American Women Artists during the Victorian Era and Second Industrial Revolution (1837-1914)
By ehansen
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Period: to
Victorian Era
During the reign of Queen Victoria I, there was increased urbanization, the American Civil War, and the end of African slavery. Styles of art included Romanticism, Impressionism, Academic Painting, and Art Nouveau. Architecture movements included Gothic and Arts and Crafts. -
Charles Lavalle Jessop (Boy on a Rocking Horse) (painting)
This painting was created by Sarah Miriam Peale (), the first American woman to succeed as a professional artist. Peale came from a family of Pennsylvania artists and studied with her cousin, Rembrandt Peale, who was influenced by French Neoclassicism. -
Her Mistress's Clothes (painting)
The artist is Harriet Cany Peale (1800-1869), American landscape, portrait, & genre painter who was influenced by her husband, Rembrandt Peale, and French Neoclassicism.
NOTE: This painting makes me uncomfortable. Perhaps that was what Cany Peale wanted. According to Wikipedia, it "gained notoriety for its exploration of power differentiation." Slavery was abolished by 1847 in Pennsylvania, and the women do not seem upset, so maybe I am just not culturally connected to it. -
Shake Hands?
Lilly Martin Spencer (1822-1902) supported her husband and thirteen children by selling her paintings, lithographs, & sketches. "Shake Hands?" is her most famous painting. She tried to convey moral improvement messages through her work and was a popular genre painting artist. -
The Slave Mother (poem)
This heart-wrenching poem was written by Frances E.W. Harper (1825-1911). A teacher and abolitionist, Harper was also the first African American to publish a short story and is known as the mother of African-American journalism. She was born a free woman in Maryland, and, like many in this museum, she spent part of her life in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. -
Beatrice Cenci (sculpture)
This marble sculpture was created by Harriet Hosmer (1830-1908) who was known as the first professional woman sculptor. Though born in America, she studied neoclassicism and was an expatriate working with other independent women in Rome, Italy. -
I'm on My Journey Home (song)
Song Excerpt This Sacred Harp traditional choral hymn was composed by Sarah Lancaster (1834-1918). She was a Christian from a musical family.
NOTE: I found other versions of her 3 hymns on the internet that were sung live in churches and they sounded awful. The linked track recorded by Skywalker Sound for the Gloryland album is very nice though. -
Period: to
Second Industrial Revolution
Also referred to as the Technological Revolution. Period in which the light bulb, telephone, airplane, and "Model T" automobile were invented. Tube paint made artists more mobile, photography and film became available. Types of Art included Post-Impressionism and Early Modernism and Realism. -
The Death of Cleopatra (sculpture)
This marble sculpture of Cleopatra was created by Edmonia Lewis (1844-1907). She used Neoclassical style influenced by her African American and Native American heritage. She was the only African American female artist to achieve notoriety in the American artistic mainstream during the time-period. -
The Tea (painting)
The Tea was created by Mary Cassatt (1844-1926) an American painter & printmaker. She was born in Pennsylvania, but lived for many years in France. There she was influenced by Edgar Degas & the Impressionists & the only American to exhibit with them. She was a Modernist and rejected traditional artistic conventions. Much of Cassatt's work centered around the not often portrayed lives of women, especially mothers & children. The Tea was quite unconventional in the off-guard moment it captures. -
Tween the Gloaming and the Mirk, When the Kye Came Hame (etching)
This sepia toned ink etching was done by Mary Nimmo Moran (1842-1899). Though created in American, it was meant as a remembrance to her home country of Scotland. As an artist, she kept her gender identity hidden, signing her works “M. Nimmo Moran” to prevent discrimination. Moran became the only woman fellow of the original London’s Royal Society of Painter-Etchers. She was married to painter Thomas Moran and they lived in New York with their daughter. -
I'm Nobody! Who are you? (poem)
An undated short lyric poem by Emily Elizabeth Dickinson (1830-1886), who is considered an important figure in American poetry. It was first published posthumously in 1891. In fact all of her poetry was published posthumously or anonymously & none believed to be with her consent. Dickinson wrote almost 1800 poems for herself & in letters to her family & friends. These poems were written in slant rhyme and were on topics such as death, immortality, aesthetics, society, nature, & spirituality. -
Bible Quilt
This mixed media textile quilt was created by Harriet Powers (1837-1910). Born a slave in Georgia, she was a folk artist and known as one of the most exceptional 19th century Southern quilters.
NOTE: While quilts are usually considered Crafts and not Fine Art, this particular piece tells a story, was sought by collectors, evoked emotion in people, and was created by an artist with the materials at hand. Therefore I believe it qualifies as Fine Art. -
Love's Young Dream (painting)
This sentimental, rural painting was created by Jennie Augusta Brownscombe (1850-1936) was an American painter, designer, etcher, commercial artist, and illustrator. She studied art in the United States and Paris and was a founding member, student, and teacher at the Art Students League of New York. She made genre paintings including revolutionary and colonial American history. She was part of the Pennsylvania "New Woman" group. -
La Mère (painting)
Like much of Elizabeth Nourse's work, "The Mother" evoked a longing for simple things in the Industrial era. Nourse (1859–1938) was a realist-style genre, portrait, & landscape painter. She also worked in decorative painting and sculpture. Though she spent more of her career in France, she is described as "the first woman painter of America." -
Wynema, A Child of the Forest (novel)
Wynema, A Child of the Forest was the first documented novel written by a Native American woman, Sophia Alice Callahan (1868–1894). She was a Muscogee Indian Territory novelist and teacher who wrote in a romantic novel style but she also clearly intended what has been called a "reform novel," identifying many wrongs suffered by Native Americans in United States society.
NOTE: Novels are not usually included in Fine Art, but the importance of this Native American first should not be overlooked. -
Sita and Sarita (Jeune Fille au Chat) (painting)
This portrait of Sarah Allibone Leavitt is an oil on canvas painting by American Realist, Cecilia Beaux (1855-1942). She studied in New York & Paris & was influenced by Realist, Thomas Eakins. Known for her portraits of America’s elites. Beaux was a "New Woman," member of Philadelphia's The Plastic Club & the first woman to become a regular instructor at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts.
MY THOUGHTS: A black cat (associated with witch-craft) on a black background was a bold choice. -
Nude Study, Standing with Hand to Shoulder (painting)
This oil on canvas mounted on board painting was created by Florine Stettheimer (1871-1944), a feminist who painted celebratory, provocative pieces on gender, race, religion, and sexuality. She was influenced by Symbolists & Post-Impressionists. While Stettheimer most prolific in the 20th century in New York, she got her start in the late 1800s and here displays some of her classical training, which she later abandoned. -
Self-Portrait (painting)
This self-portrait was created by Narcissa Chisholm Owen (1831-1911), an early Suffragist, Romanticist, and the Mother of Cherokee Painting in Tahlequah, Indian Territory (Oklahoma). She did not believe in hierarchies of artistic medium -
The Manger (photograph)
This platinum print of a staged photograph was taken by Gertrude Käsebier (1852–1934), who was known as one of the most influential photographers of the 20th century for her pictoral portraits of motherhood and Native Americans.
Trivia fact: there is no baby in this photo, only a bundle of blankets. -
Victory (statue)
The original of this statute created by Evelyn Beatrice Longman (1874-1954) was in plaster and the cast shown was made in bronze. Victory was usually depicted as a woman, so Longman was playing with gender roles in her creation. It is doubtful the men who liked it and made it a centerpiece of the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition (thus making her a prominent American artist) were conscious of the allegorical nature of her pieces. -
El Campanil (architecture)
This is a 72-foot bell tower at Mills College by Julia Morgan (1872-1957), an American architect & engineer who designed 700+ buildings in California, including at Hearst Castle. She pioneered aesthetic use of reinforced concrete which survived the 1906 & 1989 earthquakes. She was the 1st woman admitted to the architecture program at l'École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris & the 1st woman architect licensed in CA. She was influenced by the Arts & Crafts Movement & classical works. -
Life was made for love and cheer (painting)
An illustrator by trade, Elizabeth Shippen Green (1871-1954) created this watercolor and charcoal painting on illustration board. It depicts Green, Jessie Willcox Smith, and Violet Oakley (collectively known as the "Red Rose Girls") with their friends at their shared home, the Red Rose Inn in Pennsylvania. Green studied Fine Art and was influenced by neo-classicist, Maxfield Parrish. She was part of the “New Woman” (early feminists) movement. -
Self-Portrait (painting)
This self portrait of Anne Goldthwaite (1869-1944) is oil on wood mounted on fiberboard. Goldthwaite was a painter & etcher born in Alabama. She studied Modern art (including Cubism & Fauvism) in New York & Paris. A feminist & suffragist who is known in the American South for her depictions of post-slave rural African-American life.
NOTE: portrait date approximate ca. 1906-1913
MY THOUGHTS: It is always interesting to examine how artists choose to depict themselves in self-portraits. -
The Founding of the State of Liberty Spiritual (mural)
This mural at the Pennsylvania State Capitol is 1 of 43 created created by Violet Oakley (1874-1961), the first American woman to receive a public mural commission. She liked English Pre-Raphaelite aesthetics. Her works include paintings, illustrations, & stained glass. One of the "Red Rose Girls" & member of Philadelphia's The Plastic Club.
MY THOUGHTS: While not usually considered Fine Art, Oakley's desire to show the founding of PA by Quaker William Penn in a heroic light shines through. -
A Fool and His Money (film)
A Fool and His Money - excerpt
Creator: Alice Guy-Blaché (1873-1968), first narrative film director. From France, she started production company, Solax, in America. This was their first film.
Active in: Paris, France, & Fort Lee, New Jersey.
Type: Film
Note: While debatable whether Performing Arts are Fine Arts, they do evoke emotion. Early film is also a symbol of how art changed due to the Industrial Revolution & a good ending point for my curation. -
Ethiopia Awakens (statue)
This statute was the first of several along this theme by Meta Vaux Warrick Fuller (1877-1968), an African-American artist who studied & worked for a time in Paris & was influenced by Auguste Rodin. She was a poet, painter, theater designer, & sculptor. Warrick is known as one of the most imaginative Black artists of her generation who even sculpted events of racial injustice, like the lynching of Mary Turner (which fell outside of my era or I would have chosen it for this last piece!)
