Elizabeth Gardner Bouguereau: Models & Studies

"The Farmer's Daughter"
by Elizabeth Gardner Bouguereau

"In addition to offering work space and artistic criticism, studios also attracted artists by furnishing models on a daily basis. Elizabeth wrote:

'We have models four times a week and choose our own work the other two days. This week we have had a young Italian boy with jet black hair and eyes, and complexion to match. He is a spirited little wretch, poses with sentiment, submits gracefully to the pictures we make from him, and criticizes our work without ceremony when the day is over. Next week we shall have his sister.'

Her models were often children and, needless to say, difficult to manage as indicated much later by a reporter from the 'Exeter News-Letter:

'Madame excels in painting children and once told me a pretty story about a little four-year-old model she had. The child, in spite of sugar plums with which the hour of sitting is invariably sweetened became restless, and at last Mme. Bouguereau said: 'Ma petite, écoute! If you are naughty and fidgety, I must send you away and get another model to paint!' 'Eh bien, Madame,' retorted the baby with fine spirit, shaking an admonitory finger, 'if you are naughty and scold me, I shall send you away and get another artist to paint me. Just you remember that!'

By February 13, 1865, Elizabeth had left Tissier's to join a women's cooperative studio:

'I have just joined a few young ladies who have an independent little studio the other side of the river. I have been there now three weeks, and like it much. We hire our own models, buy our own charbon [charcoal] and do just as we please. By our united energy we have brought about what I have longed for all winter - an evening class. We have bought a splendid lamp to light our models, and we work usually four evenings in the week. And the last three days of the week I am painting at the Luxembourg on a picture which is ordered. It is very hard. One young man much my senior who has been several years at the École des Beaux-Arts here is trying to do it too, he commenced two months since, but has not yet succeeded. If I make a good copy, and I am determined that I will, I shall feel encouraged, and it will keep me some time in pocket money.'"

To be continued

(Excerpts from "Elizabeth Jane Gardner: Her Life, Her Work, Her Letters," MA Thesis by Charles Pearo, McGill University, 1997)

Elizabeth Gardner Bouguereau: In the Studio of Tissier

"Self-Portrait of Elizabeth
Gardner Bouguereau"

"It is interesting to note that tuition for instruction in the ateliers of Paris was often much higher for women than it was for men, usually double. The Academy Julian charged women sixty francs a month for half-days; men paid twenty-five francs for the same instruction. Carolus-Duran charged women one hundred francs a month for half-days; men were offered full days for thirty francs a month. The Academy Colarossi, at forty francs a month for half-days, was the only studio to charge men and women the same fee. The reason rates were kept low for men was in order to compete with government-run schools where tuition was free - and women were not admitted into those schools until 1897.

How much Elizabeth Gardner would have been able to afford for private instruction we do not know. It is clear that a good part of her income came from making copies in the Louvre for orders she had received. She identified some of the sacrifices involved in a letter:

'We are well and very busy. Working at the Louvre from 7 1/2 a.m. till 6 at night part of the time, and occasionally when we have friends here giving all our time to fun... I hope soon to go into a studio to study. I am working early and late, busy with anatomy every evening.'

In the next letter to her brother, John, she spoke of entering the studio of Jean-Baptiste Ange Tissier (1814-1876) for her first private instruction:

'I have begun at the studio. All was new at first - the walk of two miles, and working from models to which I was unaccustomed, and the strange faces around me. I knew that Mons. Tissier had pupils now beginning their third year whom he did not yet allow to color, so with a sigh I closed my paintbox and started the first morning with porte-crayon and paper. I worked with crayon two days and was then told to provide myself with canvas and paints, which you may be sure I remembered the new morning.

My admiration for Mr. Tissier is not boundless. He is a Frenchman of about fifty, tender and irritable, drawing is his forte, but his color is bad. I shall learn what I can there while 'watching the horizon'. Our class is small and select. The French element consists of pet daughters all over eighteen, who are brought by their Mothers or nurses in the morning and called for at night. But they are full of fun and train enough when left to themselves. After fruitless attempts to learn the pronunciation of my name they submit to me whether I object to being called 'la petite sauvage' inasmuch as I come from a country of savages!'

To be continued

(Excerpts from "Elizabeth Jane Gardner: Her Life, Her Work, Her Letters," MA Thesis by Charles Pearo, McGill University, 1997)

Elizabeth Gardner Bouguereau: Paris!

"A Young Girl Holding a Basket
of Grapes" by Elizabeth
Gardner Bouguereau

"Elizabeth Gardner and Imogene Robinson sailed for Europe, probably in the summer of 1864. What made two young women embark upon an expedition to Paris at the height of the Civil War is difficult to imagine today. Certainly the fact that Imogene had already been abroad must have been reassuring to Gardner. The skill they had acquired at copying could secure needed revenue, provided they had sufficient orders before leaving or names of agents who could sell their copies. They also acted as agents for Jonas Gilman Clark, an art collector, acquiring paintings by French Masters and sending them back to him in New York. In addition, the seven years spent administrating their own school had undoubtedly provided valuable knowledge that would help them forge their way once they reached the French capital.

Up till now, there is no evidence of Elizabeth having studied art with any particular artist except for the short time in 1856 with Imogene. So one might also conclude that one of her principal reasons for sailing to Paris could very well have been in search of training.What she, herself, however, expected to find overseas in terms of training was related some years later in an interview:

'I had never dreamed on quitting America, that all Paris had not a studio nor a master who would receive me. I had forgotten, if I ever knew, that the few French or foreign women then familiar to the Salon or the Latin Quarter, like the women painters who had preceded them were the wives, sisters or daughters of painters, and it was in the ateliers of their menfolk they lived and worked.'

The first obstacle, therefore, was just to gain admission to a studio."

To be continued

(Excerpts from "Elizabeth Jane Gardner: Her Life, Her Work, Her Letters," MA Thesis by Charles Pearo, McGill University, 1997)

Elizabeth Gardner Bouguereau: The Early Years, Pt. 1

"In the Woods" by
Elizabeth Gardner Bouguereau

"Elizabeth Gardner was born in Exeter, New Hampshire, on October 4, 1837. She was the fourth of five children born to George and Jane Lowell Gardner. At the time of her birth, the Gardners already counted nine generations hailing from Thomas Gardner, the first settler of the name in New England.

Elizabeth attended The Exeter Female Academy where, 'The course of instruction extended over a period of five years, and Latin, Modern languages, instrumental music, designing and landscape drawing, and other accomplishments were taught.' In 1854,  she transferred to Lasell Female Seminary in Auburndale, Massachusetts, which offered more advanced courses in all areas of learning. French, one of the more common foreign languages, would have been spoken at the dining table by the girls who were studying it. 

Drawing, like music, came under the heading of 'Ornamental Studies.' The Drawing and Painting Department was under the direction of Miss M. Imogene Robinson. She had studied for two years in Düsseldorf with Wilhelm Camphausen in the company of other American painters, including Albert Bierstadt, and several of the latter's works were included in her 'large and choice selection of paintings.'

Pencil and crayon drawing, water color, and linear perspective would have made up the standard curriculum. In this respect, American art schools followed the academic tradition of their European counterparts. A great deal of beginning work in art involved copy work, and the studio at the Seminary was filled with pictures and statuary which served this purpose. Elizabeth wrote later that through this 'I wakened to a realization that the foundation of good painting is correct drawing.'

Elizabeth and Imogene became life-long friends, and when Imogene opened the Worcester School of Design and Academy of Fine Arts in 1856, we find Elizabeth referred to as both the Associate Principal and the Head of the English Department. Certainly these were busy years that must have greatly affected her artistic output for there are only two known works by her thought to be from this early period."

To be continued

(Excerpts from "Elizabeth Jane Gardner: Her Life, Her Work, Her Letters," MA Thesis by Charles Pearo, McGill University, 1997)

Byam Shaw: A Summary of His Art

"And who knoweth whether he shall be a
wise man or a fool? Yet shall he have
rule over all my labour wherein I have
laboured, and wherein I have showed
myself wise" by Byam Shaw

"What a prodigious and varied output in forty-six years of life, even for a man who 'believed in being busy' and whose motto was 'Try very hard'!

As a painter: From the age of twenty-one, when his first picture was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1893, Byam Shaw was represented there until his death in 1919, the only breaks in an otherwise consecutive run of twenty-six years being in 1915 and again in 1918, when he was too much occupied with war work to send anything. He also contributed pictures to the Royal Institute of Painters in Oils, the Royal Institute of Painter in Water-colour, and the  Pastel Society. The pictures comprising the four exhibitions by Messrs. Dowdeswell in Bond Street totalled a hundred and eighteen. There were also small pictures and portraits unexhibited and hundreds of sketches.

As an illustrator: His art as an illustrator was recognized by an unbroken series of important commissions from the age of twenty-five until his death, and his drawings for these books [about 26] must have well exceeded a thousand. 

As a teacher: Teaching during fifteen years of his life took up a good part of his time, and was carried on with as much enthusiasm as it would have been had he no other pursuits. 

Other branches of art: Shaw painted in oil, water-colour, in body-colour [gouache], and in tempera. His finished drawings were in pen-and-ink, pencil, pastel, and occasionally lithography. Other work comprised stained-glass designs, reredos and wall paintings, allegorical, political and war cartoons, posters, book plates, advertisements, and some designing of stage dresses and arrangement of tableaux. Shortly before his death he began etching and drypoint and experimenting in 'lino cuts'.

Frank Rutter in 'The Sunday Times' described Shaw's aesthetic this way: 'Byam Shaw was an artist who always commanded respect by the sincerity and integrity of his work. He was not a 'modern' as the word is now understood, but belongs by temperament and taste to the Pre-Raphaelite period, leaning towards the Rossetti rather than Millais and Holman Hunt side of the movement. His outlook was romantic, and his romance was tinged with medievalism... In considering his art, we must always think of him as a decorative painter who was born a little too late to find his just milieu.'"

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

Byam Shaw: Carry On!

"The Greatest of All Heroes is One" by Byam Shaw

"Byam Shaw's duty in the Special Constabulary during WWI, first as a Sergeant and later as Inspector, was carried out with the enthusiasm and zeal habitual to him. His genial nature and his efficiency gained for him both popularity and respect. Constantly on patrol at night, he yet tried to follow his art profession unhindered. This, with his anxiety for a son dangerously ill, added to the effects of years of overwork, brought on a collapse. After lying semi-conscious and partly asleep for a fortnight, he died on January 26th, 1919. 

The funeral service at St. Barnabas', was taken by the Rev. T. H. Falkiner, an admirer of his work and friend, who first became acquainted by his purchase of the picture, 'The Greatest of All Heroes is One'. His address was a tribute to Shaw's character and service to God. Another tribute, amongst many, was one of friendship, and to his work - that of a great palette, set with gay colours and brushes, the whole fashioned in lovely flowers and made by his students. Outside the church was a Guard of Honour of several detachments of Special and Regular constabulary, between whose ranks, some two hundred strong, the procession passed to the final resting place at Kensal Green. 

His life of forty-six years was devoted to the interpretation of beauty in God's creation, and in homage to Christ. His aim in the affairs of life was to work incessantly for his wife and children, and to enter into the joys, pleasures, and sorrows of others. The realm of Art has been enriched by his genius and industry. His thoughts left in pictures and illustrations remain for the enjoyment of posterity. The title of his last picture, applied to the War, may be taken by his friends and by all sincere young artists as a message. It was, 'All's well, carry on!'"

To be continued

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

Byam Shaw: In the Years of the War, 1914

"The Flag" by Byam Shaw

"Artists were not behind in joining the war effort [WWI], where their age allowed, and when it did not, they made ready for what the future might bring. The young men at our art school were soon in Kitchener's Army and, presently, most of the girls were on munitions or working on the land. Shaw and I joined the United Arts Rifles, a training corps whose headquarters were at that time the basement of the Royal Academy, and whose drill ground was the quadrangle.

It happened one evening at bayonet exercise that Byam and I were together attacking the defenders of the steps to the Academy, literally fighting for admittance - just one of the little ironies of life he appreciated. Later on Shaw thought he would be more use as a special constable, and so resigned. His work and thought were all for the War. He got busy with war cartoons and his series illustrate both his attitude and the progress of the War. They appeared in 'The Evening Stand', 'The Sunday Times', 'Daily Express', 'The Cartoon', 'The Daily Chronicle', 'The Daily Call', and 'The Dump'. 

Starting with his poster for the London Rifle Brigade, he shows a young man getting into his jacket after medical inspection, his eyes bright and content, a sergeant opening the door, which reveals the battlefield of Flanders.When recruiting flagged, he drew a bugle at the top of a page and, on the one side, armed Britannia, on the other, the shirker, a well-to-do in dressing gown with cigarette and bath sponge. Stern Britannia, pointing to the bugle, says: 'Did you not hear me call you before?' In another Britannia, in helmet and breastplate, and draped in the Union Jack, fondles her four lion cubs: 'My splendid ones, well done'; and so, with easily recognized allegory, he made his points.

He also designed a memorial brass to Geoffrey Charles Shakerley, 1st Battalion King's Royal Rifles; made drawings for the Union Jack Club; designed a cover in aid of the 'Children's League of Pity', and another for the Royal Horticultural Society's Red Cross Sale.He was commissioned to paint one of the Canadian War Memorial pictures, his subject being 'The Flag', and he painted it clasped in the arms of a dead soldier who lies on the base of a monument between lion's paws. Around this are grouped women and children and old men in attitudes of sorrow, despair, appeal, hope, and wistfulness."

To be continued

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

Byam Shaw: The Byam Shaw & Vicat Cole Art School

Mr. Vicat Cole Posing a Model
for the Sketching Class

The author of this book, Rex Vicat Cole, writes: "Byam Shaw had now been teaching at King's College for six years, and myself much longer, so as the committee was disinclined to develop the Art department, we decided to resign and have an Art School of our own. To this end we built nice premises, designed by T. Phillips Figgis, in Kensington. On an afternoon in May 1910, our friends gathered round us, and The Byam Shaw and Vicat Cole Art School was opened and blessed by Sir William Richmond, R.A., and Mr. David Murray, R.A.

Admiring each other's work, sharing the same views on the educational and artistic value of teaching and agree in the methods to follow, we began a partnership that had no hitch or even divergence of opinion, but was a source of mutual pleasure, only ended by my friend's death, nine years later.

We set out to prepare students for the Royal Academy Schools, but so arranged things that most of them were much further advanced than was actually necessary for passing their examination. We gave an all-round training by drawing and painting from casts: the head and figure model, still-life, and sketch-model, posed with accessories under difficult effects of lighting, with the addition of painting in the country in the vacation. Pen-and-ink illustration, perspective, and anatomy also had definite places. The days work, from ten to six, went merrily, from the change of task, and students learnt the lesson of how to work hard, and the contentment that brings.

Shaw did not live to see in full the success of old students. His reward came to his friends in 1920, when old students gained nine of the fourteen medals awarded; again in 1921, with nine out of the sixteen medals, and in 1922, with six out of thirteen awarded; and these successes included knowledge of various subjects, in which we had always hoped the method of teaching might result.

We realized that artists are not made by art schools, and we were not out to encourage young people with merely a taste for drawing to enter the profession, with the probability of disillusionment later in life, but we also knew that a humble and faithful study of the things made by God and men is good for everyone, as a wonderful addition to the pleasures of life. One felt that everyone destined to be an artist would without a school fight his way to recognition, but would encounter unnecessary difficulties."

To be continued

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

Byam Shaw: Teaching at King's College

"Now Is the Pilgrim Year, Fair Autumn's Charge"
by Byam Shaw

"In 1903 Byam Shaw joined me [author of this book, Rex Vicat Cole] in teaching at the Women's Department of King's College, London, whose premises were two houses, made into one. He was asked to embark on the innovation of a life-class, for which he was give a ramshackle building in the garden. We both tried to bring up the young in the way they should go, and so before long our little crowd of cheery, hard-working girls outgrew their wooden hut. Then the committee met, an architect got busy, and a brick studio arose, fitted with gas radiators and a permanent health ventilator - one of the pet aversions of our nude models. The latter had a dressing room connected with the studio by a leaky glass roof, and can I not see again Byam, one wet morning, holding up in his best manner an umbrella over the head of a girl, clothed as nature made her, except for slippers, as she daintily picked her way along the puddled passage!

Our students and models kept happy and so did we, in spite of our curious housing, for we had the back and encouragement of Miss L.M. Faithfull, under whose energy, ability and charm, the College grew and was kept alive. She later wrote a reminiscence of Shaw:

'He was desperately in earnest about everything he touched, and his simplicity, sincerity, enthusiasm, and humour made him an enchanting companion. He had no exalted opinion of himself, his sense of humour gave him the sense of proportion, and there was at times the shyness of a boy about him. He could be easily depressed about his work because he was an idealist, and he never ceased striving to make his students share that idealism. He was a great teacher because he had the power of quickening students and vitalizing them, making them see and feel what they had never seen of felt before.

I remember listening to a criticism of students' compositions one morning. The subject was 'An Early Martyr', and the drawing under review was of a woman standing limply in the middle of a cell with snakes curled at her feet and raising their heads to attack her. Byam was scathing: 'If you were in a dungeon with snakes, would you stand int he center of them saying pleasantly, 'Good morning, snakes'? Of course you would shrink into a corner. You would Do something. You students don't seem to read, or think, or live. You are content all day to be at an easel drawing something in front of you. But the art that would last must have Ideas...'"

To be continued

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

Byam Shaw: A One-Man Show, Marriage, and Works

"Goblin Market," 1899, by Byam Shaw

"In May 1899, Byam Shaw held his first one man show, that of thirty-nine cabinet pictures, entitled 'Thoughts suggested by some passages from British poets.' Lovable little pictures for the most part they were, revealing a mind and vision capable of understanding and translating beauty. Eleven of the subjects were suggested by Christina Rossetti, poet and sister of Pre-Raphaelite Dante Gabriel Rossetti; for others he drew on Shakespeare, Mrs. Browning, Tennyson, Sir Walter Scott and Rudyard Kipling. And happily was able to write 'I am thankful to say that nearly all are sold.'

In June, he married Miss Pyke-Nott, a marriage that began and continued through life to their mutual happiness. He, by incessant diligence, fulfilled his aim of providing her with the comforts she had been accustomed to, as well as the means for bringing up and educating their children, to the best advantage. She, content in his love and that of their children, and busy in the management of the home, still found time to give him practical help in his pictures, as the many portraits of her in his subjects bear witness, as well as to carry on her own art of which he was so proud.

He also saw the publication of three books, which had been illustrated by him: 'Tales from Boccaccio,' 'The Predicted Plagues,' and the first volume of the 'Chiswick Shakespeare.' When completed some time later, the volumes of Shakespeare's work were twelve all told, and included four hundred and sixty-three of his illustrations."

To be continued

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

Byam Shaw: His Own Studio & "Truth"

"The Blindfolding of Truth" by Byam Shaw
Done as a tapestry for William Morris & Co.

"The time had come for Byam Shaw to have a studio of his own, for carrying out his large pictures. He found a fairly large one, but awkwardly lit by many skylights, and had in addition tall windows in the walls on either side. These were usually kept shuttered, except one which he made use of when painting models under effect of sunlight. The woodwork was painted a dark rich blue and green, and the walls brown-papered, but mainly hidden by sketches done by his friends, and his own pictures, two large mirrors, many shelves filled with books dealing with costume and antiquities, lives of painters, myths and legends - in short, a good reference library. 

There was also a quote from Stephen Gullet posted which read, 'I shall pass through this world but once. If, therefore, there by any kindness I can show, any good thing I can do, let me do it now: let me not defer it nor neglect it, for I shall not pass this way again.'

It was here that he began his picture 'Truth'. It was a large picture, replete with beauty, both as a whole and in the treatment of each part. The allegory is original and tells its tale with each person's reaction to Truth and their individual efforts to either conceal or to reveal her.

I was often in Shaw's studio at that time, and saw him paint the picture bit by bit on the white canvas. He made many separate studies for the work, mainly in white chalk on brown paper. In addition there were two sketches of the colour scheme done in pastel, without any attempt at the drawing. These I became the owner of by winning a game of ball, which we played, while the picture served as a net.

Though Shaw had a most retentive memory, stored with knowledge of effects seen and recorded, he always painted from nature, if that were possible. I recall the day when a number of his friends were collected for the crowd in the background of Truth. Having arranged us in a group he drew on the canvas those bits of us not hidden by our neighbour, and then began to paint a head or a hand and finish it on the spot. In the middle of this a huge frame arrived, which had to be hoisted in through the window. The frame-maker had mistaken the day, and this was explained to him in forcible language by Byam. I think the man's surprise at seeing me in tights talking to a clergyman and some ladies in strange dresses would have been sufficient as a fillip for one afternoon."

To be continued

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

Byam Shaw: At Twenty-Three

"Jezebel" by Byam Shaw

"Though only twenty-three years old, Byam Shaw's work had already met with great success from artists and public alike. Encouraged as he was by the backing of his contemporaries, idolized by his mother and sister, and happy in the love of his future wife and friends, as well as able to support himself by his work, the future should have held no fears for him, yet he was not always confident. In a letter to a friend he wrote, 'I have been terribly depressed about my work lately. I do not seem to be able to get up any fire about it when I get in front of it. I do not think I ever felt like this before, and it depresses me terribly, and when one says anything about it, people say, 'My dear fellow, how absurd! Why, you've been getting on splendidly.'

In the spring of '96 he was represented in the Academy by 'Whither' (painted during his engagement and expressing his dreams of the married life that lay before him), a portrait of his mother, and 'Jezebel'. 'Whither' was hung too high for the beautiful drawing and painting in it to be recognized, and his mother's portrait was skied. 

In 'Jezebel' the figure of that wicked queen was painted from Miss Rachael Lee, who was of the greatest help to him in his work. She had the instinct of catching a pose required. Her endurance in keeping it was amazing. But for some draperies, lay figures [mannequins] must be resorted to. 'Arabella' was the studio lay figure, and, in the manner of her kind, was loose-jointed. Just when putting a finishing touch to the arrangement of the drapery, down would come the whole thing, the body sagging, the helpless arms flopping, head on one side, drooping disconsolately... A friend tells us that she was also the heroine of a ride through Kensington on a push-bike trailer, wrapped in a purple silk gown in which she looking terribly corpse-like. It was a windy day and the robe blew off, disclosing her full charms to the alarm of the passers-by.

Shaw always began his pictures with the greatest confidence and carried each through in the mood that set the subject. All his faculties and resources were concentrated on each particular work, and he spared himself in no way, neither had he any object to serve except to employ, humbly and honestly, those undoubted gifts God gave him."

To be continued

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