 Artist
Bio: Born in Pittsburgh, the daughter of a banker who offered
little encouragement to her desire to be a painter. In 1868, after traveling widely in Europe, she settled in Paris to study under Chaplin, a
typical academic painter, but was far more interested in Courbet, Manet and
the Impressionists. In 1877 she met Degas, who invited her to exhibit with
the Impressionists, which she did in 1879, n1880, 1881 and 1886. She bought
Impressionist paints for herself and her family, tried to get other
Americans to do so, and helped her dealer, Durand-Ruel, in some of his more
difficult moments. She was partly blind by 1912, and totally so at her
death. In 1914 she was awarded the Gold Medal of Honor of the Pennsylvania
Academy, where she studied 1861-6. Degas became a close friend and portrayed
her on several occasions, notably in two etchings showing her in the Louvre.
She herself made several fine color etchings, intended to make original
worked available at reasonable prices. These are mostly of domestic scenes,
and show a combination of Japanese color printing techniques with the vision
of Degas and Renoir: they are a unique and significant (though still
artistically undervalued) contribution to Impressionism and probably
influenced Bonnard and Vuillard. They also show how she was able to treat
the mother and child theme with tenderness, but not sentimentality. There
are worked in Birmingham, Boston, Detroit, Los Angeles, New York, Paris,
Washington, and other US museums. |
