Women in the fine arts, from the Seventh Century B.C. to the Twentieth Century A.D Part 50

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 gla.s.s 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 unt.i.tled English woman.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 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 pa.s.sion. 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 att.i.tude 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.

Was.h.i.+ngton, 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 pa.s.sed 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 Was.h.i.+ngton 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; Munic.i.p.al 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 princ.i.p.al 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 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 impa.s.sioned.... 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, pa.s.sion, 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 ma.s.s 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.