Art Institute Elizabeth Sparhawkjones the Shoe Shop C 1911 Oil on Canvas 991 X 794 Cm
Rediscovered Painting past Philadelphia Artist Elizabeth Sparhawk-Jones Now Available
By Margie Fuchs, with research assistance by Valerie Stanos and Beth Hamilton
The daughter of a Presbyterian Reverend with a demonstrated talent for painting, Elizabeth Sparhawk-Jones (1885-1968) emerged as ane of the stars of 20th century American art while merely a teenager. Her work at the forefront of the avant-garde, oftentimes engaging with Impressionist ideas and techniques, earned her national and international exhibitions soon after.
However, a nervous breakdown in 1913 led to a twelve-twelvemonth disappearance from the art world. "I was invited many places out of the country. They'd take annihilation I sent," Sparhawk-Jones recalled in an oral history interview with the Smithsonian Archives of American Art. "But I broke downwardly because I was overtired, I had done too much in too curt a time." Her return to the art world signaled a second act, in which she abandoned her Impressionist and Realist style for more imaginative and symbolic works. Close friend and fellow modernist Marsden Hartley commended her fortitude and singular talent, calling her an "original" and a "thinking painter with a rare sense of the drama of poetic and romantic incident."
This success was no easy feat. The rigid rules of the creative establishment limited training for women, while the work of fifty-fifty the near successful women artists rarely received the same acclamation, much less the same prices, equally their male counterparts. Despite this, Sparhawk-Jones left a mark on American art; her works tin can be plant in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, The Art Institute of Chicago and the Metropolitan Museum of Fine art today.
Jonathan Boos is pleased to present Sparhawk-Jones's 1911 painting In Apron Strings. Nosotros invite you to explore the unique story and history of the artwork with these five facts. Contact the gallery for more on adding the work to your collection.
1. The New York Times crowned Sparhawk-Jones the "detect of the twelvemonth" in 1908
Sparhawk-Jones left schoolhouse at the age of 15 and moved to Philadelphia, enrolling at the prestigious Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (PAFA). Between 1902-1909, she studied nether noted artists William Merritt Chase, Thomas Anshutz and Cecelia Beaux, taking courses in life drawing besides as sketching. Hunt and Anshutz encouraged students to paint from life and comprehend their artistic independence. Following suit, Sparhawk-Jones earned near every PAFA accolade possible, including a major travel scholarship for European study.
While still in school, Sparhawk-Jones was already selling oil paintings for thousands of dollars in today'south equivalent and presenting works across the country. After viewing her painting The Porch, 1907 (private collection), at PAFA's annual exhibition that same year, The New York Times declared the scene of women relaxing on a veranda "the most unforgettable canvas in the show," and noted that the artist had surpassed her teacher, Chase, with her rendering of light. A year after, the publication named Sparhawk-Jones the "find of the year." She continued to collect accolades, including existence the just American to receive an honorable mention at the 1909 Carnegie International in Pittsburgh, and continued to exhibit annually until 1913.
two. 'In Frock Strings' is a rare, early work by the artist embracing the tenets of Impressionism
A PAFA scholarship trip to Paris in the showtime decade of the twentieth century decidedly influenced Sparhawk-Jones's Impressionist sensibilities. She found her life drawing courses at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière much more than liberating than her American classes, calling the French method of educational activity nigh the human form with models of all ages "consummate freedom." In France, Sparhawk-Jones also experimented with painting en plein air and other Impressionist techniques including broken brushstrokes, depictions of low-cal and unblended color. Returning to Philadelphia, she applied a loose, painterly technique to her subjects, which she often modeled after real life scenes spotted in the city'southward parks and streets.
Created during one of the creative person's about productive periods, In Apron Strings debuted at the 106th Annual Exhibition at PAFA in 1911 to critical acclaim (encounter archival photo above). The work presents a bright vignette of a mother, her three children and a nursemaid enjoying the springtime weather in a park. Sparhawk-Jones captures the morning light and jump atmosphere with a light colour palette and loose brushstrokes, revealing the verdant greens and pink floral buds on the trees in the background. Her thick brushwork allows the viewer to see nearly every stroke of paint on the canvas, from the tiny flowers in the affluent mother's cap to folds of the figures' clothes. Anchored past the mother on the left and the nursemaid on the far correct, the piece of work showcases Sparhawk-Jones's mastery of light and shadow in the shades of white on the children'due south vesture.
In a review of 106th Annual Exhibition at PAFA, The New York Times commended Sparhawk-Jones's technique of "spontaneity, swiftness of line, and crisp notation of character." An exceptional example of the creative person's Impressionist work, In Apron Strings fabricated rarer past the fact that Sparhawk-Jones burned many of her early on paintings while ill.
3. Sparhawk-Jones had a unique talent for synthesizing elements of Impressionism and Realism
Working in Philadelphia in the early 1900s, Sparhawk-Jones was intimately familiar with the piece of work of the Ashcan Schoolhouse, the turn-of-the-century movement known for gritty depictions of American urban life. Robert Henri and William Glackens, 2 of the founders of the movement, also studied at the PAFA nether Anshutz and encouraged artists far and broad to embrace Realism in painting contemporary urban center scenes. While she was never formally associated with Henri and Glackens' circle of all-male painters working betwixt Philadelphia and New York, Sparhawk-Jones practiced a journalistic manner of painting, capturing the modern world equally she saw it, rather than presenting an idealized vision of how it should be.
This extremely mod approach of envisaging urban life tin be seen in In Frock Strings. The presence of the nursemaid breaks from depictions of perfect domestic life to reveal the backside-the-scenes assistance needed to raise a family unit. Like the Impressionists, Sparhawk-Jones was inspired past walks in Philadelphia's parks and public spaces. In Apron Strings' setting and bailiwick affair is similar to In Rittenhouse Square (c. 1909, above) and Turning Abode ( 1911, beneath), both of which take place in the tony park near Sparhawk-Jones'south habitation. While all three works use the bright palette of the Impressionists – a far cry from the night hues favored by Ashcan artists – it can be said that the artist'south brushwork bares a striking resemblance to Bellows, Henri and John Sloan.
L-R: Robert Henri, American, 1865–1929. Volendam Male child with Cigarette, 1910. Oil on canvas. 26¼ x 20¼ inches. Signed, inscribed, and dated lower correct; Elizabeth Sparhawk-Jones, Turning Abode, 1911. Oil on canvas, 30 x 36 inches, Individual Collection.
four. The artist's early piece of work portrays distinctly modern women in the early 20th century
Sparhawk-Jones's early on works showcase the variety of expanding roles for women in the new century. The title of In Frock Strings even directly references women's piece of work. Aside from the practicality of aprons, which protect clothes from grit and dirt (or, in the instance of babies, spittle) and provide a pocket for storage, the phrase 'in apron strings' is a symbolic reference to the important roles of the mother and nursemaid in raising and protecting children. The arrangement of In Apron Strings visualizes the importance of women in childrearing. By placing the female parent and nursemaid on opposite sides of the canvass, Sparhawk-Jones underscores their role of protecting and supporting the children betwixt them.
Sparhawk-Jones's subjects range from nursemaids and nannies to modern working women and fashionable ladies shopping at renowned Wanamaker'due south department store. The Shoe Shop (1911) presents two versions of the mod woman: young shop attendants earning a living for themselves and well-to-practise lodge women enjoying their leisure time on the town. Situated in the lower half of the canvas, the attendants clothing just blackness-and-white uniforms. Their demure outfits contrast with the ornate hats and colorful outfits of the female customers. While Sparhawk-Jones presented a wider view of women's role in gild in her piece of work, it is important to note that like other women artists of her twenty-four hour period, she was largely confined to depictions of 'the fairer sex' in her commercial work.
5. 'In Apron Strings' has been passed downwards in a unmarried family for over 100 years – until at present
Following its debut at PAFA in 1911, the painting travelled to The Art Institute of Chicago for its Twenty-4th Annual Exhibition of American Painting, where information technology was purchased by John Oliver, mayor of Highland Park, Illinois and owner of the Oliver Brothers Lumber company. Oliver had developed a keen interest in collecting art later on visiting the Palace of Fine Arts at the 1893 Globe's Columbian Exposition in Chicago. An early member and patron of the Art Institute, he frequented the establishment and was listed, aslope his brother William, as a patron in the program for the 1907 Fine art Found exhibition Works by Chicago Artists.
Sparhawk-Jones'due south masterful Impressionist technique and the striking emotionality of the work explicate why In Frock Strings has remained in the Oliver family for over a century. Oliver'southward eldest daughter Evelyn Oliver inherited the painting when he died in in 1956, and her sister Joan Oliver Shore inherited it in 1963 when Evelyn died. Following Joan's passing in March 2020, this rare and important painting went to her four children.
Jonathan Boos is honored to be working with the family in representing this rare and remarkable masterwork.
Cover image: Elizabeth Sparhawk-Jones, In Apron Strings, 1911. Oil on sheet. 30 x 32 inches. Signed lower right.
Source: https://jonathanboos.com/sparhawk-jones/
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