Page:Woman in Art.djvu/149

WOMAN IN ART. Her portraits and figure pieces fairly scintillate with vitality. She seems not to pose her sitters but apparently paints them at their ease. She won her first gold medal at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in 1889, for the best figure painting of that year.

It is regrettable that more of her work is not seen in American exhibits in this twentieth century, but her art work has been shared with the absorbing work of writing a comprehensive and fascinating life of the great-souled woman and animal painter, Rosa Bonheur.

A few other painters exhibited on the historical walls of the Woman's Building: Enilda Q. Loomis had a portrait; K. A. Carl an "Oriental Figure," also a charming group of "Children Blowing Bubbles" that was natural and free in action, "A Female Figure" by Miss M. A. Carlisle, and "Eurydice Sinking Back to Hades" by Miss Hester Roe; "An Army Scene" and a fine "Female Figure" by Louise Jopling; "A Marine View" well painted by Elouise Lavilette, and another "Female Figure" by Louise Abbema; a softly brilliant showing of "Flowers" by Jennie Villebessyx, most attractive, also a "Girl With a Goat" well done by Euphemie Murciton; "Music" by Maximilienne Guyon, and a pleasing "Interior" by J. Buchet, all were adjudged fine.

On the wall of the staircase were a number of portraits, one of Miss Leftwich-Dodge, and one representing a personality of the Women's Rights group, Mrs. Lilly Devereaux-Blake. There was a group of fine dogs, "Watching and Waiting," painted by Lily I. Jackson. "The Mandolin Player" was drawn by one who understood the subject. Miss Florence Mackubin. An unusual subject was a strongly painted "Head of a Negra Woman," signed M. Kinkhead, and its neighbor was the "Portrait of a Boy," a real boy, by L. M. Stewart; and a portrait of Angelica Kaufman done by a masterly hand. Miss Matilda Brown had the only representation of "Cattle," showing careful study and a natural environment as their background. Her cattle and sheep are always in a fine landscape.

The very recital of painters and subjects represented at that time shows that the spirit of art had vivified the spirit of woman some years previous to 1893, but they lacked opportunity.

Many painters of that Columbian Fair epoch continued their work through intervening decades. The great World's Fairs that have followed—the Pan-American at Buffalo, the Louisiana-Purchase Exposition, the Jamestown Exposition, the Panama-Pacific at San Francisco—have all afforded 115