Court of Madras. The first incident recorded of the little Byam might well be that of one of his own pictures. Being missed, and a search organized, the child was found riding a pony at the head of a native procession. We are not told how he was dressed, but he is described as a pretty child, with a bright complexion and thick, golden-red hair in close curls round his head.

In 1878 his father returned to England, bringing the boy with him, to meet for the first time his brother and sister, who had lived with their grandmother at Bath. Here he was given his first lessons in drawing by Mr. Bennett. The following year the family settled in London, the father practicing as a solicitor. Too delicate for school, his education was undertaken by his mother and a governess, and influenced by his father, who, seeing the child absorbed in drawing (for he used to illustrate the tales read to him) and recognizing his destiny, took infinite pains that his mind and sight should be attracted by the best in literature and art. And so it came about that the boy's playbooks were those illustrated with prints, such as Raphael's cartoons, which he took pleasure in copying. He also had the run of the library and was soon familiar with Shakespeare and books not usually read at his age. 

His own bent to become an artist was unceasingly expressed. When, at eight years old, he was thrown from a donkey and hurt his left arm his only remark was: 'It's not my drawing arm.' This happened when he had just begun drawing lessons under Mr. J.A. Vinter, who taught him admirably, until he was fifteen. It was then that his father died suddenly and the future of the lad had to be decided. Fortunately his tutor and his mother believed in his talent, but confirmation was necessary to convince other members of the family, and so Sir John Millais was asked to see his work. This he did, and gave the most kindly and encouraging advice, resulting in Byam being enrolled as a student at St. John's Wood Art Schools."

To be continued

(Excerpts from "The Art & Life of Byam Shaw" by Rex Vicat Cole.)

Byam Shaw: The Preface

"The Queen of Hearts" by Byam Shaw

Rex Vicat Cole wrote: "If I had literary ability I would write of my friend's [John Byam Liston Shaw's] character so that the charm of his nature would be adequately revealed to those who had not the privilege of knowing him.

His kindly jest and ready wit, born of a quaint imagination, would live again in the inspiration of my picture.

I would tell of his insight, his sincerity and generous nature.

I would dwell on his unbounded love for all that God created.

I would tell how unsparingly he laboured to express the beauty he saw in those creations, and I would recount the tales of his sympathy and understanding, that made him beloved.

My picture would show him religious, manly, honest and tender, well read, an incessant and methodical worker, and yet full of zest for everyday affairs, interested in games, sport and the drama: appreciative of the good things of life, sociable, and mindful of the fitness of ceremony and dress when occasion required it.

I would tell of his hatred of prudery, asceticism and humbug.

Nor would I pass over his mannerisms and use of strong and purposely exaggerated language, or his rare but violent outbursts of temper.

I would describe his works so that those who had missed their meaning should find in them a pleasure unexpected: and others who recognized in them the touch of Divine Spirit and appreciated their beauty would not in my account of them be disappointed.

As it is, I can give a faithful account of his daily life. I can place his pictures and illustrations in the order of their doing, and recount the incidents of an uneventful life that were built up round them.

Best of all, I can give a glimpse of his mind in the letters he wrote to his intimate friend, Gerald Metcalfe, without whose help I could not have undertaken even the simple tale I have attempted.

My chief purpose was to reproduce a representative collection of his work, in chronological order, and I think he would have liked me to undertake this office for him."

(Excerpt from "Art and Life of Byam Shaw" by Rex Vicat Cole.)

The Red Rose Girls: The Final Chapter

"The Picture Book" by Jessie Willcox Smith

"Amid trouble and crisis, Violet Oakley and Edith Emerson remained devoted companions. Edith was not an idle partner and helped financially as much as possible. She was an accomplished and prolific painter of some note and also designed murals, stained glass, illustrations, and bookplates. She taught in the Philadelphia area at the Agnes Irwin School, The Museum School of Industrial Arts, and at Chestnut Hill College. Beginning in 1940 she was successively vice president, president, and curator of the Woodmere Art Gallery in Chestnut Hill. 

After Oakley's death in 1961, Emerson found it impossible to abandon her close connection to the ethics of her beloved comrade. In order to disseminate Violet's message, she established the Violet Oakley Memorial Foundation, an organization dedicated to keeping her friend's memory and ideals alive. The elderly membership consisted mainly of longtime friends, former students of the Cogslea Academy, and amateur painters who were upset by Abstract Expressionism and found solace in Oakley's didactic work. Several years after Edith died on November 21, 1981, at the age of ninety-three, the Violet Oakley Foundation was dissolved, and Lower Cogslea sold. Although the hedges grew tall, the clematis bloomed in September, and roses still opened in the bright Mt. Airy summer, the last beneficiary of the Red Rose legacy was gone.

Jessie Willcox Smith, Elizabeth Shippen Green, and Violet Oakley knew the value of an artistic community, of honest and informed criticism by their peers, and of the company of compatible friends. By the close of the twentieth century, 106 eminent artists were honored with inclusion into the Society of Illustrators Hall of Fame: ninety-seven men and nine women, three of whom were our Red Rose Girls."

(Excerpts from "The Red Rose Girls: Art and Love on Philadelphia's Main Line" by Alice A. Carter.)  

The Red Rose Girls: Violet's Financial Woes

"Portrait of Man in Profile, Head of
League of Nations Association, Chicago"
by Violet Oakley

"Violet Oakley needed a commission. The seemingly inexhaustible sum received in payment for her murals at the Capitol had all been spent. For the first time in her professional career, no assignment arrived in time to save her from serious financial problems. As the twentieth-century art establishment became concerned with self-expression and abstraction, she found it difficult to garner important assignments, but Violet was not about to be thwarted. 

She immediately found a new project to interest her, in spite of the fact that she had no patron for the work. That same year, she and Edith rented out Cogslea and traveled to Geneva, Switzerland, to document the beginning of the League of Nations and draw portraits of the delegates. Violet was bitterly disappointed when the United States failed to join the League, for she felt the organization represented the culmination of William Penn's dreams, as well as her own. She also found no commercial outlet for the Geneva drawings. In 1933 she published them along with reproductions of the Harrisburg project in a privately printed book, 'The Law Triumphant.' Unfortunately, the revenues generated from the project failed to cover the production costs.

Over the next twenty-seven years, Violet published several books, accepted various mural commissions, completed a number of portrait commissions, and to help pay expenses started an art school, The Cogslea Academy of Arts and Letters, in her studio. The Depression, World War II, and the changing aesthetics of the twentieth century destroyed Violet's hopes for financial recovery. Eventually she was forced to rent the house and move into the studio, which was bravely named 'Lower Cogslea.' Unhappily, the bank foreclosed on the mortgage of the property. Violet and Edith, facing the mortification of eviction, were saved one last time by Mrs. George Woodward, who bought Lower Cogslea and rented it back to the two artists at a price they could afford."

To be continued

(Excerpts from "The Red Rose Girls: Art and Love on Philadelphia's Main Line" by Alice A. Carter.)  

The Red Rose Girls: Introducing Edith Emerson

"When Jessie and Henrietta had moved out of Cogslea, Violet Oakley enlarged the studio to an expansive room fifty feet square and twenty-four feet high. Her young friend and protégé, Edith Emerson, often frequented the newly renovated space. Like her mentor Howard Pyle, Oakley believed that the opportunity to work professionally could be a valuable experience for students. When she heard that Philadelphia's Little Theater needed refurbishing, she encouraged her class at the Academy to compete for the assignment of designing the mural decorations, assuring the theater's board that she would personally supervise the work. Emerson won the job. 

One day in 1916, designs in hand, she stopped at Cogslea unexpectedly to show her drawings to Violet. In the front hall she came upon an odd tableau. Cornelia Oakley, resplendent in an elaborate hat and veil, was stationed on a chair in the hall, posing for the painter John McLure Hamilton, who busily assigned her image to canvas, while Violet, off to one side, sketched an informal portrait. Not wanting to interrupt the concentration of the two noted artists, Edith quickly reported on her progress and turned to leave. Violet called her back and whispered, 'When are you going to finish them so you can come and help me in the studio?'

Emerson regarded this brief interchange as the turning point in her life. It was then that she officially became Oakley's assistant. The Cogslea studio must have provided an inspirational atmosphere for the young apprentice. Violet's magnum opus, the huge 'Unity' painting, dominated one wall of the studio, counterbalanced by iron weights. 

For the next ten years, with Edith assisting, Violet worked on the last portion of her task for the Pennsylvania capitol. On May 23, 1927, Oakley completed the sixteen panels for the Supreme Court Chambers, which she called 'The Opening of the Book of the Law.' That same year she published a limited-edition folio, 'The Holy Experiment,' which contained reproductions of her murals for the Governor's Reception Room and the Senate Chamber. Emerson once told a friend that when Oakley dispatched all her obligations tot he State of Pennsylvania, dismantled the scaffolding, and straightened her studio after the completion of the monumental assignment, she survey the clean, empty space and declared, 'this makes me feel like working!'"

(The video is of Violet Oakley explaining her murals for the state of Pennsylvania. Excerpts from "The Red Rose Girls: Art and Love on Philadelphia's Main Line" by Alice A. Carter.) 

The Red Rose Girls: Elizabeth and Huger's Final Curtain

"The Sycamore" by
Elizabeth Shippen Green Elliott

"Despite their difficult start, Elizabeth Green and Huger Elliott eventually established a viable relationship. Contrary to Howard Pyle's prediction, marriage did not ruin Elizabeth's career. She continued to be a productive illustrator and take great pleasure in her work. She fulfilled her social responsibilities as Mrs. Huger Elliott, maintained her contract with 'Harper's,' and illustrated nineteen books, including 'Tales from Shakespeare' by Charles and Mary Lamb. Although it would take several years for her to reestablish her friendship with Violet, Elizabeth maintained her close alliance with Henrietta and Jessie, which Huger was sensitive enough to encourage.

In June 1920, Huger accepted the position of president of the Philadelphia Museum School of Industrial Arts. The appointment was greeted with jubilation by Elizabeth, especially when they were able to secure a house near Coglea and Cogshill. The Elliotts named it 'Little Garth,' meaning little garden. There Elizabeth occupied 'her first perfect studio.' It was a large sunlit room with cabinets ample enough to store her extensive clipping files, which by that time occupied some thirty feet of space. Over the fireplace hung a huge copy of an Italian fresco fashioned by Huger when he was an architectural student. His office was set on a balcony overlooking the studio, and there he was agreeably ensconced with his books and his typewriter.

As Elizabeth aged, she never lost her keen eye for design or her technical skill in drawing. After Huger died of a heart attack on November 14, 1948, Elizabeth elected to remain at Little Garth, where she died in 1954 at the age of eighty-two. When notified of her friend's death, Violet was disconsolate and for once could not find the strength for the task at hand. It was Violet's young friend and protégé, Edith, who went through the Elliott household and packed up Elizabeth's belongings."

To be continued

(Excerpts from "The Red Rose Girls: Art and Love on Philadelphia's Main Line" by Alice A. Carter.)

The Red Rose Girls: Jessie Willcox Smith, Till the End

"Little Drops of Water"
by Jessie Willcox Smith

"By 1931, during the Depression, Jessie Willcox Smith's adjusted income was $31,450.18, more than enough to support her own household as well as a number of impoverished relatives. In spite of her sound finances, Jessie continued to work steadily until failing eyesight and illness forced her to stop accepting commissions in 1933. By 1935 Jessie Smith was bedridden and almost blind. On the night of May 5, she died. Henrietta, who inherited the house and the bulk of Jessie's $240,000 estate, lived at Cogshill for five more years and died in 1940 at the age of eighty-one.

After Smith's death the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts mounted a memorial show. Initially, still harboring their traditional objections to illustrative images, they weren't thinking of such a exhibit, but when they considered Smith's portraits of prominent Philadelphia families who had had their children done, they borrowed the work and had a huge show.

Edith Emerson wrote a tribute for the catalogue, honoring Smith with love and respect on behalf of her Cogslea family:

'Nothing morbid or bitter ever came from her brush. This is not because the difficulties of life left her untouched. She had her full share, but when they came she met and conquered them. She demanded nothing for herself but obeyed the simple injunction on the poster she designed for the Welfare Foundation - GIVE. She helped those in need, the aged, the helpless, the unfortunate. She gave honest and constructive advice to students who came to her for criticism. She rejoiced in the success of others and was modest about her own. Tall, handsome and straightforward, she carried herself well, with no trace of self-assertation. She always spoke directly and to the point. She lived quietly and loved natural unaffected things and people. Altogether hers was a brave and generous mind, comprehending life with a large simplicity, free from all pettiness and unfailingly kind.'

The exhibition was a great success as well as a fitting memorial and precipitated the final bit of poetry inspired by the art of Smith. It ended with the lines, 'Lord we thank thee for bestowing/ On an artist skilled and knowing/ Patience in such generous measures/ That she left us all these treasures.'"

To be continued

(Excerpts from "The Red Rose Girls: Art and Love on Philadelphia's Main Line" by Alice A. Carter.)

The Red Rose Girls: Fight On!

"Fairies at the Lily Pond"
by Jessie Willcox Smith

"Jessie Smith and Henrietta Cozens moved into Cogshill, their new home, in 1914, thus ending what had been an outstandingly successful artistic collaboration. Although the Red Rose Girls eventually reestablished their friendship, the guidance and inspiration they derived from one another ended. When their alliance was severed, their work did not so much decline as fail to move forward. Revolutionary changes, which they refused to acknowledge, were taking place in the art world. Although they were aware that their work was considered old-fashioned, there was still a market for it. In a letter, Violet addressed the subject and outlined the philosophy that sustained her for the rest of her life: hold steadfastly to your beliefs - and do not give up the fight!

Jessie Willcox Smith, Elizabeth Shippen Green Elliott, and Violet Oakley did not give up the fight. Although they all lived well into the twentieth century, they never cut their hair, shortened their skirts, learned to drive, or embraced any of the changes taking place in the art world or in society. Edna Andrade remembers being a member of the receiving line at one of the Academy Fellowship shows in the early 1950s. Looking down the line at the other artists, one of the group noticed that they were a shabby lot. 'Don't worry,' one of them remarked, 'we'll all look a lot better when Violet gets here.' Indeed, Violet was majestic. Artist and historian Ben Eisentat also remembers Oakley at the Academy openings cutting an impressive swath through the crowd in her long Victorian-style gown, looking like she was 'dressed in the living room curtains.'

The Red Rose Girls embraced the nineteenth-century aesthetic of sentiment and narrative and never understood the twentieth-century's preoccupation with stream of consciousness or abstraction. They all admired the Pre-Raphaelites, as well as Abbott Thayer, George Inness, James McNeill Whistler, the landscapes of John Twachtman, the stylized murals of Elihu Vedder, the works of John La Farge and Edwin Austin Abbey, and the writings of Shakespeare, Henry James, Dickens, and the Romantic poets. The Realist school, although more palatable to them than modernism, celebrated American life as it was and scoffed at the idealized images of the previous century. The Red Rose Girls had built their lives around romance not realism."

To be continued

(Excerpts from "The Red Rose Girls: Art and Love on Philadelphia's Main Line" by Alice A. Carter.)

The Red Rose Girls: Unraveling

1913 Christmas card from Elizabeth Shippen Green Elliott

'The shaky alliance between the women remaining at Cogslea was unraveling. In July 1913 Huger agreed that he and Elizabeth should spend some time there. Finally reunited after two painful years, the four women enjoyed what was to be their last time together as a family. The visit was a resounding success. When the Elliotts were leaving to return to Cambridge, Elizabeth extracted a promise that her three friends would come for an extended visit. Jessie and Henrietta were to come in September, but serious problems at Cogslea intervened and the visit was canceled.

Violet Oakley was having trouble finding a studio large enough to accommodate her enormous murals. There are two versions of what happened next. According to Violet, she was obliged to sell all her assets and purchase Cogslea in order to enlarge the studio. It is also conceivable that she wanted to stay in her home because she was apprehensive about moving her aging mother, who had been living with them. Jessie, Violet always contended, was supportive of this new arrangement and happily agreed to buy a quarter of the land and build an adjacent home on the property. Violet later assured her biographers that, when the new house was built, Jessie and Henrietta willingly moved out of Cogslea and into their charming new home.

However a letter from Elizabeth to Jessie and Henrietta tells a very different story:

'I don't believe you realize what it has meant to me not to have you here through September. We went away from Coglea in July confidently looking forward to it - and as for it seeming that I did not realize that you had left Cogslea and giving you my interest and sympathy - why it has never been out of my mind. If I have not said much about it in my letters it's because I can't write about what I feel so intensely - all the disagreeablenesses which brought it about and I don't suppose I know half of them for you never write about them.

Violet is a strange person - she wrote me the most intense letter after I wrote that we would not spend Christmas at Cogslea - but that you were coming to us. I'd like you to see it. One of those intense Christian Science letters implying that I had let myself be pressured by the thought that she wanted you two to leave Cogslea but she had tried with all her might that you would stay and she would build... I really feared that when she opened up the subject it would lead to a row for I would in all probability have told her how I felt about her attitude about not making the slightest suggestion that you stay with her during building... Violet is certainly a remarkable person and certainly has a dual personality. How can I feel as I do toward her uncanny inhuman side... and yet enjoy her and find her disarming and likeable too? You know how it is, for she's always been that way.'

To be continued

(Excerpts from "The Red Rose Girls: Art and Love on Philadelphia's Main Line" by Alice A. Carter.)

The Red Rose Girls: Violet's Crisis of Confidence

Violet Oakley at work on "Unity"

"Because Violet Oakley was awarded the new contract for the Capitol of the state of Pennsylvania on the basis of the success of her designs for the Governor's Reception Room, it is hardly surprising that she decided to 'pick up the threads' of her original assignment. The new series would begin with the philosophy of the Quakers - moral precepts on which the State was founded. Then she moved on effortlessly to create conceptual sketches for the main wall. Revolutionary troops, Civil War soldiers, George Washington at the Constitutional Convention, a solemn Abraham Lincoln delivering his famous address at Gettysburg. However, much to her dismay, a theme for the largest panel - nine feet high and forty-four feet long - eluded her.

She finally conceived a theme: an immense and powerful-looking female allegorical figure representing the unity of all life, painted in shades of blue, a color that she felt symbolized wisdom. In the midst of this inspired vision Violet suddenly lost all confidence in her ability while on a trip to London: 

'And when I thought of that central figure of Unity, I was appalled and tried to make another composition, and it wouldn't come. And I had to go back to that, because there had to be that great, strong, enormous figure as a keystone to hold all the different parts of the thing in the room together.

And I remember being quite dashed and one day going round - it was a rainy, windy day - and I went round, and I thought that the Thames River looked like a rather good place to jump when you knew you couldn't carry out what you'd been asked to do.

I stumbled down to the National Gallery, and with difficulty, climbed up all those steps,
got into the central hall and dropped upon a bench in the center. And I looked up and saw a beautiful Italian painting. An early painting by Orcagna. And I suddenly realized that time had nothing to do with art. It was a question of whether it was good enough at any time or age. That art was not for time, not for an age but for all time - that it was the expression of eternal qualities of beauty and harmony. And I was immediately healed. So I always think of that room in the National Gallery as where I was healed and where I was then to take up the theme and develop it.'

That day in the bleak London rain, when Violet decided not to throw herself into the Thames, became a turning point - a line of demarcation between her fourteen-year association with the Cogs family and a new independent life."

To be continued

(Excerpts from "The Red Rose Girls: Art and Love on Philadelphia's Main Line" by Alice A. Carter.)

The Red Rose Girls: Unexpected Events

Some of Violet Oakley's murals for the
Senate Chamber at Harrisburg, Pennsylvania

On the fourth of July, 1911, Violet made a stunning announcement as part of a well-attended holiday celebration at Cogslea. 'With 1912 I feel called upon to make a great change in my life... Whether my home is to be here near Philadelphia or to be there near New York, I do not know - or whether it is to be divided between two places.' Along with all of their guests, Jessie and Harriet were shocked. However, events were about to mitigate against the move.

On August 1, 1911, the great painter Edwin Austin Abbey died at home in England. His last days were spent in his studio where his bed had been carried so that he might gaze at the murals nearing completion for the House of Representatives in the State Capitol half a world away in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. He had already completed his famous compositions for the dome and was about to embark on the balance of the assignment. Abbey was only fifty-nine years old, and the illness that ended his life came on swiftly. Violet attributed his sudden death to the difficulty of the Harrisburg contract, remarking, 'it was perhaps the most colossal commission that had been given to one painter - and it was too heavy for him.' In fact Abbey died of cancer, while his involvement in his Harrisburg work as well as numerous other projects was at its height.

In the autumn of 1911, Oakley was awarded the portion of Abbey's contract that he had not yet started, a series of murals for the Senate Chamber and the Supreme Court Room in the Capitol at Harrisburg. Advised that with so much work from Pennsylvania she should remain in the state, Violet temporarily abandoned any plans to move to New York. This was to be her great life's work. She would spend the next sixteen years completing the project, entrenched in her studio at Cogslea."

To be continued

(Excerpts from "The Red Rose Girls: Art and Love on Philadelphia's Main Line" by Alice A. Carter.)

 

The Red Rose Girls: Elizabeth's Wedding

"Paper Doll Books"
by Elizabeth Shippen Green

"On Saturday afternoon, June 3, 1911, Elizabeth Shippen Green became Elizabeth Green Elliott. The late-afternoon wedding was a private function. Because the guest list consisted only of intimate friends, no formal invitations were sent out. Henrietta decorated the house with banks of flowers. The Reverend Jacob LaRoy of St. Martin's-in-the-Field performed the ceremony. Violet and Jessie attended the bride, who was given away in marriage by her uncle. The quiet service and modest dinner reception were conducted with the dignity and sense of propriety that characterized life at Cogslea.

Although the bride and groom left the house soon after the reception they did not leave Philadelphia fast enough to miss the next morning's headline story on the front page of the 'Philadelphia Press:' 'Trio of Artist Friends Broken by Cupid.' The headline and following article ruined the occasion for Elizabeth, and whoever leaked the details of what was meant to be a very private occasion was obviously no friend of the Red Rose Girls. The press reported, wrongly, that 'Smith Green and Oakley spent their last two hours 'closeted' together with a shattered Violet Oakley pleading with Elizabeth to keep their compact, holding out hope till the very last that she would change her mind and stay, and then breaking down completely. As Elizabeth and Huger sailed for Europe, Elizabeth wrote, 'I think the only redress is to sue for libel when we get back...'

She also wrote them:

'I must say and I want to pour out my heart to you, you lovely dear people to work and slave for me to give me such a beautiful happy wedding day when I had troubled and feared that it would be the saddest day almost for me. I may be married and I'm very happy on the married side of the situation but I'll never be any less to you - not any different in the real me toward you and Jessie and Violet and Mrs. Oakley. I'm just not that kind. I don't know about what the future has in store, but it has not in store any change or forgetting in me, only addition - not division. I'll be double but not half...'

To be continued

(Excerpts from "The Red Rose Girls: Art and Love on Philadelphia's Main Line" by Alice A. Carter.)

The Red Rose Girls: Elizabeth's Proposal

"Rising Vigorously Out of the Earth
Was a Little Rose Bush"
by Elizabeth Shippen Green

"Cogslea was charming, the Red Rose girls' careers were flourishing, but things were changing - significantly. In 1909 Elizabeth Shippen Green's mother died and her father was failing. Violet began to harbor serious worries about the future, as the specter of Elizabeth's possible defection hung over the house like a dark cloud. In 1910 Jasper Green died. 

Elizabeth characteristically dealt with her grief without reducing her workload. She also made no move to honor her promise to Huger, who was in Boston waiting for some indication that her mourning period was over and that they were finally free to plan their lives together. His patience did not last. Having accepted a job as director of the Rhode Island School of Design, he planned to make his home in Providence and required a definite answer from Elizabeth - one way or the other. So sometime in October 1910, he took the train to the Allen's Land Station, walked down the road to Cogslea, and gave Elizabeth an ultimatum: marry him now or the engagement was over. Elizabeth was torn by indecision. She was thirty-nine years old and had been with her friends since she moved out of her parents' home at twenty-six. The four women had an agreement that she would violate if she left.

She must have felt somewhat vindicated by the fact that her companions were financially secure. Jessie's income was about $12, 000 per year. She was so prosperous that her friends affectionately nicknamed her 'the mint.' Violet had recently been awarded two important new commissions that seemed to ensure her solvency for many years. And Huger was undeniably charming and fun.

She told Jessie and Violet first. Henrietta came in from her garden later, and Elizabeth confronted her with the news. She had accepted Huger's proposal. Henrietta said nothing, just turned her back and walked into the other room where Jessie and Violet were waiting. Blinking back her tears, she asked her friends, 'How can she love anyone more than she loves us?'"

To be continued

(Excerpts from "The Red Rose Girls: Art and Love on Philadelphia's Main Line" by Alice A. Carter.)

The Red Rose Girls: Jessie Excels

"Summer's Passing" by Jessie Willcox Smith

"Hailed as America's Kate Greenaway, there was a constant demand for Jessie Willcox Smith's work. The comparison with Greenaway, the English illustrator whose charming images of impeccable children adorned British children's books at the end of the nineteenth century, pleased her. She never expressed any regret about her choice of subject matter nor seemed to feel that children's book illustration was any less important than the allegorical murals that Violet Oakley constructed. Nor did she make any self-deprecating remarks about the sentimental nature of her paintings.

Despite her great financial success, Smith's work was drive by conviction, not by money. Although her even temper and noticeable lack of the sort of artistic zeal that drove Violet occasionally caused her to mention that perhaps she was not a 'real' artist, she was dedicated to her profession and continued to work prodigiously even though it had been many years since there had been any pressing financial need. Her illustrations were tremendously popular, but a friend once wrote, 'Only a few know that they represent - a steady devotion to work - a continuous effort, generously and unselfishly poured out that others may rejoice and be glad.'

After returning from a trip to England, Smith illustrated two critically acclaimed books in quick succession: 'Dream Blocks,' published in 1908, and 'The Seven Ages of Childhood,' published in 1909. Between them, the two books had twenty-three full-page color illustrations. She was also busy with magazine illustrations for 'Collier's,' 'Ladies' Home Journal,' 'McClure's Magazine,' and 'Woman's Home Companion.'

In 1907 the New York Society of Illustrators, recognizing the excellence of women in the field, elected their first five female members. Jessie Willcox Smith, Elizabeth Shippen Green, and Violet Oakley joined Florence Schovel Shinn and May Wilson in the select group."

To be continued

(Excerpts from "The Red Rose Girls: Art and Love on Philadelphia's Main Line" by Alice A. Carter.)

 

The Red Rose Girls: Huger Elliott

"He Was Not Much Given to Reading" by Elizabeth Green

"Violet Oakley did not have to wait too long for her next large commission. Not only was she well known, but she now had influential friends. The hospitable Woodwards often invited them to their nearby home, where the three women were embraced into a lively and elite social circle. Frank Miles Day, the architect who had restored Cogslea, was also a frequent guest and soon became a friend of all three, as well as an ardent admirer of Oakley's work. When Day was chosen to design an elaborate residence with a Renaissance-inspired dome-shaped, stained-glass window, three lunettes, four pendentives, and six octagonal murals for insets, he offered her the commission to decorate the spaces.

With Violet once again placated and happy, the household seemed to revert to the pleasant camaraderie of the Red Rose days. Life was lively and convivial. Of necessity, work ended earlier in the winter months when the light faded. All three artists depended heavily on natural light to control the color of their paintings. Winter evenings were spent around the fire and the piano, talking, singing, reading aloud, and entertaining guests.

The Woodwards were frequent visitors and one day brought a new acquaintance with them. Huger (pronouned 'U-gee') Elliott was a charming and erudite young architect who had recently been persuaded to entertain a select group of the Woodward's friends with a series of lectures on architecture. Smith, Green, and Oakley enjoyed the talks. In fact, Elizabeth Green found the young architect charming. Huger was a good-looking, dark-haired young man with a mustache and classically handsome features - and he began to turn up with regularity in Green's illustrations. He shared her lively wit, her love of nonsense verse, and her jovial personality. He became a fixture at gatherings at Cogslea and was a welcome guest - even after he asked Elizabeth to marry him. 

Her official excuse for prolonging the engagement was the condition of her elderly parents. She told Huger she did not wish to burden him with the expense of their care. He was willing to wait, however, and the problem was defused when he accepted a position to teach at Harvard. At the end of the summer he would be moving to Cambridge, and Elizabeth would be staying with her friends."

To be continued

(Excerpts from "The Red Rose Girls: Art and Love on Philadelphia's Main Line" by Alice A. Carter.)

The Red Rose Girls: Alphonse Mucha

"The Child and Tradition" by Violet Oakley

"Cogslea was in easy walking distance of the Allen's Lane train station, and Jessie Willcox Smith, Elizabeth Shippen Green and Violet Oakley took advantage of their proximity to convenient transportation and started going into Philadelphia frequently. Even Violet, who was making good progress on the Harrisburg panels was ready to go out and have some fun.

When the great Alphonse Mucha, icon of the French Art Nouveau movement, was sponsored by the Plastic Club to speak at Witherspoon Hall in Philadelphia, they were in the audience. Mucha, who spoke no English, lectured with the aid of an interpreter. In high spirits, Violet commemorated the occasion to amuse Henrietta who, as usual, stayed home.

'Mr. Mucha says: Vat is Arrt? It is bewtee. The pairson who is onable to comprehend the mor-r-ral ar-r-monies in onable to comprehend feesicle ar-r-monies. The Amer-rican landscape is a r-rich if not r-richer than the Eur-r-ropean landscape. In composition everything should be in proportion of two to three. If not, we say it is ogly - illustrates on blackboard - then it is bewtee. Vat is bewtee? It is the manifestation of mor-ral ar-rmony (develops the 2 to 3 formula.'

In 1906 after four years of concentrated effort, Violet finished the murals for the Governor's Reception Room. On November 23 the lights burned all night in the State Capitol building in Harrisburg as Violet, forfeiting any sleep at all, supervised the workmen hired to install the panels. They finished at 6 a.m., just as the crowds started to arrive fort he ceremonies. The governor, Samuel Pennypacker, who reached his office early in the morning, was surprised to see thousands already assembled. 

When the paintings were unveiling, Pennypacker was as pleased with the murals as any of the citizens. The critics were kind too, and Violet was elated with the subsequent acclaim, which secured her a place as an important member of the American Renaissance Revival movement. The former managing director of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, praised her great achievement: "Miss Oakley's work precisely resembles the better achievements of the Venetian School... This great achievement will grow with every year it is seen and studied. In it there has been depicted what is unquestionably rare in modern art - a genuine spiritual conviction.'"

To be continued

(Excerpts from "The Red Rose Girls: Art and Love on Philadelphia's Main Line" by Alice A. Carter.)

The Red Rose Girls: Cogslea

The Garden Fountain at Cogslea

"In August of 1905, after several months of secret negotiations, H. S. Kerbaugh, purchased the Red Rose Inn and two hundred surrounding acres for $200,000. In January, Violet Oakley, Jessie Smith, Elizabeth Green and Henrietta Cozens were served with an eviction notice stating: 'Each of you are hereby notified and required to quit and deliver up to me possession of the said premises, which you now hold as tenant under me, at the expiration of the said lease, namely, the first day of May, A.D. 1906, as I desire to have such possession.'

The eviction notice caught the Red Rose Girls completely off guard. Later, friends would tell them that so many people advised Henry Kerbaugh not to disturb his famous tenants, that he lost his temper and shouted, 'I don't want any beggarly artists on the place!' His decision to turn them out put the household in turmoil. What were they to do?

Help came from one of Philadelphia's wealthiest citizens, Dr. George Woodward. After much discussion, Woodward agreed to renovate a partially burnt-out house located on his property near the picturesque Cresheim Creek. The old house had thick stone walls and an adjacent barn and carriage house that could serve as studio space. He hired the noted architect Frank Miles Day to make the necessary improvements. George Walter Dawson was engaged to lay out the gardens, which the artists stipulated should, as closely as possible, duplicate the grounds at their beloved Red Rose Inn - complete with the fountain, distinctive pergola, clematis and red roses. The extraordinary generosity of the Woodward family mitigated the artists' distress over leaving their home, and the four companions were able to relocated with minimal interruption of their busy schedules. 

They named their new home Cogslea, keeping the acronym they had devised for their eccentric family and adding 'lea' for the sloping land of the new estate. They were forever grateful for the generosity of the Woodward family and affectionately called their benefactor St. George. The name stuck, and although the original address for Cogslea was Allen's Lane, the present address of the home (now a national historic site) is St. George's Road."

To be continued

(Excerpts from "The Red Rose Girls: Art and Love on Philadelphia's Main Line" by Alice A. Carter.)

The Red Rose Girls: Murals at the Pennsylvania Capitol, Pt. 2

"Penn's Examination in the Tower of London"
by Violet Oakley

"When Violet Oakley returned from Europe, she began to work in earnest on the murals for the Governor's Reception Room at the Pennsylvania State Capitol building in Harrisburg. She called the series, 'The Founding of the State of Liberty Spiritual.' There were to be eighteen horizontal panels, all six feet in height, the longest panel measuring nineteen feet. She composed a narrative beginning with the events in Europe that led to William Penn's vision of religious freedom in a peaceful, unarmed state, and ending with his first sight of the shores of Pennsylvania.

 Violet felt the realization of Penn's dream was imminent and would devote much of her life to pursuing his hope for international disarmament, harmony and understanding. She worked productively, completing six panels and a study for the seventh, which she submitted to the jury at the Pennsylvania Academy's 100th anniversary exhibition. All her hard work, the long hours in the studio, and the costly research trip to Europe were rewarded by the Academy's gold medal. 

However, three of her panels on display led to serious controversy. As part of her narrative they showed the vehement opposition of the Catholic Church to William Tyndal's translation of the Bible into English in 1525, which ended in his strangulation at the stake with his corpse being burned. The president of the American Catholic Historical Society wrote a long letter to the governor contending that the subject matter was 'irrelevant' and 'inappropriate' for the new State Capitol, and that it would be impolitic to install them.

An upset Violet explained that in order to understand William Penn's motivations for leaving his native land, it was necessary to understand the magnitude of the religious intolerance that existed in England. She noted that the rest of paintings in the series would tell a different story. When the sequence was concluded the public would understand 'the beauty of tolerance, versus the darkness of intolerance.' In the newspaper accounts she sounded confident, well-informed, and mature beyond her thirty-one years. 

Still, she must have been terribly worried. She had only a year left on the project. Most of the money due for the paintings was already spent. She needed critical acclaim to secure her next commission. The press reported that the governor sustained 'the historic accuracy of the paintings and their fitness for decorations in Pennsylvania's Capitol,' but he made no public statement on the subject at all."

To be continued

(Excerpts from "The Red Rose Girls: Art and Love on Philadelphia's Main Line" by Alice A. Carter.)