Anna Althea Hills

Anna Althea Hills was a renowned plein-air artist, community activist, and a key founder of the Laguna Art Museum. Hills was a six-term president of the Laguna Beach Art Association and is best-known for her work as a California Impressionist, specializing in landscape, marine, genre, and figure painting.

Anna A. Hills was born in Ravenna, Ohio on January 28, 1882, daughter of a minister. Due to her father's occupation as a Presbyterian minister, the family lived in a number of locations during her childhood. Hills lost her mother in 1886 when she was just four years old, and her father remarried several years later. In 1898, Hills attended Olivet College in Michigan where she took painting and drawing classes. She went on to study at the School of the AIC (Art Institute of Chicago), and Cooper Union in New York where, in 1905, she won awards for her watercolor and oil painting and in 1906, for her still life work. She received her diploma in 1908 and culminated her art training abroad between the years 1908-1913 at the Academie Julian, Paris.

Hills returned to the United States in 1914 and settled in Los Angeles. As she began to visit and sketch in Laguna Beach, surrounded by its scenic beauty, she decided to move there to pursue her art career. Hills taught painting, helped to organize the Laguna Beach Art Association and helped to found a new gallery which opened in 1929.

Anna A. Hills
Sunshine & Shadow,
1915
Oil on board,
7 x 10 inches
Orange County Park, California
Private Collection

Hills' early landscapes were created using the darker atmospheric Barbizon tradition, but once in Southern California's light and varied landscape, in addition to her exposure to contemporaries Edgar Payne and George Brandriff, she embraced a lighter palette while abandoning her brushes for the palette knife. Coastal scenes from Laguna to Carmel including trees were among her favorite themes. She also loved the desert, staying in such locations as Banning and Hemet. Physically energetic, and despite a severe spinal injury, Hills took ruggedly adventurous trips into remote mountain areas to sketch.

Anna A. Hills
Springtime, Banning, California
1916
Oil on paperboard,
10 x 14 inches
Private Collection, shown by the Irvine Museum

Anna A. Hills
The Lone Palm
1918
Andreas Canyon
Oil on board
10 x 7 inches
Private Collection

Anna A. Hills
The Spell of the Sea
Laguna Beach near Moss Point
1920
30 x 39
Oil on Canvas
Private Collection

Hills won the Bronze Medal at the Panama-California Exposition, San Diego in 1915; the Bronze Medal at the California State Fair, 1919; and the Landscape Prize at the Laguna Beach Art Association, 1922 and 1923. Anna A. Hills died at age 48 on June 19th, 1930.

Anna A. Hills exhibited widely including with the San Francisco Art Association, the California Art Club, the Panama Pacific Exhibition in San Diego, the Laguna Beach Art Association, and the California State Fair in Sacramento. Her solo shows included the Kanst Galleries in Los Angeles, the Los Angeles Museum of Art and California State University, Long Beach. Her works are often featured in shows curated by the Irvine Museum, Irvine, California.

Sources

The Eclectic Light Company, Into the Light, Anna Hills and California Light, https://eclecticlight.co/2016/06/18/into-the-light-anna-hills-and-california-light/ retrieved December 11, 2017.

An Encyclopedia of Women Artists of the American West, Phil Kovinick and Marian Yoshiki-Kovinick, University of Texas Press, Austin, 1998, p. 142.

Independent Spirits, Women Painters of the American West, 1890-1945, University of California Press, Los Angeles, 1995, ppg 66, 68.

Bodega Bay Heritage Gallery Monthly, Anna Althea Hills, 1880-1930, http://www.bodegabayheritagegallery.com/Hills_Anna.htm, retrieved December 11, 2017.

Artwork by Abigail Tyler Oakes, ACROSS THE VALLEY, Made of oil on canvas

Abby Tyler Oaks
Across the Valley
c 1854
Oil on canvas
17 3/4 x 24 inches

According to a simply marvelous book entitled "An Encyclopedia of Women Artists of the American West"by Phil Kovinick and Marian Yoshiki-Kovinick, artists have been inspired by the American West for more than 150 years, producing works of art as varied as the region itself and distinctive for their power and imagination. Early artists from the Hudson River School such as Albert Bierstadt and Edwin Church, and Abby Tyler Oakes, painted landscapes from uncultivated areas of the Hudson River valley in New York. They headed west, to capture and depict America's panoramic landscape views which explored the individual's and country's relationship to the land. In other words, what identifying qualities rendered America's history and geography, unique?

Abby Tyler Oaks

Western Mountain Landscape with Waterfall

n.d.

Oil on canvas

23 x 44 inches

Early female artists played a major role in the development and growth of art communities through their participation in art schools, art associations, art colonies and public art exhibitions. California, San Francisco in particular, became the first mecca for women artists in the West. A boom town as a result of the discovery of gold in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada, San Francisco exploded into a financial and cultural center almost overnight. Those original female artists to arrive in the 1850s, sailing via Cape Horn or the Isthmus of Panama, were typical of the many who were to follow. The migrants who settled in to stay, or visited other centers in the West in subsequent years were the wives, daughters, or sisters of business, religious, and professional men; many connected with people of at least moderate means. Some were self-taught as artists, not surprising for a woman at that time; a number, had substantial art study and training while many were teachers.

Abby Tyler Oaks

Mountain Vista

n.d.

Oil on canvas

18 x 24 inches

Born in New York state, Abby Oakes shares with Mary Park Seavy Benton credit for being California's first professional woman artist. According to her birth certificate, Abby was born and raised in Charleston, Massachusetts. In 1845, at age 19, she married Bostonian William Harrison Oakes, a music engraver and printer of newspapers. The couple had two sons, one who did not survive infancy. In 1856, she left Boston and joined her husband in San Francisco, where he was working for the San Francisco Bulletin. Abby was active for several years in the Bay Area as an artist, including exhibiting at the Mechanics Institute in 1857. During her stay in California, she received high praise from local newspapers for her studies of Yosemite and other Sierra Nevada scenes.

Abby Tyler Oaks

Croton, New York

n.d.

Oil on canvas

no size given

Abby Tyler Oaks

Hudson River Boating Scene

c 1859

Oil on canvas

23 x 44 inches

Abby Oakes settled with her husband in New York City where she continued her art career and did dramatic writing and William, who lived until 1890, formed his own engraving business. From 1865 to 1886, she exhibited at the National Academy of Design, and in 1868, studied in France with Emile Charles Lambinet. Oakes lived in the city until about 1891 when it is thought that she returned to Charleston where she died in about 1898, however, that date is undocumented.

Her painting subjects in New York state include Hudson River locations, and among the titles of her work were The Clove and Catskill Mountains. In France and England, she also did landscapes such as On the Marne, France and Near Hampton, England. California titles include View of Mission Dolores, Great Yosemite Falls, California, and Ocean Beach, San Francisco.

Although her western experience was brief, Abby Tyler Oakes was one of the first women and certainly among the most capable to paint the state of California during the 1850s. A prize winner and exhibitor, her work is in the collection of the California Historical Society.

Sources_______________________________________________________________________
An Encyclopedia of Women Artists of the American West, Phil Kovinick and Marian Yoshiki-Kovinick, Univeristy of Tesas Press, Austin, 1998, p. 234.
Yesterday and Tomorrow: California Women Artists, Sylvia Moore, ed. Midmarch Arts Press, New York, 1989, p. 64.
Artwork from various websites including Mutual Art, askArt, and invaluable, retrieved April 24, 2018.

Eliza R. Barchus
1857-1959

It's been a while since my last post-I retired from teaching and moved to Portland, Oregon for a year of adventure and exploration so, meet Eliza Barchus, a native Oregonian and landscape painter. Born in Salt Lake City, Utah, December 4, 1857, Barchus relocated to Oregon with her second husband, John, in 1880. While she was raising a family, she began to study art with William Parrott, joined the Mutual Art Association, and began to exhibit at early industrial fairs. Barchus sold her first painting in 1885 and drew national attention in 1890 when one of her large paintings of Mount Hood, a 40 x 60 inch canvas, was displayed at the National Academy of Design in New York City. She created a number of paintings of the mountain such as the one below.

Eliza R. Barchus
Mt. Hood
Oil on Art Board
4 1/2 x 6 1/2 inches

Widowed in 1899, Barchus became the sole support of her family. In addition to managing a thriving art studio, she sold and traded many artworks in order to make ends meet. In 1905 she won a gold medal at the Lewis and Clark Centennial Exposition for her paintings and is also credited with the introduction of color postcards in the United States made from six of her landscapes at the exposition.

This lithograph was offered for sale at 50 cents during the 1905 Lewis and Clark Exposition. The lithographs of Mt. Hood at Sunset and Mt. Rainier at Noonday (large size) were a little more – 75 cents. Unsold inventory after the Fair generated income for the family for years afterwards.

This sign was created on sheet metal, painted black with white lettering. It measures approximately 20″ by 14.” A December 22, 1901 mention in the Oregonian newspaper announced that: Mrs. E. R. Barchus, artist, painter of mountain scenery, offers her beautiful picture of Mount Hood for the holidays. Small sizes. Low prices. Room 1 Multnomah block.
The reference to “Room 1” on both the sign and in the article link the sign to her time in that studio.

Eliza Barchus was quite the innovative artist and businesswoman. She produced thousands of artworks, often employing an assembly-line system, painting several canvases at once. She painted almost exclusively in oil with just a few watercolor sketches that were most likely done as preliminary pieces for the larger works. Barchus advertised in catalogs and had a thriving business through the mail. For those familiar with local history, Eliza Barchus sold paintings at the B.B. Rich Cigar and Concession at the Portland Hotel where Portland's "Living Room" now exists: Pioneer Square.

Eliza R. Barchus
Wilson River (?) Oregon
Oil on Art Board
4 1/2 x 6 1/2 inches

Eliza Barchus was an artist of considerable talent and a business woman quite ahead of her time. Her painting career ended in 1935 due to arthritis and failing eyesight, but she lived until she was 102 years old. She is one of Oregon's most popular pioneer artists and, several years after her death, Barchus was named "The Oregon Artist" by the Oregon Legislative Assembly. Eleanor Roosevelt honored Eliza Barchus' 100th birthday in her syndicated column, "My Day."

Eliza R. Barchus
Multnoma Falls
Oil on canvas
12.25 x 22 inches

Sources__________________________________________________________________
The Oregon Encyclopedia, Ginny Allen, https://oregonencyclopedia.org/articles/barchus_eliza_1857_1959_/#.W_IDa_krJkp, retrieved November 18, 2018
Elizabeth R. Barchus, Oregon Artist, Research Site, http://elizabarchus.com/wordpress/?page_id=4

Doris Chase
April 1923-December 2008

Doris Totten Chase was an American artist whose career spanned 55 years of innovation and experimentation, using a wide array of media that included painting, sculpture, printmaking, video, film, and computer-generated prints. Chase produced and directed over 70 films.

Doris Chase was a member of the Northwest School, an art movement established in the Seattle area that was the first time there was national recognition of artists in the Pacific Northwest beyond traditional Native American art forms.

Chase studied architecture at the University of Washington, but dropped out of college to marry Elmo Chase, a lieutenant in the U.S. Navy. After the birth of her first child, Chase became seriously ill, a victim of postpartum depression (not recognized as such at the time) and it became clear that her issue stemmed from"doing everything except what I wanted to do, which was to paint." She began to work again, studied oil painting and took a class with Northwest artist Mark Tobey. In 1948, one of her paintings was accepted into the Northwest Annual Exhibition.

Several years later, pregnant with their second child, her husband contracted polio and became almost completely paralyzed while they were in the process of building a house. (Chase was the architect). To support the family, Doris Chase taught painting and design at Edison Technical School and was accepted into Women Painters of Washington in 1951, where Chase remained a member until the mid-1960s.

Doris Chase
Untitled
ca 1964
Ink and watercolor on paper
18 x 12.5 inches

Doris Chase's early work was primarily paintings of Northwest landscapes and figures, often musicians in blocks of color built up in some cases with sand to achieve a heavy, coarse, texture. She claimed her inspiration was the structured designs of Northwest Coast Native American basketry and carving. Her first solo exhibition at the Otto Seligman Gallery in 1956 was a success with reviews in the Seattle Times declaring her "a serious and talented young painter." Other shows and exhibits followed in New York and Tokyo. In addition, she was accepted into the Huntington Hartford Foundation's artist's colony for a month's opportunity to create in Pacific Palisades, California in the years 1965, '66, and '69.

Doris Chase
To See, To Feel, To Love
ca 1966
Oak and paint
19 x 5.5 x 3 inches

Her work evolved from wash drawings into a series of cement painting meant to be installed outdoors and inscribed with faces and included words such as "joy" and "love." Chase also experimented with shaped canvases and painting on wood, some inset with hinged sections which, when opened, revealed an additional painted area.

Chase's sculptures grew. Pieces became large and kinetic. Many of her forms invited views to interact and rearrange modules that had the black-stained look that resembled the Northwest Coast Native American Art she had seen at the Alaska-Yukon_Pacific Exposition of 1919 that were on the University of Washington campus during her student days.

In 1968, dancer Mary Staton used a set of Chase's large wooden circles within a choreographed dance. Dancers wheeled across the stage of the Seattle Opera house, spread-eagled like spokes inside enormous wooden wheels.

Doris Chase
Dancers in Hoops
Choreographed piece by Mary Staton

In collaboration with Boeing, Chase produced Circles, a computer film based on spinning hoops and King Screen made a film of the dance/sculpture collaboration. Chase requested and received footage edited out of the King Screen film and created her own film, Circles II with help from professionals Bob Brown and Frank Olvey.

Doris Chase
Jonathan and Circles
ca 1977
Video Still

Color separations showed the dancers and sculpture as color forms, time lapse made trails of light that followed the wake of the dancers' arms and legs. The film was recognized at the 1973 American Film Festival in New York where it was compared to Matisse's Dance painting. While Circles II was in production, Doris Chase built prototypes of large, colorful kinetic sculptures for children designed for kids to help them with equilibrium and body awareness.

Doris Chase
Changing Form
ca 1971
Kerry Park, Seattle, Washington
Photo by David Wilma

Sculpture has stereotypically been considered a "man's" work. Throughout history, there have been few women working in the discipline because of the weight of the materials or the upper body strength needed to lift, chip, polish, and generally work on heavy, large-scale pieces. In the 1960s, Chase proved that women could successfully create in the medium and one of her early steel sculptures, the 15 foot tall Changing Form was commissioned for Kerry Park on Queen Anne Hill, which became one of Seattle's most endearing and regarded public sculptures.

In the early 1970s, at the front of the avant-garde movement, Chase began working in video using computer imaging, inspired by Nam June Paik, the Korean artist who is said to be the founder of video art. During 1973-74, she participated in the Experimental Television Center's Residency program and began to integrate her sculptures with interactive dancers, using special effects to create dream-like pieces. Check them out here: https://www.whatcommuseum.org/5-women-artists-doris-totten-chase

As a video artist, and under the the auspices of the U.S. Information Agency, Chase lectured and showed her work in India, Europe, Australia, South America, Czechoslovakia, and Romania. Using her favorite pale blue light as her medium, the dancers were integrated into a fluid, sensual choreography that explored movement in the context of abstract architecture. Long divorced, Chase's professional relationship became intimate with composer George Keinsinger, music composer of twelve of her videos.

In the 1980s, Chase achieved a breakthrough into mainstream television with a series of 30 minute videos entitled the By Herself series in which she introduced the subject matter of older women in society to a wide audience. One video, entitled Glass Curtain (1983), explored actress Jennie Ventriss' anguish over her mother's deterioration due to Alzheimer's disease. Table for One (1985) starring actress Gerladine Page in a voice over monologue of a woman uneasy about dining alone, and Dear Papa (1986), starring Anne Jackson and her daughter Roberta Wallach followed by A Dancer (1987) were powerful voices for women during that time. Dear Papa won First Prize at the 1986 Women's International Film Festival in Paris.

Parke Godwin's novel, A Truce with Time (1988, Bantam Books) is a fictionalized version of Chase's life during her time in New York. While he was writing the book, Chase made her own film about their relationship called Still Frame, produced at the American Film Institute. Art Historian Patricia Failing wrote a book about Chase entitled Doris Chase, Artist in Motion: From Painting and Sculpture to Video Art (1991, University of Washington Press). In 1989, Chase returned to Seattle, dividing her time between East and West working in video in New York and sculpture in Seattle. Ever experimenting, she began works in glass, sometimes in combination with steel.

Doris Chase
Late Autumn
ca 1997
14.75 x 20 x 2 inches
Whatcom Museum, Bellingham, Washington

In 1993, Doris Chase produced a documentary about her home, the Chelsea Hotel which was originally conceived as New York's first major cooperative apartment building, owned by a consortium of wealthy families in 1883. The building became an apartment in 1905. Her video honored the building's 110th anniversary and those who called it home.

Doris Chase
Moon Gates
ca 1999
Bronze
17 x 9 feet

In 1999, Chase's four piece bronze sculpture, Moon Gates, was installed at Seattle Center in Washington. Her complete works of video and film was acquired by the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York.

In 1999, her four-piece bronze sculpture Moon Gates, 17 feet high, was installed at Seattle Center. New York's MoMA acquired her complete video and film works. The Seattle Art Museum has only one Chase work in its collection: a 1950s oil painting. Chase's work won honors and awards at 21 film and video festivals. Her work has a permanent place in the archives of New York's Museum of Modern Art (MoMA). It is collected by major museums and art centers in several countries.

Doris Totten Chase died in December of 2008 from a series of strokes and the effect of Alzheimer's disease. "She died in her own apartment with a good smile and a good attitude right up to the last," said her son Randy Chase. "She was always able to make the best of what she had...I always told her, 'hey, you did a great job,' and she did."

Sources______________________________________________________________________

Archives West: Orbis Cascade Alliance, http://archiveswest.orbiscascade.org/ark:/80444/xv59030, retrieved December 4, 2018

Artistltrust, https://artisttrust.org/index.php/award-winners/artist-profile/doris_chase, retrieved November 28, 2018

Abmeyer + Wood Fine Art, http://www.abmeyerwood.com/Artist-Detail.cfm?ArtistsID=599&ppage=48

Northwest Women Artists 1880-2010, retrieved November 28, 2018

Whatcom Museum, Colton Redfeldt, https://www.whatcommuseum.org/virtual_exhibit/universal_exhibit/vex21/46AD0911-67EB-4FDC-AE25-880933573895.htm, retrieved, December 4, 2018

To close out 2018, a year of change and upheaval for many of us, I've chosen a painter who created lovely portraits and landscapes, but who was best known for her spectacular collection of paintings depicting California wildflowers.

Alice Brown Chittenden
October 14, 1859-October 13, 1944

Alice Chittenden was born in 1859 in Brockport, New York and moved with her family as an infant to San Francisco where her father became a prosperous miner. Alice was encouraged to study art and was one of the early women in San Francisco to study at the School of Design (the first school of art in the City) where she was a student of Virgil Williams three years after it was established in 1877. She began a long affiliation with the school as she became an art instructor and taught at the School of Design for 43 years. She was married briefly to Charles Overton in 1886, had one daughter, and never remarried. With the exception of trips to New York, Italy and France to study and to exhibit her work, Chittenden lived in San Francisco for the rest of her life until her death in 1944. She maintained a studio on the 4th floor of the Phelan Building and had a long and prolific career exhibiting her work for over 60 years.

Phelan Building
San Francisco, California
ca 1888
Reminiscent of the Flatiron Building in NYC

The status of women's art in Nineteenth Century San Francisco was unique. As the seat of culture in the emerging West, the City attracted and supported a vigorous art community. The California School of Design, predecessor to today's San Francisco Art Institute, welcomed both men and women as students and instructors. California and Alaska Gold Rush dollars, Nevada Silver strikes and the completion of the Transcontinental Railroad, all contributed to affluence of the upper class and their desire to cultivate and collect art.

Women artists were studying and exhibiting art in San Francisco. The first class at the School of Design in 1874 had 46 women students out of a total of 60 (Wilson, 1983). When Alice Chittenden was appointed to the faculty in 1897 she was assigned to teach still-life drawing and painting. She became one of a few California artists who are known primarily for their work in still life paintings. Chittenden exhibited and received favorable reviews in what is thought to be the first major all-women’s art exhibition in the United States in 1885 sponsored by the San Francisco Art Association. She became the first woman juror for the Association’s art shows. Alice Chittenden and another female artist Maren Froelich were the first to break the all-male barrier at the Bohemian Club’s annual art exhibition in 1898. Chittenden was one of the charter members to organize the Women’s Sketch Club in 1906. Tragically, the 1906 earthquake and fire destroyed the headquarters of the Sketch Club along with most artists’ studios in San Francisco.

Alice Brown Chittenden
A Foothill Landscape
Oil on canvas board
ca n.d.
7 x 9 inches

Alice Chittenden was recognized as a prolific painter who is best-known for her paintings of over 350 varieties of California wildflowers.

Alice Brown Chittenden
Poppies
ca 1903
Oil on board
8 x 15 inches

Chittenden also painted numerous landscapes, mostly of Marin County, (see Mt. Tamalpais below) and portraits done primarily in pastel.

Alice Brown Chittenden
Mount Tamalpais
ca 1920s
Oil on canvas board
8 x 10 inches

In 1895 an East Coast newspaper declared her the “leading flower painter of America” (Lekisch:95). In addition, she studied botany, discovering and collecting rare species of wildflowers on her excursions by stage and horseback in the Sierras and other wilderness areas which saw her sketching and painting wildflowers. Alice Chittenden exhibited in group shows including those of San Francisco Art Association, Mechanics Institute Fairs, First Annual Exhibition of Lady Artists of San Francisco, California Midwinter International Exposition, Bohemian Club, Sketch Club, golden Gate Memorial Museum and California Building all in San Francisco; California State Fair, Sacramento, California Building,World's Columbia Exposition, Chicago; California Building, Lewis and Clark Centennial Exposition, Portland, OR and solo expositions at the Schussler Gallery in San Francisco (1908), Stanford Art Gallery, Palo Alto (1918, 1922).

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Alice Brown Chittenden
Garden Scene
ca n.d.
Oil on canvas
20 x 24 inches

Resources__________________________________________________________________________________

AskArt-Art Database, www.askart.com

Hughes, Edan Milton. 2002. Artists in California 1786-1940. Third Edition. Sacramento: Crocker Art Museum.

Lekisch, Barbara, Embracing Scens about Lakes Tahoe and Donner, Great West Books, 2003.

Silver, Mae, Shaping San Francisco Digital Archive @Found San Francisco, 1884 Midwinter Fair: Women Artists, An Appreciation, 1994. Retrieved December 31, 2018.

Phil Kovinick and Marian Yoshiki Kovinick, An Encyclopedia of Women Artists of the American West, University of Texas Press, Austin, 1998, p 46.

Ruth Harriet Louise
Self-portrait

Ruth Harriet Louise was an American professional photographer and the first female photographer active in Hollywood. When Ms. Louise joined Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, dubbed the studio with "more stars than there are in heaven," she was twenty-two years old and the only woman working as a portrait photographer for the Hollywood studios.

Ruth Harriet Louise was born in New York City and raised in New Brunswick, New Jersey. She was the daughter of a rabbi. Louise began to take photographs while still living at home. She gravitated to the studio of society photographer Nickolas Muray who had emigrated to New York from Europe before the outbreak of World War I. Muray was working as a color printer and photo engraver in Brooklyn when he opened his portrait studio, working from his apartment in Greenwich Village. He was getting regular work from Harper’s Bazaar when Ruth began to apprentice for him. Muray was a well-known photographer of Babe Ruth, F. Scott Fitzgerald, James Joyce, and Langston Hughes, among other celebrities in New York.

Louise had family who had already moved to Southern California and worked in the entertainment business, when they encouraged her to join them in Los Angeles. Her brother was director Mark Sandrich, who directed some of the great Fred Astaire & Ginger Rogers musicals including Flying Down to Rio and The Gay Divorcee, and she was cousin to silent-film actress Carmel Myers, notably in Ben-Hur. Ruth opened a small portrait studio near Hollywood and Vine, but her work was seen by Louis Mayer who hired her to set up her portrait studio at his new film company, MGM.

Ruth Harriet Louise
Greta Garbo
ca 1920s

Film studios in the early days relied heavily on still photography. Actors were not initially sent for screen tests; they went first to the portrait studio so directors might see what image they would project in the glamour photos that would be used for promotion. This was long before quick and candid shots and the studios could tightly control the images they sent out to promote a star or a film. Fan clubs emerged, and they relied on the still photographs that could be sent to their members.

In a career that lasted just five years, from 1925 until 1930, Ms. Louise photographed all the stars, contract players, and many hopefuls who passed through the studio's front gates. It is estimated that she shot more than 100,000 photographs during her tenure at MGM. Her original photographs were circulated via newspapers and magazines to millions of moviegoers and fans while the publicity department tapped into the audience's need for sophistication and fashion during the 1920s. Ms. Louise's photographs helped set the tone for glamour photography.

Ruth Harriet Louise
Joan Crawford
ca 1929

Ruth Harriet Louise
Buster Keaton
ca 1929

Ruth photographed the likes of Greta Garbo, Lon Chaney, John Gilbert, Joan Crawford, and Marion Davies. Ruth became Greta Garbo's personal photographer. At twenty-four years old, she was already a two-year veteran of Hollywood who had joined the community just a few months before Garbo. However, by 1930 tastes were changing. Norma Shearer selected George Hurrell to be her personal photographer as she liked the sexy glamour shots he produced. Louise’s elegant photos were not as desirable as they once were, and her contract was not renewed.

She retired from working as a photographer at MGM in 1927 to marry director Leigh Jason and had a son who died of leukemia in 1932. Tragically, Louise and her baby died in 1940 of complications from her second childbirth.

Ruth Harriet Louise
Renee Adoree
1920s

Ruth Harriet Louise
John Gilbert
1920s

Today, Ms. Louise is considered an equal to the likes of George Hurrell, Clarence Bull, Milton Greene and Cecil Beaton. Sr. and other renowned glamour photographers of the era.

Sources___________________________________________________________________________
Austin Film Society, https://www.austinfilm.org/2017/01/a-gallery-of-the-work-of-ruth-harriet-louise-photographer-hollywood-pioneer/, retrieved June 27, 2019
Backlots, https://backlots.net/2014/04/01/the-work-of-ruth-harriet-louise-breaking-ground-for-women-in-photography/, retrieved June 27, 2019
Ruth Harriet Louise and Hollywood Glamour Photography, Abstract, University of California Press, https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520233485/ruth-harriet-louise-and-hollywood-glamour-photography, retrieved June 27, 2019
Questia, Ruth Harriet Louise and Hollywood Glamour Photography, Robert Dance and Bruce Robertson, https://www.questia.com/library/105875121/ruth-harriet-louise-and-hollywood-glamour-photography, retrieved June 27, 2019
America Comes Alive, Ruth Harriet Louise, First Female Photographer in Hollywood, https://americacomesalive.com/2012/03/21/ruth-harriet-louise-1903-1940-first-female-staff-photographer-in-hollywood/, retrieved June 27, 2019

Pansy Stockton
at work in her studio

This woman's vision was unique! Pansy Stockton created three-dimensional art pieces using hundreds of varieties of items from nature such as bark, moss, grass, and weeds. She called them her "sun paintings" because the botanical materials she used get their colors from the sun and, when the art pieces are finished, they resemble paintings.

Pansy was born in El Dorado Springs, Missouri on March 31, 1895, and was raised in Eldorado Springs, Colorado where her parents ran the Grand View Hotel. Always an artist, she was just nine years old when she won her first adult competition with an oil painting however, Pansy not only worked in oil, but watercolor and acrylic as well. She studied the technique that substituted a palette knife in which artists use various tools shaped like knives, rather than brushes, to build up the paint on a canvas or other support. Pansy moved away from painting when she realized that the medium was limiting and that nature offered an endless supply of texture.

Pansy Stockton
Cero Pelon
ca n.d.
Botanical collage on board
4.5 x 3.3 inches

She created her first "sun painting" in 1916 while she was living in Durango, Colorado and sold it to the president of the Colorado Fuel and Iron Company. In her words, "The general effect of sun painting is much like looking out of a window rather than looking into a frame. There is a three dimensional value not found in painted pictures. I consider texture more important than color in getting my effects. All pieces are cemented to a soft paper board and pressed into service with heavy weights. When people ask,'How are your sun paintings made?' I tell them 'a lot of stuff, a little glue, considerable pressure, and a great big lot of imagination." Pansy coined the term "sun painting" because to her, it sounded primitive like sun temple or sand paintings.

Pansy Stockton
Old Pecos MissionMixed Media Collage
ca. n.d.
11.62 x 15.62 inches

Pansy married Roscoe Stockton, poet, radio announcer, inventor, and teacher, in 1918. They settled in Denver, Colorado where Pansy became a founding member of the Denver Artists Guild in 1928. In 1936, she was adopted into the Oglala Lakota Tribe as a thank you for interceding on their behalf to help preserve their land and rights. She was often seen wearing traditional Lakota tribal wear and Pansy would participate in parades and dances. Her Lakota name, given to her by Native American dancer Charles Eagle Plume, was "Wanashta Wastaywin" (sp?) which means "Flower that Beautifies the Earth."

Pansy Stockton
In her self-made Kiva wearing traditional Lakota dress
ca 1930s
Nancy Bernhardt Collection

By the late 1930s, Pansy spent the bulk of her time in New Mexico and moved permanently to Santa Fe in 1942, where she built an adobe home with a kiva, a sacred building used for spiritual ceremonies, religious rituals and ceremonial preparations by the Pueblo Native Americans. Her substantial collection of Native American memorabilia and dolls were housed there. Pansy's home along Acequia Madre became a salon, where she gave lectures, and entertained visiting dignitaries. She was an integral part of the vibrant arts community in Santa Fe ans she sang at the Santa Fe Opera, served as a judge for the Miss New mexico pageant in 1958.

Pansy Stockton
Down Mora Way
ca 1960
9 ¼ x 7 ¼ inches
David Cook Galleries

Pansy Stockton was quite well-known in her lifetime. In 1953 she was surprised by Ralph Edwards, host of the live television show "This is Your Life" and during the episode, the Governor Edwin Mechem of New Mexico proclaimed Pansy Stockton Sunshine day on March 31. Written on her plaque: "I hereby proclaim that of the 340 days of New Mexico sunshine each year, the sunniest of them all shall hereafter be known as Pansy Stockton Sunshine Day in New Mexico."

Her work was appreciated nationally and internationally, owned by both Eleanor Roosevelt and the Duke of Windsor. She exhibited in Paris, London, Vienna and New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Oklahoma City, Denver, and Santa Fe. Over the course of nearly sixty years, from 1916 to 1972, she created over one thousand sun paintings, most depicting scenes of her beloved New Mexico. "Ponchita," as she had become known, was an authority on Native American lore and an honorary member of the Sioux. She passed away in February of 1972.

Pansy Stockton
with finished sun painting and holding botanical materials
Nancy Bernhardt Collection

Sources________________________________________________________________
Pansy Repass Stockton, Kat Bernhardt, https://sweetfootjourneys.com/pansy-repass-stockton/, retrieved July 3, 2019
David Cook Galleries, https://www.davidcookgalleries.com/artist/pansy-stockton, retrieved July 3, 2019
askART, http://www.askart.com/artist/Pansy_Cornelia_Stockton/113295/Pansy_Cornelia_Stockton.aspx, retrieved July 3, 2019
Phil Kovinick and Marian Yoshiki-Kovinick, An Encyclopedia of Women Artists of the American West, University of Texas Press, Austin, 1998, p. 293.

One of the artists I explored for my dissertation was potter Maria Martinez, a Tewa Native American Puebloan who lived at the San Ildefonso Pueblo in New Mexico. She, and husband Julian, resurrected the stunning ancient local process of black on black pottery. The black ware was in marked contrast to the all-red or polychrome ware that had dominated the pueblo's creations for generations. Dora Tse-Pe is a remarkable potter and her creations were inspired by her mother, grandmother, mother-in-law, and the pottery of San Ildefonso.

Dora Tse-Pe

Dora Tse-Pe, a Tewa Native American, was born at the Zia Pueblo in 1939. She learned the basics of the art of pottery production from her mother Candelaria Gachupin, one of Zia Pueblo's most outstanding potters and her grandmother Rosalie Toribio. Dora claims "My first experience with my mother's clay was when I was about six years old. She taught me the sacredness of clay. All have spiritual significance. I treat my clay with much respect." She explained that every step of making pottery is done only after prayer and thanksgiving for our gifts of clay, water, fire, and artistic talents.

Map of the Pueblos of New Mexico along the Rio Grande

Dora married Tse-Pe, an innovative San Ildefonso potter in his own right, and moved to the San Ildefonso Pueblo where she honed her craft. Her mother-in-law, the well-known Rose Gonzales, taught her to make the traditional red and black ware in addition to learning to highly polish her work, a technique not used by the Zia potters. Dora worked with Rose for ten years, perfecting her polishing and carving methods before breaking out on her own.

Two-tone black and brown jar with a turquoise inlay
5 inches high x 3 3/4 in diameter

In addition, she was highly influenced by Popovi Da, Maria Martinez' son and his son Tony Da. Dora and Tse-Pe spent much time over the years experimenting with different clays, forms, textures, and designs. Her work is sometimes referred to as "contemporary" however, she dislikes the term and considers herself a traditionalist although she enjoys pushing at the term with her innovative work.

Kiva step rim on a red jar lightly carved with an
avanyu design plus inlaid turquoise and micaceous slip around the rim
6 1/4 in high by 4 1/2 in diameter

Her style is a blending of Zia, San Juan, and San Ildefonso traditions. Dora's work is considered to be among the best available of its kind today. A perfectionist, she executes her pieces with a high degree of precision and finish, executing a beautifully smooth burnish and exceptional black firing. Her success with the two-toned firing technique resulted in sienna accents to the black ware. Dora Tse-Pe is recognized as a master potter was awarded the title Master of Indian Market in Santa Fe.

Brown jar with fire cloud and inlaid turquoise
3 inches high by 2 1/2 inches diameter

Lidded jar with bear handle, height 6.5 inches x diameter 4.5 inches
Vase with sgrafitto and turquoise cabochon inset, height 6 inches x diameter 4.5 inches
Bowl with Avanyu encircling opening; turquoise stone eye, height 4.75 inches x diameter 7.25 inches
Third quarter 20th century

Dora Tse-Pe is featured in nearly every book written on Pueblo Pottery today including Fourteen Families in Pueblo Pottery by Rick Dillingham, Southwestern Pottery from A to Z by Allan Hayes, Lee M. Cohen's Art of Clay, Gregory Schaff's Pueblo Indian Pottery and Pottery by American Indian Women by Susan Peterson. She is also one of the few potters honored by the National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, D.C. For a short video on Dora Tse-Pe, follow this link: https://vimeo.com/37635551

Sources________________________________________________________________

Women Artists of the American West, Susan R. Ressler, ed., McFarland & Company Inc, 2003, page 337.

Dora Tse Pe (San Ildefonso, b. 1939) Black and Sienna Pottery,

https://www.bidsquare.com/online-auctions/cowans/dora-tse-pe-san-ildefonso-b-1939-black-and-sienna-pottery-1029875 retrieved July 15, 2019
In the Eyes of the Pot: A Journey into the World of Native American Pottery, Dora Tse-Pe, https://www.eyesofthepot.com/san-ildefonso/dora_tse_pe.htm, retrieved July 15, 2019
Adobe World, Dora Tse Pe, https://www.adobegallery.com/artist/Dora_Tse-P_b1939115044105, retrieved July 15, 2019
Maria and Julian Pottery, Dora Tse-Pe, http://www.mariajulianpottery.com/san-ildefonso/dora-tse-pe/, retrieved July 15, 2019

Thelma Johnson Streat
1912-1959

Thelma Johnson Streat was an African-American artist, dancer, and educator who gained renown during the 1940s. A multi-talented artist who worked in a variety of media, Streat focused on ethnic themes for her art and performance endeavors.

Born in Yakima, Washington in 1912, Streat moved with her family to Portland, Oregon where she graduated from Washington High School. She began painting at the age of seven and later, studied painting at the Museum Art School, now, the Pacific Northwest College of Art, in the mid 1930s. Streat was a frequent exhibitor and worked in tempera, oil, and watercolor.

For most of the 1930s and 40s, Streat worked for the Works Progress Administration, the WPA Federal Art Project in California. She moved to San Francisco in 1938 and was a participant in exhibitions at the De Young Museum and the San Francisco Museum of Art among others. Her painting Rabbit Man was acquired by the Museum of Modern Art in 1942. She was the first African American to have a painting bought by the museum.

Thelma Beatrice Johnson Streat
Mural of Medicine and Transportation
ca 1940s
National Museum of African American History and Culture

In 1939-40, Streat worked with Diego Rivera on the Pan-American Unity Mural for the Art In Action Exhibition at Treasure Island's Golden Gate International Exposition. According to a manuscript in the Archives of the City College, Streat was the only assistant artist that Rivera trusted to paint directly on his mural. A portrait of her, along with many other friends of Rivera, can be seen at the City College of San Francisco in the Diego Rivera Theater, on Ocean Campus. https://www.riveramural.org/ Streat began working in the mural format and she developed a number of studies and maquettes (a scale model or rough draft for a sculpture) that were submitted designs for mural projects. The intensity and subject matter of her work such as Death of a Black Sailor, attracted the attention of the Ku Klux Klan, which in 1942, led to death threats. The work depicted a dying soldier's thoughts on democracy as he saw signs on defense plants stating "only white need apply," the Red Cross' refusal to accept blood donations from blacks, segregated military barracks, and restaurants' refusal to serve black servicemen.

Thelma Beatrice Johnson Streat
Wild Horse
ca 1940s
6-1/2 x 9-inches mounted to 12 x 18-inch sheet of blue construction paper

A talented singer and modern dancer, Streat gave live performances, sometimes as accompaniment to her murals at their completion. In addition, she performed at New York's Interplayer's Theater in Carnegie Hall, and before audiences in Paris, France, London, England before Queen Elizabeth, and Montreal, Canada. Her dance performances were influenced by her international travel and experiences to destinations such as Mexico, Haiti, Java, the Hawaiian Islands, and Australia.

Thelma Beatrice Johnson Streat

In 1945, Streat accepted the position of chair of a committee that sponsored murals to aid "Negro in Labor" education. Streat was also commissioned to create original fabric designs for women's sportswear manufacturer Koret in 1948. She followed with a series of canvases that depict the company's spring line.

Thelma Beatrice Johnson Streat
The Negro in Professional Life
(Mural Study Featuring Women in the Workplace)
ca 1945
Ink, Crayon, Watercolor on Cardstock
10 x 20 inches

Streat married her husband, her manager, Edgar Kline, in 1948. A playwright, film and play producer, they shared common interests such as education and the fight against intolerance that inspired their future projects. As a couple, they created the Children's City projects in Hawaii and British Columbia.

Streat's work was powerful, both in line and color, as exemplified by the piece Black Virgin, now in the collection of Reed College in Portland. Her work is also included in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, Mills College in Oakland, California, the San Francisco Museum of Art, and the Honolulu Academy of the Arts.

Thelma Beatrice Johnson Streat
Black Virgin
ca 1940s
Oil on canvas
20 x 14 inches
Reed College, Portland, Oregon

In recent years, there has been a resurgence of interest in Streat’s art, films, textile designs, illustrations, murals, performances, and social contributions. In 1991, “Red Dots, Flying Baby & Barking Dog” was included in a group exhibit at the Kenkeleba Gallery (New York).

Thelma Beatrice Johnson Streat
Red Dots, Flying Baby, and Barking Dog
ca 1945
Pacific Northwest College of Art

Dr. Ann Eden Gibson, associate professor of art history and associate director of the Humanities Institute at State University of New York at Stony Brook, wrote an article in 1995 for the Yale Journal of Criticism titled, Universality and Difference in Women’s Abstract Painting: Krasner, Ryan, Sekula Piper, and Streat” and published “Abstract Expressionism” (Yale University Press), which included a chapter on Streat in 1997.

Thelma Beatrice Johnson Streat with Drum
September, 1951

In 1959, Thelma Streat began to study anthropology at UCLA but died in Los Angeles that year. She was just 47.

THE THELMA JOHNSON STREAT PROJECT was organized in 1991 to:

(1) research Streat's life and work;
      (2) distribute information on the artist, her life and various avenues of creativity;
   (3) care for The Johnson Collection and make selected works available to museums and galleries for exhibits;
   (4) promote Streat's ideals through sharing her story with others.

Sources___________________________________________________________
Oregon Encyclopedia, Ginny Allen, Thelma Johnson Streat 1912-1959, https://oregonencyclopedia.org/articles/streat_thelma_johnson/, retrieved August 11, 2019.
Black Past, Thelma Beatrice Johnson Streat, Cherisse Jones-Branch, https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/streat-thelma-beatrice-johnson-1912-1959/, retrieved August 11, 2019.
WPA Murals, http://www.wpamurals.com/streattj.htm, retrieved August 11, 2019.
Newslocker, Brendan Kiley, 'Bigger Than Life' Trailblazing Northwest Artist Gets New Attention at Smithsonian, http://www.newslocker.com/en-us/region/washington/back-in-the-limelight-thelma-johnson-streat-featured-in-new-smithsonian-museum/view/, retrieved August 11, 2019.
Thelma Johnson Streat, The Thelma Johnson Streat Project, https://streat.webs.com/, retrieved August 12, 2019.

Relatively few women artists of any importance were active in many regions of the West during the 1850s and 1860s. Travel was long and arduous and it was not safe, nor culturally acceptable, for a woman to travel alone. As European Americans moved across the continent, the frontier line and what was the West changed from the early 1800s at the Appalachian Mountains, and in 100 years reached the Pacific Coast.

The era of the woman artist in the American West began in 1843 with the arrival of Eliza Griffin Johnston (1821-1896) in Texas. It was not Texas, however, but California, specifically San Francisco, that became the earliest desired destination. As the completion of the Union Pacific-Central Pacific Railroad in 1869 and other transcontinental and trunk lines opened up, more women found their way to areas of interest, including Southern California with its historic missions, adobes, deserts and rugged coastlines.

Born in Portland, ME on March 1, 1842, "Etta" Quincy was the daughter of Horatio G. Quincy, a wealthy merchant, and Mary (McAllister) Quincy. She grew up in Portland and lived in the family residence until the great fire of 1866 virtually destroyed the home. Quincy then opened her own studio in Portland, Maine, where she painted and taught art. She studied in the art centers of Europe and spent five years in Venice during the 1870s. Returning to Portland, she had a studio where she painted and taught art. While a resident there, Quincy had works in exhibitions of the Brooklyn Art Association in 1873, '74, and '77. Her work focused on landscapes of the region.

Henrietta S. Quincy
Mountain Lakeshore Scene
1876
Oil on canvas
12 inches x 20 inches

By 1884, Etta Quincy settled in Los Angeles which would remain her home except for visits to Boston (1902) Europe (1902 and later), and Portland (1905). As well as a painter with an excellent reputation in Portland, ME, Quincy was a gifted musician and botanist. Among her pieces created in California, a large oil painting done in 1886 entitled San Pedro in 1884, belongs to the Los Angeles Athletic Club. Another piece, a watercolor of the San Diego Mission sketched in 1896, is in the collection of the Southwest Museum in Los Angeles.

Henrietta S. Quincy
Grapevine
1882
Oil on canvas
22 1/4 inches x 18 1/4 inches
Private Collection, Danville, California

During her early years in Los Angels, Quincy did not join the city's early art organizations. She was however, a friend of the developers of the "new" city of Venice, at the coast, modeled after Venice, Italy and served as a source of information from her life spent in Italy.

No paintings or photographs of Henrietta S. Quincy were tracked down by this researcher. Quincy never married and she died in Los Angeles on Nov. 28, 1908.

____________________________________________________________________________
Sources
An Encyclopedia of Women Artists of the American West, Phil Kovinick and Marian Yoshiki-Kovinik, University of Texas Press, Austin, TX, 1998, p. 254.
Henrietta Quincy, https://www.askart.com/artist/Henrietta_S_Quincy/127042/Henrietta_S_Quincy.aspxaskART, retrieved March 7, 2020.

Sophie Marston Brannan
House Near Stream and Bridge
Early 20th Century
Oil on canvas
8 x 10 inches

Sophie Pike Marston Marston Brannan was an American artist born in Mountain View California in 1877, and grew up in San Francisco. Her father, financier and philanthropist John E. Brannan and wife Carrie Augusta (Sheldon) Brannan, were in a financial position to support and develop Sophie's artistic talent from a very young age. At the age of seven, she began her formal training at the California School of Design and had her first exhibition of pencil sketches at 12. When Brannan was 21 years old, she spent 14 months in Paris studying her craft and upon return, resumed work at the School of Design under Arthur F. Mathews. She began her career in the Bay Area.

Brannan moved to New York about 1910 where she received recognition and won a number of awards. Although a frequent visitor to California, she remained in the East until resettling in the Bay Area after 1940.

Sophie Marston Brannan
New England Homestead
Early 20th Century
Oil on canvas
8 x 10 inches

The artist produced California scenes over a long period of time. Newspaper accounts document countless sketching trips from 1901 to 1918, both local and to northern California counties such as Marin, Monterey, Napa, Santa Clara and Santa Cruz. This was during a time in which women had little freedom or autonomy, and travel was a dangerous endeavor. It is not clear as to the company Brannan kept or if she was part of a women's association that allowed travel in groups. It is clear that she produced oils, watercolors, and pastels on these trips that are distinctive for their skies, and attention to trees, particularly oaks.

Sophie Marston Brannan
Landscape
c. 1912
Oil on canvas
25 x 30 inches

Brannan also had an interest in the architecture of historic structures, particularly those in Monterrey and did paintings such as General Sherman's Headquarters, Old Customs House, Rodrigues House, and Adobe in Monterey.

Sophie Marston Brannan
Cloudy Day Landscape
Early 20th Century
Oil on canvas
16 x 20 inches

Brannan was an exhibitor from 1896 until the early 1930s with shows in San Francisco and New York. In California, she participated in group events of the Mechanics Institute, San Francisco Artists Society, Sketch Club, and Hotel Del Monte in Monterey. She also hung artworks at exhibitions including the National Academy of Design in New York, Women's Art Club, New York, Syracuse Museum of Fine Arts and the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.

Sophie Marston Brannan
Landscape with House and Barn
Early 20th Century
Oil on canvas

Brannan apparently did little painting in her later years, working as an artist at the Alameda Air Base during World War II and for many years after, while continuing to reside in The City. Sophie Marston Brannan passed away in San Francisco, California in March of 1960 at the age of 93.

Sources_____________________________________________________________
Women Artists of the American West, Phil Kovinick and Marian Yoshiki-Kovinick, University of Texas Press, Austin, 1998, pp. 27-28
Sullivan Gross, An American Gallery, https://www.sullivangoss.com/artists/sophie-marston-brannan-1877-1960retrieved March 19, 2020
Trotter Galleries, https://www.trottergalleries.com/inventory/artist-bio/?at=SophieMarstonBrannan, Early California and American Fine Art, retrieved March 19, 2020

In light of the incredibly challenging times in which we are living, the Arts sustain us. Artists interpret, create, and provide hope for a somber world that seeks light. Augusta Savage was a woman who overcame tremendous difficulties over the course of her entire life. She prevailed, never giving into what seemed to be insurmountable obstacles that stood squarely in her way, and became a notable artist whose work was internationally celebrated during her lifetime.

I discovered Savage's name and body of work during my search for artists to explore for my PhD. dissertation. The deeper I delved into Augusta Savage's remarkable life and artwork, the more frustrated I became that almost NO ONE knew of her. How could that be? Periodically, she seems to be "rediscovered" and it appears that Savage 's work is enjoying another small renaissance. Her work was the focus of a recent exhibition at the New York Historical Society that ran from May 3 - July 28, 2019.

Artist Augusta Savage overcame poverty, racism, and sexual discrimination to become one of America’s most influential 20th-century artists. Her sculptures celebrate African American culture, and her work as an arts educator, activist, and Harlem Renaissance leader catalyzed social change.

While Savage is a "Right Coast" artist, she's unquestionably perfect to profile now. Let's take a look at her life and work!

"I have created nothing really beautiful, really lasting, but if I can inspire one of these youngsters to develop the talent I know they possess, then my monument will be in their work."—T. R. Poston, "Augusta Savage," Metropolitan Magazine, Jan. 1935, n.p.

Augusta Savage at work

Born Augusta Christine Fells in Green Cove Springs, Florida, on February 29, 1892, she was the seventh of fourteen children of Cornelia and Edward Fells. Searching for something to do, she would head over to the nearby Clay County Brick works. In their attempt to keep her safe he workers would chase her away from the drying tunnels and scorching ovens, and to keep her away they would give her a bucket of clay. Augusta would spend hours shaping animals, especially ducks, and set them in the sun to dry. Her father, Edward Fells, a poor fundamentalist Methodist minister, strongly opposed his daughter's early interest in art. He viewed her small clay figures as graven images and punished her for creating them. Savage later recalled her father beating her several times a week; "He nearly whipped all the art out of me," she claimed.

This seems to be the recurring cycle of Augusta’ Savage's life – every advance in her artistic achievement seemed to be followed by bitter disappointment. Her personal life was not particularly stable. In 1907 she married John T. Moore, and the following year her only child, Irene, was born. Moore died several years after Irene's birth. In about 1915, she married James Savage, a carpenter whose surname she retained after their divorce during the early 1920s. In 1923, Savage married Robert L. Poston, her third and final husband, an associate of Marcus Garvey. Poston died in 1924.

Savage's father moved his family from Green Cove Springs to West Palm Beach, Florida, in 1915. Lack of encouragement from her family and the scarcity of local clay meant that Savage did not sculpt for nearly four years. In 1919, a local potter provided clay from which she modeled a group of figures that she entered in the West Palm Beach County Fair. The figures were awarded a special prize and a ribbon of honor. Encouraged by her success, Savage moved to Jacksonville, Florida, where she hoped to support herself by sculpting portrait busts of prominent blacks in the community. When that patronage did not materialize, Savage left her daughter in the care of her parents and moved to New York City with just $4.60. She relocated to Harlem, cleaned houses to pay her rent, and studied at The Cooper Union School of Art.

Augusta Savage
Gamin
ca. 1920s
Painted plaster

During the mid-1920s when the Harlem Renaissance was at its peak, Savage lived and worked in a small studio apartment where she earned a reputation as a portrait sculptor, completing busts of prominent personalities such as W. E. B. Du Bois and Marcus Garvey. Her best-known work of the 1920s was Gamin, above, an informal portrait bust of her nephew, for which she was awarded a Julius Rosenwald Fellowship to study abroad.

The scholarship she received was to attend the Fontainebleau School of the Arts in Paris, however, when the American selection committee discovered she was black, they rescinded the offer, fearing objections from Southern white women who had also been accepted. The reasoning was the white women "would feel uncomfortable sharing accommodations on the ship, sharing a studio, sharing living spaces...Savage managed to get to Paris and had two works accepted for the Salon d'Automne and exhibited at the Grand Palais in Paris. In 1931 Savage won a second Rosenwald fellowship, which permitted her to remain in Paris for an additional year. She also received a Carnegie Foundation grant for eight months of travel in France, Belgium, and Germany.

Augusta Savage
Gwendolyn Knight
ca. 1934-35
18 1/2 x 8 1/2 x 9 inches
Painted plaster

Following her return to New York in 1932, Savage established the Savage Studio of Arts and Crafts and became an influential teacher in Harlem. In 1934 she became the first African-American member of the National Association of Women Painters and Sculptors.

Augusta Savage
Harlem Girl (Lenore)
ca. 1935
Painted Plaster

In 1937 Savage's career took a critical turn. She was appointed the first director of the Harlem Community Art Center and was commissioned by the New York World's Fair of 1939 to create a sculpture that would symbolize the musical contributions of African Americans. Negro spirituals and hymns were what she decided to symbolize in The Harp.

Augusta Savage
The Harp
ca. 1937
Plaster

Inspired by the lyrics of James Weldon Johnson's poem Lift Every Voice and Sing, The Harp was Savage's largest work and her last major commission. She took a leave of absence from her position at the Harlem Community Art Center and spent nearly two years completing the sixteen-foot sculpture. Cast in plaster and finished to resemble black basalt, The Harp was exhibited in the court of the Contemporary Arts building where it received much acclaim. The sculpture depicted a group of twelve stylized black singers in graduated heights that symbolized the strings of the harp. The sounding board was formed by the hand and arm of God. A kneeling man holding music represented the foot pedal. Unfortunately, no funds were available to cast The Harp, nor were there any facilities in which to store it. After the fair closed, tragically it was demolished.

Augusta Savage
The Diving Boy
ca. 1939
Bronze

Upon her return to the Harlem Community Art Center, Savage discovered to her dismay that her position had been filled, then the Art Center closed during World War II when federal funds were eliminated. In 1939, she made an attempt to reestablish an art center in Harlem with the opening of the Salon of Contemporary Negro Art. Savage was founder-director of the small gallery that was the first of its kind in Harlem. That venture closed shortly after its opening due to lack of funds. During the spring of 1939, Savage held a small, one-woman show at the Argent Galleries in New York.

Depressed by the loss of her job and failure of her attempts to establish art centers, in 1945 Savage retreated to the small town of Saugerties, New York, in the Catskill Mountains. She reestablished relations with her daughter where she found peace and seclusion. Savage visited New York occasionally, taught children in local summer camps, and produced a few portrait sculptures of tourists. During her years in Saugerties, Savage also explored her interest in writing children's stories, murder mysteries, and vignettes, although none were published. She died in relative obscurity on March 26, 1962, following a long bout with cancer.

Augusta Savage
Realization
ca. 1938

Augusta Savage was a woman of relentless determination, who lived a challenging, but immensely influential life. She is a woman and an artist of merit.

Sources __________________________________________________________________

NPR, Sculptor Augusta Savage Said Her Legacy Was The Work Of Her Students,

https://www.npr.org/2019/07/15/740459875/sculptor-augusta-savage-said-her-legacy-was-the-work-of-her-students, retrieved March 31, 2020

Smithsonian American Art Museum, Augusta Savage, https://americanart.si.edu/artist/augusta-savage-4269, retrieved March 31, 2020

Archives of Women Artists, Augusta Savage, https://awarewomenartists.com/en/artiste/augusta-savage/, retrieved March 31, 2020

Clay Today, Clay County Memories: Augusta Savage Moved International Audiences, https://www.claytodayonline.com/stories/clay-county-memories-augusta-savage-moved-international-audiences,8100, retrieved March 31, 2020

Alice Geneva (Gene) Glasier Kloss was born in Oakland, California and attended the local public schools. Determined to have a career in art, Kloss studied at the University of California, Berkeley, in 1923, where she discovered the art of etching. Berkeley is where she perfected her skills as a painter under Ray Boynton and was first introduced to printmaking by the renowned etcher, Perham Wilhelm Nahl. After graduating in with honors 1924, she spent two years studying at the California School of Fine Arts, San Francisco and the College of Fine Arts in Oakland.

Her first major solo exhibition, which included almost 100 etchings, oils, watercolors, block prints and monotypes, at the Berkeley League of Fine Arts in March 1926 was so popular that it was extended for a month. This was the start of a career which included over 70 exhibitions in the Bay Area, where her watercolors were as popular with critics as her etchings.

Gene Glasier married Phillips Kloss, a writer and poet, in 1925 and on her honeymoon, she discovered the beauty of Taos, New Mexico after which she found her calling to document the landscape and the people. The couple made frequent trips to New Mexico where they eventually built an adobe home and divided their time between Berkeley and Taos. From the 1950s, with the exception of a five year stint in Cory, Colorado, until her death, Kloss was a year-round resident of New Mexico.

The West dominated Kloss's art. In her early work, she created views of the San Francisco Bay Area; Sierra Nevada; Mendocino Coast; Mojave Desert; Lake Tahoe; and the Monterey Peninsula. She also produced studies of the Arizona Desert; Yellowstone Lake; Canadian Rockies; and the Colorado Rockies, however, her most recurring themes focused on the Northern New Mexico landscape and the Native Americans there.

Gene Kloss

The Old Bridge

(Her first print)

ca 1924

4 & 1/2 x 3 & 1/2 inches

Etching

During the Depression from the years 1933 to 1944 Kloss was the sole etcher employed by the Public Works of Art Project. Her series of nine New Mexico scenes from that period were reproduced and distributed to public schools across the state. She also created watercolors and oil paintings for the Works Progress Administration (WPA). In 1935, she was one of three Taos artists who represented New Mexico at a Paris exhibition called "Three Centuries of Art in the United States."

Gene Kloss became a National Academician in 1972, exhibiting her work from 1924 until nearly the time of her passing, winning countless awards. In addition to umpteen group events, she had a large number of one-person shows, including those at the Berkeley Art League (1926), Oakland Gallery (1932), Crocker Gallery, Sacramento (1939), Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. (1945), Taos Art Association (1958), Museum of New Mexico, Santa Fe (1960), Birger Sandzen Memorial Museum, Lindsborg, KS (1966), Muckenthaler Cultural Center, Fullerton, CA, (1980), Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. (1988) and Harwood Gallery, University of New Mexico, Taos (1994).

Gene Kloss

Approaching Storm

ca. n.d.

Watercolor

18 x 24 inches

Gene Kloss

Morning After Snowfall

ca 1947

Drypoint

10" x 14 inches

Gene Kloss

Courtyard in Chimayo

ca 1973

7-1/4 x 8-3/4

Etching

Here's a link to an interview with Kloss:

http://www.aaa.si.edu/collections/interviews/oral-history-interview-gene-closs-11934

Sources_______________________________________________________________________

An Encyclopedia of Women Artists of the American West, Phil Kovinik and Marion Yoshiki Kovinik, University of Texas Press, Austin, 1998, p. 176

1stDibs, https://www.1stdibs.com/furniture/wall-decorations/prints/taos-artist-gene-kloss-original-drypoint-morning-after-snowfall/id-f_6100573/, retrieved August 21, 2020

The Owings Gallery, https://www.owingsgallery.com/artists/gene-kloss, retrieved August 21, 2020

Since I am a woman artist out west, I felt it's time for an update. This blog has been chugging along remarkably (sometimes with little help from me) since 2012! In the ensuing years, I wrote a 600 page dissertation and earned my Ph.D. in Art History, retired from teaching full-time, moved to Portland for a year with my husband and our hound, Charlie, moved back to Southern California and we sold our home, landing in Camarillo, just up the coast. I jumped into the activities offered by our new community with plans to continue to do adult ed and teach art and art history, and became site coordinator for the OLLI program through California State University, Channel Islands. Then, Covid-19 came along and shut everything down.

Now What? All the time that loomed before me. I tried to learn Italian by watching Alberto Arrighini, a terrific young man who, via YouTube video sessions, came up with a smart concept called the Natural Method and, it really works. However, I had no one to speak with so...my Italian has remained light, as in non-existent. I regularly say, "Che Palle" (my best line: "What a drag"). Then, I tried a bit of sewing (which I hate) repair on a couple of inherited quilts and frankly, yeah, no. I'll gladly pay someone else to do that.

During my last several teaching years, I picked up painting in earnest and played around with portraits, creating a series of Biblical heroines at a seminal moment in their stories. They turned out pretty well but now I have 10 or so 18x24 inch canvases sitting in my home studio that are unframed and still wrapped from the move. It occurred to me that something needed to happen...introspection and self-exploration. I thought about what I really love to look at and be around. Beauty was the answer. Where can I find the most inspirational beauty? For me, it's the ocean and the sky. Why not spend my time photographing and painting the two things in nature that move me most?

Research was needed. I went online and came across a young woman who paints water and MAN, the paintings looked like photographs. Her name is Irina Cumberland and she is incredible. She has a course online with two demos and everything you might want to know about painting water and reflections. I took it and found it to be just challenging enough but not overwhelmingly impossible with a LOT of practice, practice, practice. There's still a long way to go but I have four finished pieces and three in process. Again, what to do with artwork that just piles up?

I needed inspiration! Christa Cloutier, is an artist and teacher who runs workshops (now mostly online) and who created a series called The Working Artist. I watched Project Planning for Artist Brains and, after following the steps and answering the questions she posed, for the first time ever, the proverbial light bulb came on. Actually, it was more like a Klieg Light...you know, like the ones used to sweep across the skies at a Hollywood premiere.

I've decided to market my work of the ocean, waves, beach scenes and reflections and donate a portion of any proceeds to the Surfrider Foundation, Ventura County Chapter, which is concerned with the 43 miles of beach and ocean health, clean-up, and education here in Ventura County, where I live. I've been blessed to live within 20 miles of the coast nearly the entire time I've been in California and love everything about being close to the ocean. I got my logo/biz cards finished and now, will build a website for artwork. I needed direction and structure and wow, this seems to be it!

Sources___________________________________________________________________________

Christa Cloutier: https://theworkingartist.com/

Alberto Arrighini: Italian for Americans: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKwAAjTVFRshAqEP6FiHsWg

Surfrider Foundation: https://ventura.surfrider.org/

Paintings by Me

Mary Ann Lehman
Quiet Crow Camp
Etching
n.d.
2x10 inches

Mary Ann Lehman was an American Western artist born near Spokane, Washington in 1920. She was best known for her etchings of horses and Western scenes enhanced with watercolor and oil. Lehman's creative work was predominantly influenced by modernism of the 1950s. Lehman was a member of the Los Angeles Art Association, the Palos Verdes Art Association, the Laguna Beach Art Association, and the Laguna Beach Festival of Art. She painted in oil in a heavy impasto style that has depth and texture.

Mary Ann Lehman
Native American on Horse
Oil
n.d.

Lehman was raised in the San Fernando Valley from the age of six. In 1938, she studied at The Otis Art Institute in downtown Los Angeles. During World War II, Lehman served as a sergeant in the Women's Army Corps located in Los Alamos, New Mexico. After the war, she married Joseph Lehman in 1946 and the couple settled in Lawndale, in the South Bay region of Los Angeles.

Mary Ann Lehman
California Oil Man on Horseback
Oil
Mid 20th century
18 x 24 inches

Resuming her art training, Lehman studied at UCLA (1946), Chouinard School of Art, LA (1946-1951), and El Camino College, Torrance, CA (1956-1958). In the Post-War period the lens of modern art both nationally and internationally was connected with developments in New York City. The Second World War brought many leading artists in exile from Europe to New York, leading to a rich pool of talent and ideas. Notable European artists such as Piet Mondrian, Josef Albers and Hans Hoffmann provided inspiration for eager American artists and set the bar of much of the United States’ significant cultural growth in the subsequent decades.

Mary Ann Lehman
The Wild Ones
Etching
n.d.
2x14 inches

The 1950s can be said to have been dominated by Abstract Expressionism, a form of painting that prioritized expressive brushstrokes and explored ideas about organic nature, spirituality and the sublime. Much of the focus was on the formal properties of painting, and ideas of action painting were conflated with the political freedom of the United States society as opposed to the strictures of the Soviet bloc. Key artists of the Abstract Expressionist Generation included Jackson Pollock (who innovated his famed drip, splatter and pour painting techniques), Willem de Kooning, Mark Rothko, Frank Kline, Barnett Newman, Clyfford Still and Adolph Gottlieb. It was a male-dominated environment, though necessary revisionism of this period has emphasized the contributions of female artists such as Lee Krasner, Joan Mitchell, and Louise Bourgeois.

Mary Ann Lehman
Big Daddy ca 1977, Bingo, Don Quixote ca 1982
Color etchings
3 3/4 x 5 3/4 inches

Lehman also did freelance work including scratchboard illustrations for "Blood Horse Magazine".

In 1968, Lehman took up etching at the urginging of her instructor, Joe Mugniani. For the next fifteen years, she produced numerous etchings, often colored with oil or watercolor. Her lifetime interest in horses and the West is reflected in the works seen here. Mary Ann Lehman received first-place awards for both etchings and watercolors, and exhibition venues included Salt Lake City; Harrisburg, Pennsylvania; Memphis, Tennessee; and Albany, New York.

Her work has been exhibited at the annuls of the Death Valley Forty-niners, the Saddleback Inn, Santa Ana, CA, Fort Robinson, NE and Temecula, CA.

Sources______________________________________________________________________

An Enclyclopedia of Women Artists of the American West, Phil Kovinick and Marian Yoshiki-Kovinick, University of Texas Press, Austin, 1998, p. 188-89.

AskArt, Mary Anna Lehman, https://www.askart.com/artist/Mary_Anna_Lehman/126986/Mary_Anna_Lehman.aspx, retrieved December 18, 2020.

MutualArt, Mary Anna Lehman, https://www.mutualart.com/Artist/Mary-Anna-Lehman/3F19F603DBE3E6B9, retrieved December 18, 2020.

Elizabeth W. Withington

Photography is easily one of the most significant technological inventions in modern times and yet, there still exists a general impression that it is, and has always been, primarily a male-oriented profession. Women have been involved with the medium since its invention in 1839 and by the mid-1840s, several women were already well-established as professional commercial photographers in Boston, New York, and St. Louis. In 1850, according to Humphrey's Daguerreian Journal, a total of seventy-one daguerreotype studios were listed in New York, "including 127 operators, also 11 ladies and 46 boys." Their fees, estimated by the editor of the journal, stated that men were paid $10 per week, women $5, and boys $1.

By 1920, the year women received the vote, the United States census recorded the surprising fact that approximately 20 percent of America's photographic work force was female. It's quite remarkable that women who were looking for a profession were afforded the opportunity to become financially independent by working as photographers and yet, so many remain unknown. Meet one nineteenth-century photographer: Elizabeth W. Withington, from the East and worked in the West.

Elizabeth W. Kirby was born in New York City on March 17, 1825. Nothing is known of her life before the age of 20, when she married farmer and shingle maker George V. Withington of Monroe, Michigan. Withington joined the Gold Rush and moved to California in 1849. In 1852, Eliza traveled from St. Joseph, Missouri with her daughter to join him at a ranch that he was operating in Amador County, California. Looking for ways to supplement the meager family income, Mrs. Withington noticed that the farming and mining areas were also fertile photography ground.

Elizabeth W. Withington
Business Card

In 1856, Elizabeth journeyed back to the East Coast for the express purpose of learning photography. She traveled throughout the Atlantic states after completing her studies and visited the galleries of the leading photographers of the day, including Matthew Brady's in New York City. Early the following year, she opened her Excelsior Ambrotype Gallery in Ione City, California. Inspiration was all around her: abundant stagecoach lines, railway stations, mills, breweries, restaurants, miners and farmers.

Elizabeth W. Withington
Miner's Camp
ca n.d.

Back in those days, a female photographer was a novelty and curious locals were soon lining up to have their pictures “taken by a Lady!” Specializing in the wet collodion plate process, Withington captured stunning stereoscopic views of Silver Lake, California and its surrounding areas. She also indulged her artistic inclinations by teaching 'Oriental Pearl Painting' to the ladies, a popular parlor activity during the nineteenth century.

Elizabeth W. Withington
Stereoscope
ca n.d.

By 1871, Elizabeth and her husband were living separately and with her two daughters now grown, she could focus solely upon stereographic photography. Her mastery of wet collodion platemaking is evident in her mining town stereographs. In 1875, she became a member of the Photographic Art Society of the Pacific, and the following year, she wrote a fascinating account of her process in the article, "How a Woman Makes Landscape Photographs" which was featured in the Philadelphia Photographer. She described the arduous and highly technical tasks of preparing at least 50 albumenized 5 x 8 inch plates, making sure to place blotting paper between each to preserve them during transport. Her supplies included chemicals, a negative box, iron and wooden fixing and developing trays, and a Newell bathtub, all of which had to be moved gingerly over rigorous terrain by stagecoach. Elizabeth preferred Morrison lenses for landscapes and a Philadelphia box camera she lovingly referred to as “the pet.” Among her ingenious inventions was a "dark, thick dress skirt" often used as a makeshift developing tent and a black linen, cane-headed parasol (more for practicality than fashion) to protect her views from sun and wind and to assist in the unladylike activities of "climbing mountains and sliding into ravines."

Elizabeth W. Withington
Stereoscope
ca n.d.

Her article is considered one of the finest descriptions of landscape photography in the pioneer West. Shortly after it was published, Elizabeth succumbed to cancer, apparently suffering from the disease for several years. Withington died on March 4, 1877 in her adopted hometown of Ione City, just shy of her 52nd birthday. She left behind an impressive body of work that immortalizes the pioneering spirit of the Old West. Her photographs can be found in the collections of the Amador County Museum in Jackson, California; the Women in Photography International Archive in Arcata, California; the Huntington Library in San Marino, California; the International Museum of Photography at the George Eastman House in Rochester, New York; and the Princeton University Art Museum at McCormick Hall in Princeton, New Jersey.

Sources ___________________________________________________________

Clio: Elizabeth W. Withington, Peter Palmquist, https://www.cliohistory.org/exhibits/palmquist/withington, retrieved 12/22/2020

Elizabeth W. Withington at Historic Camera, http://historiccamera.com/cgi-bin/librarium2/pm.cgi?action=app_display&app=datasheet&app_id=2758, retrieved 12/22/2020

Women Artists of the American West, Susan R. Ressler, ed., McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers, Jefferson, North Carolina and London, 2003, pp 203-204

Shirley Marie Russell
Untitled (Hawaiian Hut nestled in lush valley with palm trees)
ca 1938
Oil on canvas

During the early twentieth century, there was a group of artists known as The Seven, a coalition of Honolulu-based female painters who first exhibited together in 1929. In ensuing posts, I'll explore each artist, from the founders, and those who participated in the shows, and their contribution to the art community in Hawaii and the world at large.

Also known as Shirley Marie Russell, this American artist was best known for her paintings of Hawaii and her wide variety of subjects which included still lifes, landscapes, florals, portraits, and even a series of dolls. Her style combined an impressionistic style using broken brushwork and bright colors favored by the American regional impressionist painters during the early years of the 20th century, along with scenic Hawaiian subjects.

A lifelong learner, painter, and teacher, Shirley Russell was born in Del Rey, California, May 16, 1886, to a father who had served as a major in the Civil War. She attended Palo Alto High School, and then earned her BA from Stanford University where she first became interested in art. After marrying engineer Lawrence Russell in 1909, she gave birth to a son, John Preston Russell. Following the death of her husband in 1912, Russell began to paint and worked as a teacher in Palo Alto.

Shirley Marie Russell
Self-Portrait (Young)
ca 1920s (?)
Oil on canvas
30 x 24 inches

After additional studies at the School of Arts and Crafts in Oakland, the California School of Fine Arts, and San Jose State University, she visited Hawaii with her son in 1921 and decided to stay. In Hawaii, she studied with Lionel Walden and, during the 1930s, she was able to study in Paris at La Grande Chaumiere, and the Academic Julian with Andre Lhote. She also travelled in Europe, Japan, Korea and Manchuria, and had additional studies with Rico Lebrun and Hans Hofmann fulfilling her desire to continue to grow and to keep abreast of new trends in the artworld.

Shirley Marie Russell
White Ginger
ca 1940
Woodblock/Woodcut
13 7/8 x 10 5/8 inches

Russell influenced a generation of students — including Satoro Abe and John Chin Young — as an art teacher at McKinley High School in Honolulu (1923-46) and continued her own artistic education by attending University of Hawaii summer sessions.

Shirley Marie Russell
Hibiscus Harmony
ca 1960
Oil on canvas

During her lifetime Shirley Russell had solo exhibitions at The Honolulu Academy of Arts (1964), The Royal Hawaiian Gallery (1966) and participated in exhibits at the LA County Museum of Art and the Grand Palais Annual Juried Exhibition in Paris.

Shirley Marie Russell
Aloe
ca 1960
Oil on canvas
24 x 30 inches

Although Russell was best known for her figurative works including tropical flowers, seascapes and portraits, she was an avid supporter of abstract art. Her Woodblock prints lean toward abstraction with their composition and tight crops.

Shirley Marie Russell
Anthuriums
ca 1940
Woodblock/Woodcut
14 1/2 x 11 inches

An active painter until the very end of her life, Shirley Russell died in Honolulu in 1985 at the age of 98. Her career spanned seventy years and made her one of Hawaii's most popular painter/printmakers.

Shirley Marie Russell
Self-Portrait (Young)
ca 1948
Oil on canvas
36 x 32 inches

Her work can be found in the collections of The Contemporary Museum, Honolulu, the Hawaii State Art Museum, The Imperial Museum, Tokyo and the Honolulu Academy of Arts. More recently,

Sources__________________________________________________________________

Cedar Street Galleries, http://cedarstreetgalleries.com/bin/detail.cgi?ID=16919, retrieved 3/21/2021

Isaacs Art Center, https://isaacsartcenter.hpa.edu/artist-works.php?artistId=158197&artist=John%20Webber, retrieved 3/21/2021

askArt, Shirley Marie Russell, https://www.askart.com/artist/Shirley_Marie_Russell/103726/Shirley_Marie_Russell.aspx, retrieved 3/21/2021

Geringer Art, Ltd. https://www.geringerart.com/artists/shirley-ximena-hopper-russell/, retrieved 3/21/2021

The story of women artists in Hawai‘i begins well before and beyond The Seven’s two-year existence. As early as 1880, Helen Whitney Kelley and Helen Thomas Dranga began turning out beloved depictions of the islands’ spectacular scenery, subtly challenging the monopoly set by their well-known male contemporaries, such as D. Howard Hitchcock and Lionel Walden.

Juliette May Fraser

By the early 20th century, kamaʻāina artists Blasingame, Juliette May Fraser and Cornelia MacIntyre Foley had trained on the US mainland and in Europe, returned to Hawai‘i, and taken on pupils there, while cultivating personal styles that would accelerate the advent of a regional style of modernism. Working alongside other women who traveled to the islands in the early 20th century, including Lynch, Russell, Tennent and Vitousek, these artists transformed the concept of “island art” from Hawai‘i’s male-dominated environmental imagery into a more nuanced arena that reflected various modernist trends growing across European at that time. Several would also play instrumental roles in the war effort, designing camouflage for local artillery units and creating large-scale murals at local military bases to encourage the soldiers deployed in the Pacific.

Juliette May Fraser
Camouflage Rhythms
1940s
Fraser and the lei sellers developed a system consisting of cutting burlap and recycled fabric into strips, dyeing and configuring the strips to blend in with specific areas around the islands, and then weaving the strips onto large-scale nets, often completed while singing Hawaiian songs.

In the later 20th century, several other figures of note emerged to continue the tradition of women artists driving Hawaiian art forward. Betty Hay Freeland and Martha Greenwell pursued seascape and landscape painting in Hawai‘i on their own terms, while batik specialist Yvonne Cheng and graphic artist Pegge Hopper expanded upon Tennent’s genre of the Hawaiian wahine (woman).

Honolulu-born artist Juliette May Fraser is perhaps best known for the murals she painted both in Hawaii and around the globe. She portrayed Hawaiian legends along with other themes through linoleum cut, oil painting, ceramics, and fresco.

Juliette May Fraser was born on January 27, 1887 during the reign of King Kalakaua in Honolulu. After graduating from Wellesley College in Massachusetts, she worked as an educator, like her mother and father who had come to the islands to teach. "That was practically the only thing a woman could do then," she told an interviewer a few years before her death in 1983. Her comments with regard to her education at Wellesly were that, “Wellesley had excellent art history. They did not have very good--they were not so much interested in art practice. They had some, but even the teachers knew that it wasn't an art school standard. It didn't pretend to be.” She took architecture classes but since Fraser didn’t receive any practical art training, she studied with various teachers and ultimately decided to attend the Art Students League in New York.

Juliette May Fraser
Little Teacher
1952
Linoleum Cut Lithograph

Fraser returned to Honolulu, taught for a few more years before she received a commission to paint a mural for Mrs. Charles Adams, grandmother of Ben Dillingham. That opportunity placed her on a lifelong path of painting murals, from the World's Fair in San Francisco to Ipapandi Chapel on Chios Island, Greece, where her work was so beloved that the chapel's street was named after her.

Juliette May Fraser
Makahiki Ho'okupu
1939
Charcoal and sanguine mural on masonite
Made for the 1939 San Francisco International Exposition,
presented to the Library in 1977 by the Hawaii Visitors Bureau and Chamber of Commerce

Makahiki Ho'okupu (Harvest Celebration) was created by Fraser in 1939 for the Hawaii pavilion at the San Francisco World's Fair. The 50-foot charcoal and sanguine mural (on 13 masonite panels) depicting harvest and gift-giving ceremony remained in storage until 1980, when it was rededicated and placed in Hamilton Library on the artist's 93rd birthday.

At the University of Hawaii in Honolulu, Fraser's fresco 'Air', (ca 1953) is the largest and most complex of the frescoes in Bilger Hall, and depicts the land-linked culture that sustained early Hawaiian people.

The work of kama'aina (Hawaii born) Juliette May Fraser, can today be found in many Hawaii public buildings. In 1934-35, Faser executed a series of murals based on the legends of Hawaii for the Hawaii State Library. In 1934, she was invited to create a work of art for a public place by the Federal Work Progress Administration and the Federal Emergency Relief Administration which took a year to complete. For three months she received $35 a week to work on the project however, when the funds ran out, she continued on her own until the murals were completed. The murals, which extend from floor to ceiling, depict Hawaiian legends along with additional panels in the room which display various marine life and Hawaii flora and fauna. The murals were unveiled on March 14, 1935 to the general public.

Juliette May Fraser
Hoonanea (Quiet Chat between Friends)
1944
Drypoint
6 x 5 inches
Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco

Fraser is also noted for her printworks, and was associated with Honolulu Printmakers, which is said to be the oldest continuously active printmaking organization in the United States. The group was founded in 1928 by a group of local artists in an effort to encourage the art of printmaking in Hawaii. Each year, one of the organization's members is selected to create a special print. Along with Juliette May Fraser, some of the printmakers of yesteryear - John Melville Kelly, Huc-Mazelet Luquiens, Cornelia Macintyre Foley, Isami Doi, Madge Tennant, Jean Charlot, John Young and others - became world-renowned artists, their prints now demanding much higher sums than the original $5 price.

Juliette May Fraser
Hawaiian Nativity
1958
Fresco
4 1/2 × 8 ft.
St. Catherine’s Catholic Church, Kapaʻa, Kauai, Hawaii.
Photo: Timothy T. De La Vega, 1999.

In 1958, Fraser created the above mural for the newly built St. Catherine’s Catholic Church in Kapa‘a, Kauai, commonly referred to as Hawaiian Nativity. Covering the makai (sea-facing) wall, it shows Hawaiians of various ethnicities presenting ho‘okupu (gifts) to the newborn Christ child, who sits on his mother’s lap. She wanted the painting to be modern and “international in flavor,” she said, reflecting Hawaii’s ethnic diversity.

Instead of a donkey, a jeep has brought the holy couple, who are portrayed as Native Hawaiian, to the place of their son’s birth. The license plate reads, “4-20-58,” the date on which St. Catherine’s was dedicated. Mary wears a muumuu and lei, while Joseph stands behind her with a sugar cane stalk. “The Holy Child is hapa [mixed race] with blond hair and strong Polynesian features,” writes Anthony Sommer in the 1999 article for the Honolulu Star-Bulletin that introduced me to this painting. That Jesus’s skin tone is the lightest of the bunch might be regarded by some as problematic, a subtle reinforcer of racial hierarchy. However, it might be the artist’s attempt to show a multiracial Christ, bearing the features of different peoples.

In Fraser’s fresco, locals approach with ho‘okupu, the fruits of their personal labors given freely as offerings in expression of gratitude, respect, and aloha. Filipino fishermen present their freshest catch, and Portuguese goatherds (as the artist identified them) come with their flocks; they are greeted by a Chinese angel in a T-shirt, jeans, a sideways ballcap, and flip-flops. From the right, a Hawaiian ali‘i (hereditary noble) comes with the gift of an ʻahu ʻula (feathered cloak), made only for royalty. He stands in line behind a child who offers Jesus a lei (flower garland). Traditionally, ho‘okupu are given to an akua (god), king, priest, doctor, or host, so this painting acknowledges Jesus as fulfilling all those roles.

Juliette May Fraser

Kana Wrestling the Turtle

Fresco

1954

Hawaii State Museum

Juliette May Fraser died in July of 1983 in Honolulu, Hawaii at the age of 96.

Sources________________________________________________________________

Juliette May Fraser, The Annex Galleries, https://www.annexgalleries.com/artists/biography/740/Fraser/Juliette, retrieved April 19, 2021

The Watumull Foundation, Oral History Project, Interview with Juliette May Fraser, Honolulu, Hawaii, 1979.

Art & Theology Revitalizing the Christian imagination through painting, poetry, music, and more, https://artandtheology.org/tag/juliette-may-fraser/, retrieved April 19, 2021

Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, https://art.famsf.org/juliette-may-fraser/hoonanea-means-quiet-chat-between-old-friends-l, retrieved April 19, 2021

Mutual Art.com, https://www.mutualart.com/Exhibition/Camouflage-Rhythms--Artwork-by-Juliette-/3597EABE2D690619, Honolulu Museum of Art, retrieved April 19, 2021

Madge Tennent

Hailed as "the most significant individual contributor to Hawaiian art in the 20th century" and "without question the greatest interpreter of the Hawaiian figure," Madge Tennent (1889-1972) was one of The Seven, a coalition of female Hawaiian artists whose work was was first exhibited together in 1929.

Born in Dulwich, England, Tennant was five years old when her family moved to Cape Town, South Africa. At the age of twelve, she entered an art school in Cape Town, and the following year her parents, who recognized and her as a child prodigy, moved to Paris to enable Madeline to study there. She studied figure drawing at the Académie Julian under William-Adolf Bouguereau, the French realist academic painter, an experience that laid the technical foundation for her later figural drawings and paintings.

Madge Tennent
Studio Study
age 12 or 13

She and her family returned to South Africa, and after her marriage in 1915 to accountant Hugh Cowper Tennent (OBE), she relocated to his native New Zealand. In 1917, the couple moved to British Samoa when her husband became treasurer for the government. This is where Tennent's fascination with the native people blossomed into the "joyous exploration of the Polynesian form."

Madge Tennent
Olympia of Hawaii (with Apologies to Manet)
ca 1927
Oil on canvas
22 x 18 inches

In 1923, the Tennents left Samoa en route to England, stopping in Honolulu where they were entranced with the Hawaiian Islands and decided to stay. In those early years, Madge Tennent helped to support her family by taking commissions to paint and draw portraits of children. A friend’s gift of a book on Gauguin set her on an artistic course that lasted 50 years, during which she portrayed Hawaiian women in an innovative style that became increasingly individualized and unique.

Madge Tennent
Local Color
ca 1934
Oil on canvas
Represented Hawaii at the
1939 New York World's Fair

Madge Tennent
Hawaiian Girl with Lei Po'o
ca 1940
22 x 18 inches

Tennent was active in Hawai’i from the late 1920s until the 1960s. “The Hawaiians are really to me the most beautiful people in the world," she once said, “no doubt about it – the Hawaiian is a piece of living sculpture”. Using swirls of oil, Tennent portrayed Hawaiian women as solidly fleshed and majestic – larger than life – capturing in rhythmic forms the very essence of their being. "They are strong, serene and proud." Her method of working with impasto – applying thick layers of paint to achieve a graceful, perfectly balanced composition – is evident in works such as Lei Queen Fantasia. Everything on the canvas whirls. The paint is applied in whirls in what might be called the “Tennent whirl” – the colors bright and luminous. Tennent envisioned Hawaiian Kings and Queens as having descended from Gods of heroic proportion, intelligent and brave, bearing a strong affinity to the Greeks in their legends and persons. She was criticized for her portrayal of larger size women but to her Hawaiian women fulfilled the standards of classic Greek Beauty.

Madge Tennent
Lady in Pink Dress
ca 1954
18 x 12 inches

Madge Tennent fueled the advent of Hawaiian Modernism through both her own creative endeavors and unrelenting enthusiasm. She became a champion of the avant-garde and a driving force among Hawaii's visual artists. Tennent was president of The Seven, a coalition of woman artists that included Juanita Vitousek and Juliette May Fraser (her story in the previous post), and with Isami Doi co-founded the Hawaiian Mural Guild. Tennent also lectured on art history and offered studio workshops at the Honolulu Academy of Arts, inspiring an emergent generation of island-born modern artists. A frequent exhibitor both at home and abroad, Tennent rapidly became Hawaii’s most visible presence on the global stage, mounting successful one-woman shows in Auckland, Cairo, Chicago, London, Los Angeles, Paris, Philadelphia, San Francisco, and Sydney. This whirlwind of activity turned on an unwavering ideology: “To paint without thought of pleasing, to keep faith with my furthest discrimination in Art, and to make no compromise aesthetically.”

Madge Tennent
Lady in Victorian Dress
ca 1956
Ink
18 x 12 inches

During the mid-1950s, Madge Tennent suffered the first of several heart attacks, prompting her to shift from large-scale undertakings on canvas to smaller works on paper. She was diagnosed with a permanent heart ailment in 1958, and by 1965 she had discontinued working and moved into the Maunalani Hospital near Manoa. After a decade of gradually declining health, Tennent died in Honolulu on February 5, 1972. Her funeral was held at St. Andrew's Cathedral in Honolulu.Three days after her death, the Hawaiʻi State Senate commemorated the artist's vision, accomplishments, and influence:

IN HONOR OF THE LATE MADGE TENNENT
WHEREAS, Madge Tennent, one of Hawaii's most important artists, died on February 5, 1972 in the 82nd year of her long and eventful life; and
WHEREAS, better than any artist to date, Madge Tennent was able to capture and honestly express in her many paintings and drawings the subtle charm and quiet grace and dignity of the Hawaiian people; and
WHEREAS, Madge Tennent was also a warm and generous person, who gave often and generously of her works to friends and to charity; and
WHEREAS, Madge Tennent, having spent a half century in Hawaii, leaves behind a rich legacy of art, which shall forever belong to Hawaii; and therefore,
BE IT RESOLVED by the Senate of the Sixth Legislature of Hawaii, Regular Session of 1972, that this body solemnly notes the passing of a great artist and person.

Madge Tennent, photograph by Francis Haar

Sources_______________________________________

Hawai'i Artist Archives at the University of Hawaii Library - Artist's Biographical Note: Madge Tennent, University of Hawai'i Manoa Library, https://guides.library.manoa.hawaii.edu/c.php?g=953236&p=7434759, retrieved May 29, 2021.

Isaacs Art Center Preparatory Academy, Madge Tennent, https://isaacsartcenter.hpa.edu/artist-works.php?artistId=158230&artist=Madge%20Tennent%20(1889-1972), retrieved May 29, 2021

When Wise Women Speak, interview with Madge Walls (granddaughter of Madge Tennent), https://whenwisewomenspeak.blogspot.com/2012/02/madge-tennent.html, retrieved May 29, 2021

Genevieve Springston Lynch
c. 1912

The Seven was a coalition of Honolulu-based women artists who first exhibited together in 1929. Several of the group’s inaugural members — Juliette May Fraser, Genevieve Springston Lynch, Madge Tennent (founder and president), and Juanita Vitousek — would subsequently devote the bulk of their careers to Hawai‘i and painting the beauty of the islands. Female artists largely dictated the terms of 20th-century island culture, rarely encountering the sort of institutionalized sexism that often circumscribed the work of their global counterparts.

Yet, the story of women artists in Hawai‘i extends both before and beyond The Seven’s two-year existence. As early as 1880, Helen Whitney Kelley and Helen Thomas Dranga began turning out depictions of the islands’ scenery, subtly challenging the monopoly set by their renowned male contemporaries, such as D. Howard Hitchcock and Lionel Walden. By the early 20th century, kamaʻaina artists Blasingame, Fraser and Cornelia MacIntyre Foley, and Lynch had trained on the United States mainland and in Europe, returned to Hawai‘i and taken on pupils in the islands, all the while cultivating personal styles that would accelerate the advent of a localized modernism movement

Genevieve (Gene) Springston Lynch was born in Forest Grove, Oregon (26 miles west of Portland) on September 20, 1891. "Gene" Springston studied at the Pratt Institute and Art Institute of Chicago. She taught art at Punahou School in Honolulu prior to and after her marriage to L. L. Lynch. Lynch was invited to have a solo show in Paris in 1935. Because of prejudice against female artists, she shortened her professional name and signature to "Gene Lynch." She exhibited in the 1939 Society of Independent Artists show. Her later years were spent in Palo Alto, California. She died there in 1960. Her forte was stylized paintings of exotic plants.

Genevieve Springston Lynch
Yellow Ginger
c. 1940s
Oil on board
20" x 16"
Private Collection

Genevieve Springston Lynch
Cup-and-Saucer Flowers
c. 1940
Oil on board
20" x 16"
Honolulu Museum of Art

Genevieve Springston Lynch
Hawaiian Shoreline with Figures
c. n.d.
Oil on board
18" x 24"
Private Collection

Genevieve Springston Lynch
Hawaiian Plantation Scene
c. n.d.
Oil on canvas
27" x 32.75"
Private Collection

Lynch's pieces such as Yellow Ginger and Cup-and-Saucer are emblematic of the style of painting pioneered by Georgia O'Keefe and brought to Hawaii in 1939 during O'Keefe's assignment to create promotional imagery for the Hawaiian Pineapple Company.

Her later years were spent in Palo Alto, California, where she died in 1960.

Sources__________________________________________________________________________

Isaac's Art Center, Hawaii Preparatory Academy, Sisters of the Brush: Women Artists of Hawaii, 1880-2000.

Invaluable, https://www.invaluable.com/auction-lot/painting-genevieve-springston-lynch-7268-c-5514a608bb#

American Eagle Fine Art, https://www.americaneaglefineart.com/genevieve-gene-springton-lynch-1891-1960yellow-ginger-circa-1940s/

askART.com, Genevieve Springston Lynch,

https://www.liveauctioneers.com/item/53197247_painting-genevieve-lynch

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