Ella Condie Lamb: Finances

"The Crystal (Portrait of Gertrude McMannis)
by Ella Condie Lamb

"With the passing of Joseph Lamb in 1898 and his brother Richard in 1909, the next generation moved to pick up the reins and lead the J. & R. Lamb Studios into the 20th Century. Charles pulled it all together and ran the firm. The Studios expanded rapidly under him and his brother Fred. Not only did it provide 'everything for the church,' it also decorated interiors of libraries and private homes. 

In this position he had to cope with an upsetting aspect of the finances: the necessity of reminding clients to pay their bills. A letter from Charles to Ella describes his great reluctance in this matter, 'I hate to do it! I can't stand it! I wish I didn't have to do it!'

Ella not only saw how the pressures affected her husband, especially when the market for the work fell away, but also felt deep frustration and bewilderment herself. She began to question the role of the artist in society. Did the artist exist only to execute a client's desires or the decree of an architect? Sometimes she desperately struggled with the question of why an artist was to paint - what useful purpose did painting have? Why did one feel such urgency, such need, especially if the world was indifferent to what was produced? But sometimes the pain of the inexplicable divergence between the offer of the artist and the needs of an indifferent society overcame her emotional restraint.

She wrote in her diary in anguish: 'They say easel pictures are purposeless and useless, that everything must have its place to which it is destined to be applied. But how can such fine frenzy be harnessed to waiting for a job of decoration? Can inspiration wait on architecture? Shall the sonnet, the epic poem, the song, the symphony, all truly spontaneous creations, never be born?'"

To be continued

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

Ella Condie Lamb: Building a Country House

"Field Daisy" by Ella Condie Lamb

"In 1899, Charles Lamb began construction on a country house in Cresskill, New Jersey, a home which was to be a refuge from city pressures and cares. 'They came,' recalled their daughter Katharine, 'because of the gorgeous sunsets and the view, and because they did not want to be too far from New York. This place reminded them of Italy because of the cypress trees.' And they called the house 'The Fold.'

It was designed by Charles to harmonize with nature, to blend in with its surroundings. Ella explained:

'Our house belongs there on the edge of the woods just as much as the growing trees and shrubs do, for much of it has always been there. We brought out the foreign materials only when our own land could not supply our needs. You see we loved the land, and valued her assistance. And in return we did not encroach upon her reserve, or destroy her individuality, or try in any way to change her particular beauty by rendering it conventional. We cleared off no spaces, nor did we smooth out the pleasant wrinkled surface of the old pasture into hard flat lawns - that would have been a poor return for all the meadows were giving us.'

Some of William Morris' ideals of living and comfort were expressed in the house - restraint in decoration, bookcases with plenty of books, chairs that give comfort, tables commodious in size, vases for flowers, some real works of art on the walls, and the fireplace the chief object in the room.

For Ella, only one thing was missing - good light for her studio. The house had four foot eaves which made the upstairs studio room too dark. When Ella expressed her concern to Charles, he replied, 'Oh, that's all right, we'll go and cut a hole.' Katharine wrote, 'He got a carpenter to cut a five foot square hole... It brought in a tremendous amount of northern light, and now that's done in all the modern houses, you know, holes in the roof.'

And, of course, Ella shared, 'We had to have a garden. The children needed it to grow in, I needed it to work off city nerves, and as for Mr. Lamb - well, every artist should have a flower garden.' After it was established, she wrote: 'The most wonderful time of all is of a moonlight night. Then the white light sifts through the purple shadows of the grapevine over the wall's seat and sundial, the phlox, lilies, and pinks gleam white and fill the air with fragrance. Over in the woodland a whippoorwill or a hoot owl calls. A star shines in the pool and verily, 'God walks in my garden.'"

To be continued

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

Ella Condie Lamb: The Sage Chapel Mosaic Mural, Cornell University

"The Sciences," mosaic at Sage Chapel, Cornell University
by Ella Condie Lamb

"The beautiful mosaic mural in the Sage Chapel of Cornell University, designed by Charles and Ella Lamb and executed by the Studios, is an example of harmonious collaboration and of an understanding of the desires of the times for philosophical rather than religious figures in a public building, even a chapel. Charles consulted with the President of the University as to the dominant idea of the mosaic mural to be erected in the chapel apse to the memory of the late Henry Williams Sage, and his wife, Susan Lana Sage.

The result of these conferences was a reservation of the lower part of the apse for the quesiton of 'Education' - and of the upper portion of the ceiling for the idea of 'Religion.'The lower wall surface suggested as its best treatment a processional. In this the subject of the 'Sciences' and the 'Arts' are placed north and south, and 'Philosophy' in the center, the extremem figures being those of 'Young Manhood' and 'Young Womanhood,' suggesting the cause of coeducation which Cornell leads.

As Ella designed and drew the figures she realized that they would be viewed from below. Therefore the heads are rendered somewhat smaller than they otherwise might be because they are further from the viewer than the lower part of the body, as if a real figure was in fact above the viewer. The same realization is indicated in the pastel study head of Music. Clearly one is looking at this face from a position slightly below it. Many of the figures she had to draw for public buildings would be placed above the heads of her viewers, therefore she had to use this perspective often."

To be continued

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

Ella Condie Lamb: Mistress of Mosaic

"Music" by Ella Condie Lamb

"Among the albums of old photographs of Ella's professional work in the records of the Lamb Studios are many pictures of her pastel studies for allegorical figures, personifications of Memory, Music, Architecture, Physics, Love, to name some of them. The figures are usually stately women clothed in drapery and are reminiscent of ancient Greek sculpture. Why do so many of these representations appear quite suddenly in her work?

The answer is that Ella had been given commissions from the Studios that required her to meet the demands of the artistic and philosophical fashion of the times. The taste in public art was for symbols which easily and immediately recalled the heroic, hard-earned achievements of civilization, as well as its spiritual values. A common voice seemed to say, 'We want monuments to brave men, military triumphs, global victories, and industrial and scientific progress.'

Individual artists realized they could earn their living by executing this form of Public Art. Some of those who did were John La Farge, William Morris Hunt, Edwin Abbey, Edwin Blashfield, John Alexander White, Edward Simmons, Elihu Vedder, Robert Reid, Will Low, Robert Blum, and Kenyon Cox, all friends or acquaintances of the Lambs.

Ella would not have chosen for herself assignments in mural painting and mosaic design, but Charles knew she was capable of working on this grand scale. She approached each commission in a scholarly, conscientious way, keeping in mind at all times the purpose of the design and the medium in which it would be realized - stained glass, mosaic, or mural painting.

Ella executed these commissions so competently that a full-page article in the 'New York Herald' about her carried the title 'Mistress of Mosaic.' In another article Ella pointed out 'It was not easy. All mural work demands many preliminary sketches, studies from models, detail drawings and color sketches, and research work, as well as physical endurance, nerve force, and determination to carry through to the final large cartoon or painting.'' Perhaps in an attempt to lighten these serious remarks, Ella then said, 'Being a little woman, I enjoyed covering large spaces!'"

Several notable commissions were her figures for the mosaic mural in Sage Chapel, Cornell University; the four symbolic figures for the interior of Lakewood Chapel, Minneapolis, Minnesota; the Trask mosaic fireplace in Tuxedo Park, New York; and 'The Open Book,' a mural painted for The Flower Memorial Library, Watertown, New York.

To be continued

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

Ella Condie Lamb: Cornish

"Boy with Bangs" by Ella Condie Lamb

"Due to the demands of Charles' career, he traveled frequently to Europe. In June 1892, Charles took an extensive business trip there, and Ella journeyed to Windsor, Vermont, with their second son, Karl, to paint and to work. Instructors and artists whom Charles knew well from his years as president of the Arts Students League spent the summer in neighboring Cornish, New Hampshire: Thomas Dewing and his wife Maria, George de Forest Brush and his family, Augustus Saint-Gaudens, Abbot Thayer among them. Their old friend, Henry Prellwitz was also in Cornish and arranged for a place for Ella, Karl, and Ella's young helper, Mary, to live.

Her long and conversational letters give immediacy to life in the colony: her feelings of loneliness for Charles, of the discomfort she comes to feel upon discovery of friction between several of the artists in Cornish, and the question of combining art with motherhood (she was working on a portrait of Karl):

• 'Saturday Joe Evans called in an old greatcoat with an old horse and buggy. I asked to be informed of the 'feud' for my own safety. It seems the Henry Walkers have been making violent enemies of the Dewings and Mrs. Lazarus, who, with the Saint-Gaudens, do not recognize them. Mr. Brush has sided with the Walkers and he and Dewing don't speak now. Isn't it stupid?'
  
  
• '[George de Forest Brush] told me plainly that as a mother I should give up painting - for we cannot serve two masters, and maternity and art each demand all of one's energies. I find truly that the boy does need me more and more as his mind develops. This is the time he takes impressions. It is a hard question and yet not too hard - for I have always felt that way, that we cannot serve two masters. But I must help my husband, too...'
  
  Nevertheless Mr. Brush gave me encouragement this afternoon. He thanks I have 'an exceedingly promising start.'...I am in that dreadful place that comes in all portraits that are carried far, when it looks hopeless, but I must be braver than this and more confident...'
  
  
• 'Oh dear, I am so lonely without my husband, my comrade, my 'shield' ...how happy I shall be when you return, in our dear home! I hold tight to Karl, when I can catch him or when I go to bed and feel as if I had part of you... Please try not to worry. Think of your little woman as working and will have a good thing to show you, and your son is growing strong and chubby and manly like his father... Be careful my husband, my dear husband - my baby's father. You are all we have.'

To be continued

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

Ella Condie Lamb: The Dodge Prize

"An Advent Angel"
by Ella Condie Lamb

"Ella was a thorough professional about her work for the Studios, although she once protested to Charles that she 'was not meant for it.' She was able to accomplish the work because she had discipline and because she regarded art not only as self-expression but also as the means by which to make a living, an attitude which was respected by her colleagues.

The character of the art which she pursued privately, however, was a continuation of her childhood need to observe - to express discovery of the world: children, friends, garden, boats on the river, landscapes of fields and mountains, birch trees in a grove and water lilies scattered over the surface of a pond. 

One painting, 'An Advent Angel,' she conceived and executed was submitted to competition at the National Academy of Design. It won the Dodge Prize, an award given by the Academy to 'the best picture painted by a woman in the United States.' There were more than half a hundred women exhibitors that year. The lovely painting was also accepted for the World Columbian Exhibition in Chicago in 1893, receiving honorable mention, then was exhibited favorably in 1890 next to a painting by Berthe Morisot, before being featured in 'The Century Magazine' in 1893. 

Four months after Ella had won the Dodge Prize, her first son Richard Condie Lamb was born. But in January of that year he died, aged five months, a victim of diphtheria. When she saw that her precious son was going to die, she decided to draw him. She would have no tangible remembrance of him unless she did. Ella's Dodge Prize money was used to endow a special room for severe surgical cases in the Babies Hospital, and a marble tablet bearing little Richard Condie's name and date of death was affixed there.

To be continued

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

Ella Condie Lamb: Mother and Professional Artist

Cartoon for Stained Glass "Christ Blessing Little Children"
by Ella Condie Lamb

"Over the next ten years, Ella Condie Lamb bore five children. The first, Richard, died in 1889 of diphtheria at the age of five months. The second, Karl, was born on November 9, 1890, a daughter, Katharine, on June 3, 1896, a third son, Donald, on December 29, 1896, and a fourth son, Joseph Condie, whom they called Condie, on March 11, 1900. These were the years during which art and family life were as entwined as they could possibly be.

In May 12, 1895 entitled "Industrial Art Progress: Women Who are Making Enviable Names in New Fields, Cartoons for Stained Glass Windows" reprinted in the 'Philadelphia Press, May 12, 1895:

Mrs. Charles R. Lamb - or Ella Condie Lamb - as she is better known in the art world - has but few rivals in the branch of work to which she has devoted most study - the designing of cartoons for stained glass windows and mosaic decoration...

In speaking of herself, Mrs. Lamb said: 'My first serious work was begun when I was about 16. Then followed years of digging and plodding and although my work was then done entirely from love of art and not professionally, my grounding was as thorough and studying as conscientious as if the thought of public approval had been ever before me. Since my marriage I have continued my studies, and my interest in art has increased rather than diminished. Most of my work is now done in collaboration with my husband.'

In speaking of the payment made to men and women for work of equal merit, Mrs. Lamb said: 'I believe it is fast becoming the rule to have one established scale of prices for both sexes. I have found that in the illustrating work that I have done for such houses as the Century and Harpers, that for each style of work there is a set price per page which is never deviated from except in the case of an artist who is famous enough to demand special rates, but then it is a question of genius, not sex.'

In one of Ella's first commissions, 'Christ Blessing Little Children,' [above] she has drawn Christ turning towards a mother, who leans toward him in supplication with an infant in her arms. This cartoon was drawn the year of the death of Ella's first child. She immediately proved with this design, that she could skillfully place and coordinate many figures within a given space, in this case a semi-circle. A pamphlet from Christ Church Springfield, Illinois, describes it.

'The window was designed by the wife of the head of the Lamb Studios, Mrs. Charles R. Lamb, known under her professional name, Ella Condie Lamb, and was executed in the Lamb Studios under her personal supervision, she having drawn not only the original design, but the full size cartoon from which the glass was cut. Mrs. Lamb is living and is still a working artist, with her studio in New York City, one of two women first elected, many years ago, to membership in the National Society of Mural Painters. 'Christ Blessing Little Children,' is a beautiful window any time but seen when the light of the afternoon falling through it, it is a sursum corda ('lift up your hearts').'

 To be continued

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