Page:Woman in Art.djvu/188

WOMAN IN ART first posed in the nude, and then another draped. On the canvas the artist sketched the nude, draping over that from the second model.

A bronze medal rewarded her exhibit at Paris in 1900. A silver medal was hers at the Pan-American Exposition at Buffalo, in 1902. The Shaw Memorial prize from the Society of American Artists, 1903, was awarded her, the silver medal at St. Louis in 1904, and many others.

It has been a joy to the artist to work at her chosen subjects, children's portraits. She tells us that Augustus St. Gaudens was in a way responsible for her future career as a painter of children. All young mothers who are artists accept the model nature gives and paint the portrait of the first babe, and Louise Cox was no exception. The portrait painted of her eldest son was so greatly admired by the great sculptor that his admiration influenced her continuance of the subject. Of course portraits of adults were painted now and then, but children were her joy.

She is represented in many private and public galleries, and has long been an associate member of the National Academy.

"May Flower" is the charming picture representing Mrs. Cox in the National Gallery at Washington, D. C.

In spite of the fact that her late husband, Kenyon Cox, and her son Allyn Cox have done much fine and highly approved mural painting, Mrs. Cox has never been tempted to try that line of art.

Rather recently she is making her home in Italy, where influence for beauty and art seem to win her return to her earlier point of view for serious composition. It is to be hoped that she will recapture her earlier inspirations, and give the world yet more on canvas of the commingling of her fine productive thought and skill, that must come to her like an inspiration with the charm of overlooking olive orchards and vineyards toward the towers and domes of lovely old Florence.

Louise Cox was born in San Francisco, California, in 1865, daughter of James and Anna (Scott) King. She was married to Kenyon Cox in 1892.

Clara T. MacChesney is another California artist, born and educated in that state. Virgil Williams of the San Francisco School of Design was her teacher for three years; then followed three years of study in New York with Mobray and Beckwith and yet another three years in Paris with Courtois. The summers of those years were well spent by working in Holland, and she was much influenced by the technique of the old masters and the characteristics of the country; particularly was she fascinated with the quaint interiors of the Dutch homes. Many of such, carefully studied, were most successfully accomplished in water 148