Chapter 27 of 29 · 3941 words · ~20 min read

Part 27

In 1899 this artist exhibited a portrait in the New Gallery; in 1901 a portrait of Bertram Blunt, Esq., at the Royal Academy; and in 1902 a portrait of "Peggy," a little girl with a poodle.

She has sent miniatures to the Academy exhibitions several years; that of Miss Lyall Wilson was exhibited in 1903.

WHITMAN, SARAH DE ST. PRIX. Bronze medal at Columbian Exposition, Chicago, 1893; gold and bronze medals at Atlanta Exposition; diploma at Pan-American, Buffalo, 1901. Member of the Society of American Artists, New York; Copley Society, Boston; Water-Color Club, Boston. Born in Baltimore, Maryland. Pupil of William M. Hunt and Thomas Couture.

Mrs. Whitman has painted landscapes and portraits, and of recent years has been much occupied with work in glass. Windows by her are in Memorial Hall, Cambridge; in the Episcopal Church in Andover, Massachusetts, etc. An altar-piece by her is in All Saints' Church, Worcester.

Her portrait of Senator Bayard is in the State Department, Washington.

WHITNEY, ANNE. Born in Watertown, Massachusetts. Made her studies in Belmont and Boston, and later in Paris and Rome.

Miss Whitney's sculptures are in many public places. A heroic size statue of Samuel Adams is in Boston and Washington, in bronze and marble; Harriet Martineau is at Wellesley College, in marble; the "Lotos-Eaters" is in Newton and Cambridge, in marble; "Lady Godiva," a life-size statue in marble, is in a private collection in Milton; a statue of Leif Eriksen, in bronze, is in Boston and Milwaukee; a bust of Professor Pickering, in marble, is in the Observatory, Cambridge; a statue, "Roma," is in Albany, Wellesley, St. Louis, and Newton, in both marble and bronze; Charles Sumner, in bronze of heroic size, is in Cambridge; a bust of President Walker, bronze, is also in Cambridge; President Stearns, a bust in marble, is in Amherst; a bust of Mrs. Alice Freeman Palmer is in Cambridge; a bust of Professor Palmer is on a bronze medal; the Calla Fountain, in bronze, is in Franklin Park; and many other busts, medals, etc., in marble, bronze, and plaster, are in private collections.

WILSON, MELVA BEATRICE. Prize of one hundred dollars a year for three successive years at Cincinnati Art Museum. Honorable mention, Paris Salon, 1897. Born in Cincinnati, 1875. Pupil of Cincinnati Art Museum, under Louis T. Rebisso and Thomas Noble; in Paris, of Rodin and Vincent Norrottny.

By special invitation this sculptor has been an exhibitor at the National Sculpture Society, New York. Her principal works are: "The Minute Man," in Corcoran Art Gallery, Washington, D. C.; "The Volunteer," which was given by the State of New York as a military prize to a Vermont Regiment; an equestrian statue of John F. Doyle, Jr.; "Bull and Bear" and the "Polo Player" in bronze, owned by Tiffany & Co.; "Retribution" in a private collection in New York.

Miss Wilson has been accorded the largest commission given any woman sculptor for the decoration of the buildings of the St. Louis Exposition. She is to design eight spandrils for Machinery Hall, each one being twenty-eight by fifteen feet in size, with figures larger than life. The design represents the wheelwright and boiler-making trades. Reclining nude figures, of colossal size, bend toward the keystone of the arch, each holding a tool of a machinist. Interlaced cog-wheels form the background.

WIRTH, ANNA MARIE. Member of the Munich Art Association. Born in St. Petersburg, 1846. Studied in Vienna under Straschiripka--commonly known as Johann Canon--and in Paris, although her year's work in the latter city seems to have left no trace upon her manner of painting. The genre pictures, in which she excels, clearly show the influence of the old Dutch school. A writer in "Moderne Kunst" says, in general, that she shows us real human beings under the "précieuses ridicules," the languishing gallants and the pedant, and often succeeds in individualizing all these with the sharpness of a Chodowiecki, though at times she is merely good-natured, and therefore weak.

Sometimes, like Terborch, by her anecdotical treatment, she can set a whole romantic story before you; again, in the manner of Gerard Dow, she gives you a penetrating glimpse into old burgher life--work that is quite out of touch with the dilettantism that largely pervades modern art.

The admirers of this unusual artist seek out her genre pictures in the exhibitions of to-day, much as one turns to an idyl of Heinrich Voss, after a dose of the "storm and stress" poets. Most of her works are in private galleries.

One of her best pictures will be seen at the St. Louis Exposition.

WISINGER-FLORIAN, OLGA. Bavarian Ludwig medal, 1891; medal at Chicago, 1893. Born in Vienna, 1844. Pupil of Schäffer and Schwindler. She has an excellent reputation as a painter of flowers. In the New Gallery, Munich, is one of her pictures of this sort; and at Munich, 1893, her flower pieces were especially praised in the reports of the exhibition.

She also paints landscapes, in which she gains power each year; her color grows finer and her design or modelling stronger. At Vienna, 1890, it was said that her picture of the "Bauernhofe" was, by its excellent color, a disadvantage to the pictures near it, and the shore motive in "Abbazia" was full of artistic charm. At Vienna, 1893, she exhibited a cycle, "The Months," which bore witness to her admirable mastery of her art.

Among her works are some excellent Venetian subjects: "On the Rialto"; "Morning on the Shore"; and "In Venice."

WOLFF, BETTY. Honorable mention, Berlin, 1890. Member of the Association of Women Artists and Friends of Art; also of the German Art Association. Born in Berlin, where she was a pupil of Karl Stauffer-Bern; she also studied in Munich under Karl Marr.

Besides numerous portraits of children, in pastel, this artist has painted portraits in oils of many well-known persons, among whom are Prof. H. Steinthal, Prof. Albrecht Weber, and General von Zycklinski.

WOLTERS, HENRIETTA, family name Van Pee. Born in Amsterdam. 1692-1741. Pupil of her father, and later made a special study of miniature under Christoffel le Blond. Her early work consisted largely in copies from Van de Velde and Van Dyck. Her miniatures were so highly esteemed that Peter the Great offered her a salary of six thousand florins as his court painter; and Frederick William of Prussia invited her to his court, but nothing could tempt her away from her home in Amsterdam. She received four hundred florins for a single miniature, a most unusual price in her time.

WOOD, CAROLINE S. Daughter of Honorable Horatio D. Wood, of St. Louis. This sculptor has made unusual advances in her art, to which she has seriously devoted herself less than four years. She has studied in the Art School of Washington University, the Art Institute, Chicago, and is now a student in the Art League, New York.

She has been commissioned by the State of Missouri to make a statue to represent "The Spirit of the State of Missouri," for the Louisiana Purchase Exposition.

[_No reply to circular_.]

WOODBURY, MARCIA OAKES. Prize at Boston Art Club; medals at Mechanics' Association Exhibition, Atlanta and Nashville Expositions. Member of the New York and Boston Water-Color Clubs. Born at South Berwick, Maine. Pupil of Tommasso Juglaris, in Boston, and of Lasar, in Paris.

Mrs. Woodbury paints in oils and water-colors; the latter are genre scenes, and among them are several Dutch subjects. She has painted children's portraits in oils. Her pictures are in private hands in Boston, New York, Chicago, and Cincinnati. "The Smoker," and "Mother and Daughter," a triptych, are two of her principal pictures.

WOODWARD, DEWING. Grand prize of the Academy Julian, 1894. Member of Water-Color Club, Baltimore; Charcoal Club, Baltimore; L'Union des Femmes Peintres et Sculpteurs de France. Born at Williamsport, Pennsylvania. Pupil of Pennsylvania Academy a few months; in Paris, of Bouguereau, Robert-Fleury, and Jules Lefebvre.

Her "Holland Family at Prayer," exhibited at the Paris Salon, 1893, and "Jessica," belong to the Public Library in Williamsport; "Clam-Diggers Coming Home--Cape Cod" was in the Venice Exhibition, 1903; one of her pictures shows the "Julian Academy, Criticism Day."

She has painted many portraits, and her work has often been thought to be that of a man, which idea is no doubt partly due to her choosing subjects from the lives of working men. She is of the modern school of colorists.

WRIGHT, ETHEL. This artist contributed annually to the exhibitions of the London Academy from 1893 to 1900, as follows: In 1893 she exhibited "Milly" and "Echo"; in 1894, "The Prodigal"; in 1895, a water-color, "Lilies"; in 1896, "Rejected"; in 1897, a portrait of Mrs. Laurence Phillips; in 1898, "The Song of Ages," reproduced in this book; in 1899, a portrait of Mrs. Arthur Strauss; and in 1900, one of Miss Vaughan.

[_No reply to circular_.]

WRIGHT, MRS. PATIENCE. Born at Bordentown, New Jersey, 1725, of a Quaker family. When left a widow, with three children to care for, she went to London, where she found a larger field for her art than she had in the United States, where she had already made a good reputation as a modeller in wax. By reason of this change of residence she has often been called an English sculptress.

Although the imaginative and pictorial is not cultivated or even approved by Quakers, Patience Lovell, while still a child, and before she had seen works of art, was content only when supplied with dough, wax, or clay, from which she made figures of men and women. Very early these figures became portraits of the people she knew best, and in the circle of her family and friends she was considered a genius.

Very soon after Mrs. Wright reached London she was fully employed. She worked in wax, and her full-length portrait of Lord Chatham was placed in Westminster Abbey, protected by a glass case. This attracted much attention, and the London journals praised the artist. She made portraits of the King and Queen, who, attracted by her brilliant conversation, admitted her to an intimacy at Buckingham House, which could not then have been accorded to an untitled English woman.

[Illustration: From a Copley Print.

THE SONG OF AGES

ETHEL WRIGHT]

Mrs. Wright made many portraits of distinguished people; but few, if any, of these can now be seen, although it is said that some of them have been carefully preserved by the families who possess them.

To Americans Mrs. Wright is interesting by reason of her patriotism, which amounted to a passion. She is credited with having been an important source of information to the American leaders in the time of the Revolution. In this she was frank and courageous, making no secret of her views. She even ventured to reprove George III. for his attitude toward the Colonists, and by this boldness lost the royal favor.

She corresponded with Franklin, in Paris, and new appointments, or other important movements in the British army, were speedily known to him.

Washington, when he knew that Mrs. Wright wished to make a bust of him, replied in most flattering terms that he should think himself happy to have his portrait made by her. Mrs. Wright very much desired to make likenesses of those who signed the Treaty of Peace, and of those who had taken a prominent part in making it. She wrote: "To shame the English king, I would go to any trouble and expense, and add my mite to the honor due to Adams, Jefferson, and others."

Though so essentially American as a woman, the best of her professional life was passed in England, where she was liberally patronized and fully appreciated. Dunlap calls her an extraordinary woman, and several writers have mentioned her power of judging the character of her visitors, in which she rarely made a mistake, and chose her friends with unusual intelligence.

Her eldest daughter married in America, and was well known as a modeller in wax in New York. Her younger daughter married the artist Hoppner, a rival in portraiture of Stuart and Lawrence, while her son Joseph was a portrait painter. His likeness of Washington was much admired.

WULFRAAT, MARGARETTA. Born at Arnheim. 1678-1741. Was a pupil of Caspar Netscher of Heidelberg, whose little pictures are of fabulous value. Although he was so excellent a painter he was proud of Margaretta, whose pictures were much admired in her day. Her "Musical Conversation" is in the Museum of Schwerin. Her "Cleopatra" and "Semiramis" are in the Gallery at Amsterdam.

YANDELL, ENID. Special Designer's Medal, Chicago, 1893; silver medal, Tennessee Exposition; Honorable Mention, Buffalo, 1901. Member of National Sculpture Society; Municipal Art Society; National Arts Club, all of New York. Born in Louisville, Kentucky. Graduate of Cincinnati Art Academy. Pupil of Philip Martiny in New York, and in Paris of Frederick McMonnies and Auguste Rodin.

The principal works of this artist are the Mayor Lewis monument at New Haven, Connecticut; the Chancellor Garland Memorial, Vanderbilt University, Nashville; Carrie Brown Memorial Fountain, Providence; Daniel Boone and the Ruff Fountain, Louisville.

Richard Ladegast, in January, 1902, wrote a sketch of Miss Yandell's life and works for the _Outlook_, in which he says that Miss Yandell was the first woman to become a member of the National Sculpture Society. I quote from his article as follows: "The most imposing product of Miss Yandell's genius was the heroic figure of Athena, twenty-five feet in height, which stood in front of the reproduction of the Parthenon at the Nashville Exposition. This is the largest figure ever designed by a woman.

[Illustration: STATUE OF DANIEL BOONE

ENID YANDELL

Made for St. Louis Exposition]

"The most artistic was probably the little silver tankard which she did for the Tiffany Company, a bit of modelling which involves the figures of a fisher-boy and a mermaid. The figure of Athena is large and correct; those of the fisher-boy and mermaid poetic and impassioned.... The boy kisses the maid when the lid is lifted. He is always looking over the edge, as if yearning for the fate that each new drinker who lifts the lid forces upon him."

Of the Carrie Brown Memorial Fountain he says: "The design of the fountain represents the struggle of life symbolized by a group of figures which is intended to portray, according to Miss Yandell, not the struggle for bare existence, but 'the attempt of the immortal soul within us to free itself from the handicaps and entanglements of its earthly environments. It is the development of character, the triumph of intellectuality and spirituality I have striven to express.' Life is symbolized by the figure of a woman, the soul by an angel, and the earthly tendencies--duty, passion, and avarice--by male figures. Life is represented as struggling to free herself from the gross earthly forms that cling to her. The figure of Life shows a calm, placid strength, well calculated to conquer in a struggle; and the modelling of her clinging robes and the active muscle of the male figures is firm and life-like. The mantle of truth flows from the shoulders of the angel, forming a drapery for the whole group, and serving as a support for the basin, the edges of which are ornamented with dolphins spouting water.

"The silhouette formed by the mass of the fountain is most interesting and successful from all points of view. The lines of the composition are large and dignified, especially noticeable in the modelling of the individual figures, which is well studied and technically excellent."

At Buffalo, where this fountain was exhibited, it received honorable mention.

Miss Yandell has been commissioned to execute a symbolical figure of victory and a statue of Daniel Boone for the St. Louis Exposition.

YKENS, LAURENCE CATHERINE. Elected to the Guild of Antwerp in 1659. Born in Antwerp. Pupil of her father, Jan Ykens. Flowers, fruits, and insects were her favorite subjects, and were painted with rare delicacy. Two of these pictures are in the Museo del Prado, at Madrid. They are a "Festoon of Flowers and Fruits with a Medallion in the Centre, on which is a Landscape"; and a "Garland of Flowers with a Similar Medallion."

ZIESENSIS, MARGARETTA. There were few women artists in the Scandinavian countries in the early years of the eighteenth century. Among them was Margaretta Ziesensis, a Danish lady, who painted a large number of portraits and some historical subjects.

She was best known, however, for her miniature copies of the works of famous artists. These pictures were much the same in effect as the "picture-miniatures" now in vogue. Her copy of Correggio's Zingarella was much admired, and was several times repeated.

SUPPLEMENT

Containing names previously omitted and additions. The asterisk (*) denotes preceding mention of the artist.

*BILDERS, MARIE VAN BOSSE. This celebrated landscape painter became an artist through her determination to be an artist rather than because of any impelling natural force driving her to this career.

After patient and continuous toil, she felt that she was developing an artistic impulse. The advice of Van de Sande-Bakhuyzen greatly encouraged her, and the candid and friendly criticism of Bosboom inspired her with the courage to exhibit her work in public.

In the summer of 1875, in Vorden, she met Johannes Bilders, under whose direction she studied landscape painting. This master took great pains to develop the originality of his pupil rather than to encourage her adapting the manner of other artists. During her stay in Vorden she made a distinct gain in the attainment of an individual style of painting.

After her return to her home at The Hague, Bilders established a studio there and showed a still keener interest in his pupil. This artistic friendship resulted in the marriage of the two artists, and in 1880 they established themselves in Oosterbeck.

Here began the intimate study of the heath which so largely influenced the best pictures by Frau Bilders. In the garden of the picturesque house in which the two artists lived was an old barn, which became her studio, where, early and late, in all sorts of weather, she devotedly observed the effects later pictured on her canvases. At this time she executed one of her best works, now in the collection of the Prince Regent of Brunswick. It is thus described by a Dutch writer in Rooses' "Dutch Painters of the Nineteenth Century":

"It represents a deep pool, overshadowed by old gnarled willows in their autumnal foliage, their silvery trunks bending over, as if to see themselves in the clear, still water. On the edge of the pool are flowers and variegated grasses, the latter looking as if they wished to crowd out the former--as if _they_ were in the right and the flowers in the wrong; as if such bright-hued creatures had no business to eclipse their more sombre tones; as if _they_ and _they_ alone were suited to this silent, forsaken spot."

Johannes Bilders was fully twenty-five years older than his wife, and the failure of both his physical and mental powers in his last days required her absolute devotion to him. In spite of this, the garden studio was not wholly forsaken, and nearly every day she accomplished something there. After her husband's death she had a long illness. On her recovery she returned to The Hague and took the studio which had been that of the artist Mauve.

The life of the town was wearisome to her, but she found a compensation in her re-union with her old friends, and with occasional visits to the heath she passed most of her remaining years in the city.

Her favorite subjects were landscapes with birch and beech trees, and the varying phases of the heath and of solitary and unfrequented scenes. Her works are all in private collections. Among them are "The Forester's Cottage," "Autumn in Doorwerth," "The Old Birch," and the "Old Oaks of Wodan at Sunset."

BOZNANSKA, OLGA. Born in Cracow, where she was a pupil of Matejko. Later, in Munich, she studied with Kricheldorf and Dürr. Her mother was a French woman, and critics trace both Polish and French characteristics in her work.

She paints portraits and genre subjects. She is skilful in seizing salient characteristics, and her chief aim is to preserve the individuality of her sitters and models. She skilfully manages the side-lights, and by this means produces strong effects. After the first exhibition of her pictures in Berlin, her "God-given talent" was several times mentioned by the art critics.

At Munich she made a good impression by her pictures exhibited in 1893 and 1895; at the Exposition in Paris, 1889, her portrait and a study in pastel were much admired and were generously praised in the art journals.

*COX, LOUISE. The picture by Mrs. Cox, reproduced in this book, illustrates two lines in a poem by Austin Dobson, called "A Song of Angiola in Heaven."

"Then set I lips to hers, and felt,-- Ah, God,--the hard pain fade and melt."

DE MORGAN, EMILY. Family name Pickering. When sixteen years old, this artist entered the Slade School, and eighteen months later received the Slade Scholarship, by which she was entitled to benefit for three years. At the end of the first year, however, she resigned this privilege because she did not wish to accept the conditions of the gift.

As a child she had loved the pictures of the precursors of Raphael, in the National Gallery, and her first exhibited picture, "Ariadne in Naxos," hung in the Grosvenor Gallery in 1877, proved how closely she had studied these old masters. At this time she knew nothing of the English Pre-Raphaelites; later, however, she became one of the most worthy followers of Burne-Jones.

About the time that she left the Slade School one of her uncles took up his residence in Florence, where she has spent several winters in work and study.

One of her most important pictures is inscribed with these lines:

"Dark is the valley of shadows, Empty the power of kings; Blind is the favor of fortune, Hungry the caverns of death. Dim is the light from beyond, Unanswered the riddle of life."

This pessimistic view of the world is illustrated by the figure of a king, who, in the midst of ruins, places his foot upon the prostrate form of a chained victim; Happiness, with bandaged eyes, scatters treasures into the bottomless pit, a desperate youth being about to plunge into its depths; a kneeling woman, praying for light, sees brilliant figures soaring upward, their beauty charming roses from the thorn bushes.

Other pictures by this artist remind one of the works of Botticelli. Of her "Ithuriel" W. S. Sparrow wrote: "It may be thought that this Ithuriel is too mild--too much like Shakespeare's Oberon--to be in keeping with the terrific tragedy depicted in the first four books of the 'Paradise Lost.' Eve, too, lovely as she is, seems to bear no likelihood of resemblance to Milton's superb mother of mankind. But the picture has a sweet, serene grace which should make us glad to accept from Mrs. De Morgan another Eve and another Ithuriel, true children of her own fancy."

The myth of "Boreas and Orithyia," though faulty perhaps in technique, is good in conception and arrangement.

Mrs. De Morgan has produced some impressive works in sculpture. Among these are "Medusa," a bronze bust; and a "Mater Dolorosa," in terra-cotta.

DESCHLY, IRENE. Born in Bucharest, the daughter of a Roumanian advocate. She gave such promise as an artist that a government stipend was bestowed on her, which enabled her to study in Paris, where she was a pupil of Laurens and E. Carrière.