Gari Melchers: Corinne Mackall

"Portrait of Mrs. Gari Melchers"
by Gari Melchers

"In the spring of 1902 Gari Melchers first made the acquaintance of a young art student by the name of Corinne Lawton Mackall, whom he was later to marry. The fortuitous meeting occurred during a sea voyage from New York to Naples. The future Mrs. Melchers was on her way to Europe with her mother and her younger brother, Lawton, and the artist was returning from one of his frequent visits to America.

Corinne was raised by her mother after the untimely and sudden death of her father in 1890. She had been enrolled as an art student at the Maryland Institute before her trip to Europe. Her interest in art was a major attraction to Melchers, as she later reported to her mother. The artist once told her that he might not have been interested in her if she had not liked art.

After the ship docked in Naples on May 14, the two went their separate ways, Melchers returning to the Egmonds, and Corinne and her family embarking on a grand tour of the Continent to visit many of the major art centers. However, the two met again in Egmond aan Zee in July. Corinne arranged to go there to attend George Hitchcock's summer art class. When she left for Paris in the fall, Melchers followed her  and after a brief courtship proposed to her on December 27. They were married on April 14, 1903, in a wedding ceremony held of the Isle of Jersey.

Following the wedding, the couple traveled to Paris where they were toasted by Melchers' many art-world acquaintances and where the new Mrs. Melchers was introduced to her husband's close friends. The newlyweds next went to Berlin to attend an exhibition in which Melchers' paintings were on display. They arrived back in Egmond aan den Hoef late that spring to being in earnest their married life together."

To be continued

(Excerpts from "Gari Melchers: His Life and Art" by Joseph G. Dreiss.)