Evie Hone: Vitreous Painting on Glass

Evie Hone, Vitreous Painting on Glass, 8 x 10”

To have met Evie Hone and seen almost any of her works was sufficient to compel one’s attention and deepest consideration; to have spent time in her company and looking at her great windows in their settings was to leave one with that feeling of elation that true greatness and saintliness inspire.

~ Patrick Pollen

Evie Hone (1894- 1955)

Evie Hone was born in Dublin in 1894 into an upper middle class family, her father being a director of the Bank of Ireland. There was a tradition of artists in her family and she was an indirect descendant of Nathaniel Hone the elder. Evie was struck with polio at the age of eleven and remained disable for the rest of her life but she did not allow this to interfere with her wish to become an artist. Originally trained as a painter, Evie was thirty-eight before turning to stained glass. She began her artistic career at the Westminster School of Art in London where she was taught by Walter Sickert and Bernard Meninsky and she the moved to the Central School of Art to work with Glen Byam Shaw. In 1921, on the advice of Meninsky, she travelled to Paris to study with the Cubist painter Andrè Lhote, who taught a modified version of the Cubism which had been developed by Picasso and Braque between 1907 and 1914. In Paris, Hone became aware of further artistic developments and soon tried of Lhote's reaching. Hone and her follow student Mainie Jellettt particularly admired the work of Albert Gleizes, one of the early Cubists who, after the war, had begun to develop a form of abstract painting. They persuaded in initially reluctant Gleizes to teach them. His work was geometric in form, based on a method he called "Translation and Rotation", which involves using the shape of the canvas, usually a rectangle, and moving it up and down (translation) and pivoting it (rotation), overlapping these forms to create a composition. His technique was based on strict rules, but from the beginning Hone's work was marked by a greater freedom of technique then that of her teacher and her fellow student. On her return to Ireland in the early 1920s, Hone encountered considerable hostility to this new work but she continued to exhibit and frequently returned to France for a few months to work with Gleizes. Gleizes' method was rather constricting and by the early 1930s Hone and Jellett began to develop independently. Both moved on from non-representational work, Hone to stained glass and Jellett to a more figurative type of painting. Hone came to stained glass as a fully fledged artist and in the last twenty-two years of her working life she produced 50 windows and 150 domestic panels. She studied the technique of stained glass with Wilhelmina Geddes in London. After this training she worked at the studio of An Tùr Gloine, the stained glass co-operative which was set up by Sarah Purser. Her work in glass is not the by-product of a painter, it tends to be more expressive than her painting and is usually figurative in nature, yet the lessons in color and shape which she learned from Gleizes are still evident. As a very spiritual person, she was interested in revitalizing Irish religious art and working in glass was very important to her as it gave her a very particular reason to work with religious subject matter. She had a very successful career as a stained glass artist and was given major commissions both in Ireland and abroad. After the closure of An Tùr Gloine she worked from her home, Marley, in the Dublin mountains. She died in Dublin in 1955.

For more information on Evie Hone:

http://www.suite101.com/content/evie-hone-irish-artist-a349004

To view my forming archive of women artists, Uomini Famosi: https://picasaweb.google.com/113967877601706753492/UominiFamosi_VitreousPaintingsonGlass

Cecila Beaux: Vitreous Painting on glass

Cecilia Beaux, Vitreous Painting on glass, 8 x 10”

The greatest woman painter of modern times.

~William Merritt Chase

Cecilia Beaux (1863 – 1942)

Cecilia Beaux was born in Philadelphia. After receiving early drawing lessons from her family, and after studying, privately, under the Dutch artist Adolf van der Whelen, and later under William Sartain, Beaux entered the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art. In 1889, she went to Europe to study at the Académie Julian and at Colarossi's. She was later appointed to the faculty of the Pennsylvania Academy, the first full time woman instructor there, where she taught for over 20 years. A leading portraitist, her favorite subjects were women and children. Throughout her career she was commissioned to paint portraits of many political figures, including President and Mrs. Theodore Roosevelt in the White House.

Cecilia Beaux's vibrant, fluent style is defined by her use of whites, yellows and lavenders against bright black backgrounds. Her 1895 painting, "New England Woman", which she exhibited in Philadelphia, marked her as an Impressionist particularly by her use of color: glare light illuminating the profile of a woman.

Cecilia Beaux was awarded high honors in the important exhibitions of her time, both in the U.S. and abroad. She continued to paint, dividing her time between Philadelphia, New York and Gloucester, Massachusetts, where she died on September 16, 1942.

For more information on Cecilia Beaux:

http://www.nmwa.org/collection/profile.asp?LinkID=263

To view my forming archive of women artists, Uomini Famosi: https://picasaweb.google.com/113967877601706753492/UominiFamosi_VitreousPaintingsonGlass

Mary Cassatt: Vitreous Painting on Glass

Mary Cassatt, Vitreous Painting on glass, 8 x 10”

Mary Cassatt ( 1844 – 1926 )

Artist. Born Mary Stevenson Cassatt on May 22, 1844, in Allegheny City, Pennsylvania. Mary Cassatt was the daughter of a well-to-do real estate and investment broker, and her upbringing reflected her family's high social standing. Her schooling prepared her to be a proper wife and mother and included such classes as homemaking, embroidery, music, sketching and painting. During the 1850s, the Cassatt’s took their children abroad to live in Europe for several years.

Though women of her day were discouraged from pursuing a career, Mary Cassatt enrolled in Philadelphia's Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts at age 16. Not surprisingly, she found the male faculty and her fellow students to be patronizing and resentful of her attendance. Cassatt also became frustrated by the curriculum's slow pace and inadequate course offerings. She decided to leave the program and move to Europe where she could study the works of the Old Masters on her own, firsthand.

Despite her family's strong objections (her father declared he would rather see his daughter dead than living abroad as a "bohemian"), Mary Cassatt left for Paris in 1866. She began her study with private art lessons in the Louvre, where she would study and copy masterpieces. She continued to study and paint in relative obscurity until 1868, when one of her portraits was selected at the prestigious Paris Salon, an annual exhibition run by the French government. With her father's disapproving words echoing in her ears, Cassatt submitted the well-received painting under the name Mary Stevenson.

In 1870, soon after the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War, Mary Cassatt reluctantly returned home to live with her parents. The artistic freedom she enjoyed while living abroad was immediately extinguished upon her return to the outskirts of Philadelphia. Not only did she have trouble finding proper supplies, but her father refused to pay for anything connected with her art. To raise funds, she tried to sell some of her paintings in New York, but to no avail. When she tried again to sell them through a dealer in Chicago, the paintings were tragically destroyed in a fire in 1871.

In the midst of these obstacles the Archbishop of Pittsburgh contacted Cassatt. He wanted to commission the artist to paint copies of two works by the Italian master Correggio. Cassatt accepted the assignment and left immediately for Europe, where the originals were on display in Parma, Italy. With the money she earned from the commission, she was able to resume her career in Europe. The Paris Salon accepted her paintings for exhibitions in 1872, 1873 and 1874, which helped secure her status as an established artist. She continued to study and paint in Spain, Belgium, and Rome, eventually settling permanently in Paris.

Though she felt indebted to the Salon for building her career, Mary Cassatt began to feel increasingly constrained by its inflexible guidelines. No longer concerned with what was fashionable or commercial, she began to experiment artistically. Her new work drew criticism for its bright colors and unflattering accuracy of its subjects. During this time, she drew courage from painter Edgar Degas, whose pastels inspired her to press on in her own direction. "I used to go and flatten my nose against that window and absorb all I could of his art," she once wrote to a friend. "It changed my life. I saw art then as I wanted to see it."

For more information on Mary Cassatt: http://clara.nmwa.org/index.php?g=entity_detail&entity_id=1554

To view my forming archive of women artists, Uomini Famosi: https://picasaweb.google.com/113967877601706753492/UominiFamosi_VitreousPaintingsonGlass

Berthe Morisot: Vitreous Painting on glass

Berthe Morisot, Vitreous Painting on glass, 8 x10”

Berthe Morisot (1841-1895)

Morisot was born in 1841 into a family of wealth and culture. Her father was a high-ranking civil servant. Morisot was given painting lessons by Joseph-Benoit Guichard, then was influenced by Daubigny and Guillement. She gave up her early Classical training to pursue her own style of Impressionism.

In July 1868 Fantin-Latour introduced Berthe to Manet, whom she greatly admired. Although Manet was had a strong influence on her work, she soon developed a distinctive style of her own. Her style, in turn, influenced his painting and encouraged him to work en plein air. She was also a subject for a number of his paintings, including The Balcony. Morisot exhibited regularly at the Salon, and at all the Impressionist exhibitions except for 1879.

Morisot married Manet's brother Eugene in December, 1874. Her house at 4 rue de la Princess in Bougival on the Seine then became a social and inspirational centre for the Impressionists. By 1885 she had begun to hold regular soirees for friends that were artists or writers, including Mallarme.

In March of 1895, Berthe Morisot died of pneumonia at the age of 54. In her last letter to her daughter, Julie Manet, she bequeathed paintings to Degas, Monet, and Renoir. In spite of her international reputation as an artist, her death certificate bears the words "No professions".

For more information on Berthe Morisot, visit: http://clara.nmwa.org/index.php?g=entity_detail&entity_id=4610

On YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BTA-3DTRWzA

To view my progressing Uomini Famosi archive:

https://picasaweb.google.com/113967877601706753492/UominiFamosi_VitreousPaintingsonGlass#

Visit with Mentor and the Cameron Museum of Art

Painting by Terrell James

I haven't been very good at keeping up with my log and blogging on other things outside of my work completed this semester thus far. Something about these summer months has me a little disconnected. I have been sleeping in the room where I paint, as it makes me feel more like a college student.

Before too much time lapses I want to blog about my 2nd visit with my mentor and my weekend in Wilmington which mixed a little business with pleasure, heading to the beach for a few hours each day.

My visit with my mentor, Pam Toll went well. I absolutely love her studio and the Acme Art Studios in Wilmington at-large. There is a sense of energy as soon as you walk in. I brought with me all the vitreous paintings on glass I had completed through the end of last week. I also brought my charcoal drawing of Frida, that is a study for the window I am starting of her. In addition, I brought the two large oil paintings from last semester with me, so she could see the technique I am exploring.

All in all I feel the visit went well, she could tell I have been working hard. My glass works appealed more to her than my oil paintings, however the area where I showed my works wasn't very well lit, where it was hard to see the intricacies and details of the painting. What I learned out of that critique, is that I need to learn how to support and defend the oil paintings as I have my vitreous paintings on glass. I have not really investigated the amount of time in building a foundation for these pieces, as I have my glass works. Pam invited me to the artist colony she co-founded called, No Boundaries, in November. So I am hoping I can take a long weekend during that time to participate.

In addition to sharing my new works with Pam, she also chatted with me about all her current work and endeavors. This is a busy time for her. She is preparing to do a large drawing installation in the gallery at UNCW, where she teaches. She is also delivering a paper this Fall which she is currently completing her final draft of. She is working on a large oil landscape painting inspired by Bald Head Island where No Boundaries takes place. The painting is really rich and evocative of the environment. It is not even complete and a visiting viewer took interest in collecting the piece.

I hope next month to be able to visit Pam where her drawing installation in shown. I am interested in seeing the handling of the space, and her decisions on the integration of subject which she is tossing around.

Sunday before heading out to a local dog friendly beach (we had my daughter's new pup with us to Wilmington); we rushed to the Cameron Museum of Art before our hotel check-out deadline. I wanted to go there primarily to view the Terrell James exhibition. James is a mentor artist to Tanya L., an AIB peep. James work is abstract expressionist and I enjoyed the work on display. I also enjoyed the exhibition Fritzi Huber's: A Circus Life. Not necessarily the actual artwork on display within the exhibit, but more the documentation of the circus culture of mid-twentieth century. There was a fun reel playing of Roy Roger's Circus. I never realized he even had a circus to his name. There was a wonderful circus dog depicted in the film clip, a Jack Russell which reminded my daughter and I of her little dog, who could well be a little clown dog given the right training.

You can view more information on the four exhibitions I visited at: http://www.cameronartmuseum.com/exhibitions.php

Edmonia Lewis: Vitreous Painting on Glass

Edmonia Lewis, Vitreous Painting on glass, 8 x 10”

Edmonia Lewis (1844-1911)

Edmonia Lewis was born in about 1844 of African (West Indies) and Chippewa heritage. An 1880 newspaper article states that she spent her first 14 years wandering the wilderness with her mothers Chippewa tribe until her brother was able to send her to school. She attended Oberlin College, the first coeducational and interracial college in the United States. However, other articles give a very different light to her childhood, showing that she was born to a financially stable and highly intelligent father, a historian, Robert Benjamin Lewis - author of "Light and Truth". However, the 1850 census suggests that this was NOT her father, as she is clearly not listed with the rest of his family, whom had lived in Maine for several years.

She later moved to Boston and began lessons with Anne Whitney and went on to produce portraits of John Brown, Garrison and other abolitionists, as well as a bust of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. She relocated to Rome in 1865 after selling one hundred plaster copies of her portrait bust of Col. Robert Gould Shaw. There she met Charlotte Cushman and her lover Harriet Hosmer as well as other feminists in their artistic lesbian circle.

At least one passenger record shows her returning to the United States on July 1, 1875 aboard the S.S. "Ville de Paris". She took a second class cabin, possibly with three other women. She listed her occupation as "sculptor". The manifest does not show who stayed in what room, but three single women were listed immediately after her. They were Miss Margaret States, dressmaker, age 24 and twin sisters Angelique and Ernestine Ebel, both 18 with no occupations. All three of the women were from Alsace, France and might not have known Edmonia.

Her work in the United States, however, did not end. That same year she completed a bust of General Grant who went to Rome to specifically sit for her. In 1880 she presented a work called "Bride of Spring" at a Roman Catholic fair in Cincinnati; at the 1893 World's Fair she presented a sculptor of the poet Phillis Wheatley and at the 1895 World's Fair in Chicago she presented a sculptor of Charles Sumner.

Edmonia Lewis was the first African American sculptor to be recognized internationally.

For more information on Edmonia Lewis, visit: http://www.edmonialewis.com/index.html

On YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CDIyJJcgPXA&feature=related

To view my progressing Uomini Famosi archive:

https://picasaweb.google.com/113967877601706753492/UominiFamosi_VitreousPaintingsonGlass#

Elisabeth Vigeé-Lebrun : Vitreous Painting on Glass

Elisabeth Vigee-LeBrun, Vitreous Painting on Glass, 8 x 10”

Elisabeth Vigeé-Lebrun
b. 1755, Paris; d. 1842, Paris

The most famous female painter of the eighteenth century, Elisabeth Vigée-Lebrun studied with her father, Louis Vigée, but was equally influenced by her contemporaries. A prolific artist with more than 800 works attributed to her, she began painting portraits professionally in her teens and at nineteen gained entrance to the Académie de Saint-Luc. In 1776, she married the art dealer Jacques Lebrun. Summoned to Versailles in 1779 to paint Marie Antoinette, she became painter and friend to the queen. In 1783, backed by an official order from Louis XVI, Vigée-Lebrun was accepted as a member of France's Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture as a painter of historical allegory, a category typically dominated by men. At the outbreak of the French Revolution, Vigée-Lebrun fled to Italy and then traveled to Vienna, Berlin, Saint Petersburg, Dresden, and London, finding critical acclaim and aristocratic clientele in nearly every city. She returned to Paris in 1805.

Elisabeth Vigee-LeBrun was honored within Judy Chicago’s Dinner Party, with a place setting in her homage. The Dinner Party is on permanent exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum: Elizabeth A Sackler Center for Feminist Art.

For more information on Elisabeth Vigee-LeBrun, visit:

http://www.nmwa.org/collection/profile.asp?LinkID=1945

On Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=upEj-Ki80BU

To view my progressing Uomini Famosi archive:

https://picasaweb.google.com/113967877601706753492/UominiFamosi_VitreousPaintingsonGlass#

Angelica Kauffmann: Vitreous Painting on Glass

Angelica Kauffmann, Vitreous painting on glass, 8 x 10"

Angelica Kauffmann
(1741-1807)

A child prodigy, Kauffmann produced her first commissioned work before the age of 13. After the death of her mother, she traveled through Austria and Italy with her father, painter Joseph Johann Kauffmann. She assisted him by painting in the backgrounds of his works, but she also received her own commissions and soon established a solid reputation in her own right. She was influenced by Correggio and the Carracci and copied their works in the galleries as part of her artistic training. Later her style reflected a neoclassical flavor influenced by Benjamin West, Sr. Joshua Reynolds and the classicizing elements at Herculaneum.
In 1766 Kauffmann was invited to London. She produced many portraits and decorative painting but preferred history painting, which was considered the highest artistic genre and reserved only for her male colleagues. Despite her inability to secure a formal artistic education or study the male nude, Kauffmann produced paintings, which depicted classical mythology, history and allegory. She received commissions from the Royal courts in Naples, Russia and Austria. While often dismissed by traditional art history as a mere decorative or sentimental artist, she was successful enough to purchase her own home from earned commissions and live a comfortably stylish life. Another testament of Kauffmann's success was that she was one of the founding members of the British Royal Academy in 1768.

For more information on Angelica Kauffmann, visit:

http://www.angelica-kauffmann.com/

To view my progressing Uomini Famosi archive:

https://picasaweb.google.com/113967877601706753492/UominiFamosi_VitreousPaintingsonGlass#

(Anna) Maria Sibylla Merian: Vitreous Painting on Glass

(Anna) Maria Sibylla Merian, Vitreous Painting on Glass, 8 x 10”

(Anna) Maria Sibylla Merian (1647-1717) was one of the greatest artist-naturalists of her time. From childhood she had been fascinated by the life cycles of butterflies, and she made a close study of their transformations. She became a flower-painter and teacher in Nuremberg, Frankfurt and Amsterdam. Inspired by exotic specimens imported from the Dutch colonies for the natural history collections of Holland, in 1699, at the age of fifty-two, Merian made an expedition to Surinam (Dutch Guiana) in South America. Her aim was to study the indigenous flora and fauna in their tropical habitat. On her return to Amsterdam two years later, she began work on a lavishly illustrated book, the Metamorphosis insectorum Surinamensium (‘The Metamorphoses of the Insects of Surinam’, published in 1705), depicting the life cycles of the region’s insects.

Most of Merian’s watercolors displayed within the Royal Collection are de luxe versions (painted on vellum) of the plates of the Metamorphosis, together with some works produced independently of that publication.

The 95 watercolors by Merian in the Royal Collection of the United Kingdom were bought in 1755 by George III, when Prince of Wales.

For more information on Anna Maria Sibylla Merian, visit:

http://womenshistory.about.com/gi/o.htm?zi=1/XJ&zTi=1&sdn=womenshistory&cdn=education&tm=41&f=00&tt=14&bt=0&bts=1&zu=http%3A//home.wtal.de/hh/merian/meng.htm

To view my progressing Uomini Famosi archive visit:

https://picasaweb.google.com/113967877601706753492/UominiFamosi_VitreousPaintingsonGlass