THROUGH EYES: WOMEN IN ART Her

Women Artists in Louisiana and Beyond

Judith H. Bonner, former Senior Curator and Curator of Art, The Historic New Orleans Collection

he emergence of women artists into the mainstream has been a protracted and arduous ascendancy from coast to coast. The rich variety of women’s art in this auction was not always as available as it is now. As a general rule, artistic success has roots in formal art studies and close observation of artworks in museums and other art institutions. The National Academy of Design, founded in New York in 1825, was the singular reputable organization in this country until a number of its students, many of whom were women, rebelled and formed the Art Students League in 1875.

The founding of American museums began slowly but blossomed in the late eighteenth century. The Charleston Museum, founded in 1773, focuses on the nation’s history. Artist Charles Willson Peale (1741-1827) left a lasting legacy to the country through his organization of two museums and two art academies, including the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. Inspired by the Enlightenment, in 1782 he opened a portrait gallery of American Revolutionary heroes and in 1786 he opened the Peale Museum of natural history and technological objects in Philadelphia.

The year 1876 was a banner year for the establishment of three museums. The Pennsylvania Museum and School of Industrial Art was chartered as a museum and teaching institution. The Boston Museum of Arts opened at Copley Square. The Philadelphia Museum of Art was chartered for the Centennial Exhibition in celebration of the 100th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. These institutions became important to young women across the country, including Louisiana, as they built a foundation for an art career.

More than a century after the founding of these museums and academies, the National Museum of Women in the Arts (NMWA) opened its doors in our nation’s capital in 1996. Established to expand visitors’ understanding of global history “to include the creative legacy of women artists,” NMWA sets a high standard for excellence in artworks from the Renaissance to the present.

In the early nineteenth-century women artists often subjugated their identities in paintings or worked in collaboration with male family members. Watercolor painting was long accepted as a suitable endeavor for women, many of whom produced skillfully executed compositions. Responding to the luminescent effect of J.M.W. Turner’s (1775-1851) landscapes, the highly influential aesthetician John Ruskin (1819-1900) advocated the watercolor medium for its transparency, freedom of application, and proficiency in capturing ephemeral effects of light and moisture. Like its European counterpart, the American watercolor movement elevated watercolor to a higher art, and thus the art of many women.

In Louisiana, as in other parts of the nation, at a time when there were few opportunities to study art, women sometimes trained under their husbands’ tutelage or in private homes, usually with a female teacher. Opportunities finally opened in 1886 with the establishment of the Artists’ Association of New Orleans (AANO), where women studied art and exhibited their work alongside men. Two women who studied at the AANO made a moderate success of their membership, while a third, Marie Madeleine Seebold [Molinary] (1866-1948) served as an instructor.

Simultaneous with the founding of the Artists’ Association, the H. Sophie Newcomb Memorial College for Women was established, offering young women the opportunity to study art within a structured academic program. Newcomb’s School of Art provided greater opportunities to a sizable number of women. Inspired by the Arts and Crafts Movement in Victorian era Britain, promoted by Ruskin, and the founding of museums and art academies along the Eastern Seaboard, the Massachusetts-born brothers, William Woodward (18591939) and Ellsworth Woodward (1861-1939) established the Newcomb Pottery Enterprise in 1895. The tenets of the Arts and Crafts Movement were the use of well-crafted natural materials and simple designs inspired by nature reflecting the shape of the object. Under the resolute leadership of Mary Given Sheerer (1865-1964), the pottery enterprise developed an international reputation and provided numerous women with aesthetic satisfaction and a source of income.

Subsequently, with the establishment of the Arts and Crafts Club and its New Orleans School of Art in 1922, women studied and exhibited alongside male artists who were the luminaries of their day. The Club’s guiding principles paralleled the Arts and Crafts movement and introduced its students and the city to national and international trends in the fine and decorative arts.

Alberta Kinsey (1875-1952) served as an impetus for the establishment of the Club and its school, with the force of women of the local citizenry supporting the organization socially and financially. Kinsey taught children’s classes for a year before devoting herself to her painting career. Her artistic style, which evolved from representational art to non-objective art over the Club’s thirty-year existence, symbolizes the flowering of the arts for female and male artists. Other women artists who served as instructors at the Club include Caroline Durieux (1896-1989) and Angela Gregory (1903-1990).

In 1956 a small group of artists founded the Orleans Gallery, the city’s first cooperative art gallery. A non-profit, communityoriented gallery located in the French Quarter, its dual objective was for the exhibition and promotion of contemporary art in the city and to awaken the country to New Orleans as a thriving art and cultural center. Women shared equal status with men, and the gallery served as a forum for discussion and an exchange of ideas. Permanent artist-members included Shearly Grode (1925-2003), Lin Emery (1926-2021), Ida Kohlmeyer (1912-1997), and Mildred Wohl (1906-1977). Additionally, the gallery exhibited the works of students, guest artists, and artists of national and international renown like Pablo Picasso (1881-1973). The Orleans Gallery closed in 1972, but during its fourteen-year run it achieved many of its goals. It gave rise to a number of commercial art galleries opening in the city, with many of them owned and operated by women.

Throughout the past 130 years, women artists in Louisiana have faced innumerable challenges, but those having an association with Newcomb College, the Arts and Crafts Club, or the Orleans Gallery have enjoyed success in their art careers. Most have benefitted from intensive artistic training, especially at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts or the Art Students League. Conversely self-trained artists like Clementine Hunter (1887-1988) and Mississippi artist Theora Hamblett (1895-1977) painted successfully throughout their careers. Although Ashley Longshore’s (b.1975) bachelor’s degree is in literature, her pop culture paintings underscore her studies outside the classroom. This auction celebrates both the heritage and the promise of art by women.