Alice Schille : A Many Sided Genius / 20 Outstanding Watercolors by Keny Galleries

S I D E D

WAT ER COLO R S

G E N I U S

O UTSTAN D I N G

M A N Y

Alice Schille

MANY

SIDED

G ENIUS

20 O UTSTA ND IN G WAT ER CO LO R S

CURATOR

James Keny

M AY

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Alice Schille, ciica 1930 4

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Table of Contents 01

I NT RO DUCT IO N

T HE

PE RMAN E NT

BIO G RAPHY

C H EC KL IST

PAG E

O UTSTANDING

M INIATURE

WAT E R CO LO R S

CO L L ECT I O N S

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I N T R O D UCT IO N As we celebrate the galleries’ 40th Anniversary, it is particularly exciting to showcase a group of extraordinary watercolors by Alice Schille, a remarkable Ohio-born artist whose work has been featured at the gallery since it opened in 1980. Happily, over the last few decades, Schille has re-gained much of the critical acclaim she once commanded in the early years of the twentieth century. To borrow a recent quote from Kathleen Foster, the Curator of American Art of the Philadelphia Museum of Art and a leading scholar of the American watercolor movement: In (Schille’s) hands, watercolor demonstrated its utility as a modern medium and a medium for modernists. Her brave, distinctive, and inventive work won her critical praise, patronage, awards from many exhibition juries, and election to many artists’ societies. By 1920, at age fifty, Schille was easily the most versatile, accomplished, and progressive female watercolorist in the United States.

Today, such distinguished museums as the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Atlanta’s High Museum, the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, and the The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, own her work. And many other institutions throughout the country have acquired other examples. Exhibited in venues from New York to Los Angeles, Schille has re-emerged from the eclipse of traditional scholarship that often obscured the diverse achievements of women, regional figures and artists creating in alternative media. To quote Tara Keny, Curatorial Assistant at MoMA, and the co-curator and lead essayist for the recent Columbus Museum of Art exhibition, In a New Light; Alice Schille and the American Watercolor Movement:

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Schille’s work and lifetime of success expand our understanding of the development of watercolor, its relationship to the evolution of modernism in the United States, and the overlooked role that women artists played in that history. A consideration of Schille’s frequent and positive reception in the art and popular press, together with her relationship to her peers, re-establishes her as an important artist of her time, one whose contributions helped to shape the trajectory of twentieth century American art…. Alice Schille is an artist whose contributions merit inclusion once again in exhibitions and studies exploring the development of American modernism and the watercolor movement, and the fundamental role of women artists within both.

Schille was one of the finest American painters in watercolor of her generation… certainly the most superb woman specialist of her time … O’Keeffe … is the only other woman artist of Schille’s generation who significantly addressed watercolor painting in an innovative manner, but her most consequential involvement with the medium occurred in the few years of circa 1916-1920. Schille’s was lifelong. JA MES

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K EN Y

Introduction

This exhibition is dedicated to the memory of Dr. William H. Gerdts, the prominent scholar and tireless advocate of American art. Dr. Gerdts wrote a meticulously researched monograph on Schille in 2001 and his introductory essay for an exhibition at Coe Kerr Gallery in 1991 was pivotal in the re-discovery of Schille’s art. To quote:

Man with a Pipe, Holland 8

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Circa 1903

Man with a Pipe Holland

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Alice Schille: A Many Sided Genius — ‘20 Outsrandinmg Watercolors’

Dutch Interior with Mother and Children

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Circa 1903

Dutch Interior

with Mother and Children C IRCA

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Alice Schille: A Many Sided Genius — ‘20 Outsrandinmg Watercolors’

The Mirror Circa 1906

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The Mirror CIRCA 1 9 06

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Alice Schille: A Many Sided Genius — ‘20 Outsrandinmg Watercolors’

Two Children Circa 1908 14

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December 19, 1910 (Society goes to see water colors.) Review of the 8th Annual Philadelphia Water Color Exhibition and 8th Annual Miniature Exhibition, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts

Alice Schille: A Many Sided Genius — ‘20 Outsrandinmg Watercolors’

Two Children

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CIRCA 1908

“Alice Schille’s engaging studies of child-life will draw appreciable attention to her quiet angle of Gallery G. These pictures are the artless spontaneous output of one who knows children as they are, and cares for them. It is an understanding that cannot be counterfeited.” PUBLIC LEDGER, PHIL ADELPHIA , PA

A Gray Market CIRCA 1908

“To come back to the water color exhibit – two charming market scenes from Miss Schille’s brush attest to the facility with which she handles her vehicle. “A Gray Market” and “Idlers from the Market” are the subjects of these two pleasing works.” The Sunday Record Herald, Chicago, Ill. Exhibition of the Week Art Institute of Chicago’s Review of the 21st Annual Exhibition of Water Color Pastels and Miniatures by American Artists, May – June 1909

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Alice Schille: A Many Sided Genius — ‘20 Outsrandinmg Watercolors’

A Gray Market Circa 1908

The Market Begins Circa 1911-1912

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The Market Begins C IR CA

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“...The movement, as in The Market Begins, has a subtle, fascinating rhythm; the drawing is characteristically powerful; the color is vivacious without dropping into any abruptness of contrast…” “Her (Schille’s) people are alive, intelligent, highly individual. Her composition is suitable and special. Her color is at all times extremely melodious, vibrant with emotion…” EDNA M. OWNINGS

Augus 1913, Vol.1 The Art of Alice Schille, p.33 The International Studio

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Alice Schille: A Many Sided Genius — ‘20 Outsrandinmg Watercolors’

Wash Day Le Puy, France

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“The work of Alice Schille – a distinguished artist of Columbus, Ohio – is remarkable for the wonderful delicacy, taste and beauty… There is a refinement, an unusually fine color sense and general excellence of selection and treatment in each of them that are rarely to be found.” Baltimore Maryland News February 17, 1909

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Alice Schille: A Many Sided Genius — ‘20 Outsrandinmg Watercolors’

Wash Day, Le Puy, France Circa 1911-1912

Beach Scene Northern France C I RCA

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“Alice Schille’s broad, strong and well-characterized figures of women and children are too well known to need description, and she shows now also some picturesque landscapes and beach scenes, all good in color and virile in treatment…” American Art News March 6, 1915 Review of Exhibition at Arlington Galleries, New York

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Circa 1914

Alice Schille: A Many Sided Genius — ‘20 Outsrandinmg Watercolors’

Beach Scene, Northern France

Provence Circa 1914

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Provence C IR CA 1 9 1 4

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Alice Schille: A Many Sided Genius — ‘20 Outsrandinmg Watercolors’

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Joyous Color of the East Side C IRCA

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“Alice Schille always successful with the broad style as applied to small pictures, presented a truly remarkable work which is entitled A Colorful Street. This picture is full of life and action, inviting the eye to rove about in following its many little spots of color and interest….” FINE ARTS JOURNAL

..."For this viewer, depicting bustling New York, both as it is and as one idealizes it, is the acid test of contemporary sensibility in an early 20th-century painter, and Miss Schille passes it with, literally, flying colors.” THE NEW YORK TIMES

Sunday, September 4, 1988

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June-July 1916 Review of the 28th Annual Exhibition of Water Colors at the Art Institute of Chicago

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Circa 1915

Alice Schille: A Many Sided Genius — ‘20 Outsrandinmg Watercolors’

Joyous Color of the East Side

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Fishing Boats Gloucester

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Alice Schille: A Many Sided Genius — ‘20 Outsrandinmg Watercolors’

Fishing Boats, Gloucester

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Circa 1916-1918

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Circa 1919-1920

Ranchos de Taos

Adobe House in the Distance C IR CA

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“For a few days one alcove will be devoted to a display of fifteen watercolors by Alice Schille… A brilliant technical performance, each of them which visualizes for the observer the spirit of the moment and of the subject, the impression clarified by her sensitive and esthetic sensibility. They are mostly pictures of that fine mass of adobe structure, Ranchos de Taos church, seen from various angles and under various conditions of light and shade…” SANTE FE NEW MEXICAN Sept. 5, 1920 Review of Schille exhibition at Museum of New Mexico

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Alice Schille: A Many Sided Genius — ‘20 Outsrandinmg Watercolors’

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The Blue Door Tunis 1 9 2 2

“And now we have her impressions of Morocco … There is no lessening in Alice Schille’s modernity, but there is a new freedom and confidence … There is design and color and meaning. There is significance in all of Alice Schille’s work. She is undoubtedly one of the best of America’s women painters.” Chicago Herald Examiner April, 1923 Review of the 3rd Annual International Watercolor Exhibition, Art Institute of Chicago

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Circa 1922

Alice Schille: A Many Sided Genius — ‘20 Outsrandinmg Watercolors’

The Blue Door, Tunis

Water Carrier, Tunis

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1922

Water Carrier Tunis

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Alice Schille: A Many Sided Genius — ‘20 Outsrandinmg Watercolors’

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The Road-Vernet les Bains Pyrenees, Orientales France 1 92 8

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Alice Schille: A Many Sided Genius — ‘20 Outsrandinmg Water-

The Road-Vernet les Bains Pyrenees, Orientales, France

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Circa 1928

The Garden Door Circa 1920-1925

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The Garden Door CIR CA

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Alice Schille: A Many Sided Genius — ‘20 Outsrandinmg Watercolors’

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Fiesta

New Mexico C I R CA

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Alice Schille: A Many Sided Genius — ‘20 Outsrandinmg Watercolors’

Fiesta, New Mexico Circa 1925-1930

The Green Hat, New Mexico Circa 1930-1935

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The Green Hat New Mexico

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Alice Schille: A Many Sided Genius — ‘20 Outsrandinmg Watercolors’

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Guatemalan Mother and Child CIRCA

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Alice Schille: A Many Sided Genius — ‘20 Outsrandinmg Watercolors’

Guatemalan Mother and Child

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Circa 1935

New England Harbor Circa 1930-1935

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New England Harbor C IR CA

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Alice Schille: A Many Sided Genius — ‘20 Outsrandinmg Watercolors’

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The Miniature Watercolors ‘Alice Schille’s Miniatures are among her most notable contributions to the history of American art. While these preciously small paintings, typically measure around 4 x 5 inches, are related to the revival of American miniature paintings in the 1890’s, they stand out because Schille’s focus was not on portraiture, but even more importantly, becasue she brought a distinctly modernist sensibility to the medium. As William Gerdts observed, “Arthur Dove may be the only other significant modernist of Schille’s generation to produce a substantial body of work on this reduced scale.” “Gems of Modernist Brevity: Alice Schille Watercolor Miniatures,” on view now at the Canton Museum of Art through May 8 is a colorful collection of eloquently painted small paintings by this Columbus, Ohio native. Alice Schille (1869-1955) created her miniature watercolors in a variety of locations – from France and England to North Africa, Guatemala and Santa Fe, New Mexico. The works range in style from Impressionism to Post Impressionism to Cubism. Schille painted them during her travels, which began in her youth as as after her studies and continued every summer during 40 years of teaching at the Columbus Art School (now Columbus College of Art and Design or CCAD)…. The grouping of works chosen for this exhibit is full of impressions of people and places put down on paper by a skilled hand. There is a visceral sense of the energy of the moment this artist found themselves in while painting each scene and that helps to make the compositions included in the exhibition feel more timeless … Schille was clearly a skilled painter, who often used a minimal amount of paint, but did so with enough precision to get her point across, while at the same time leaving enough movement in the brush and pencil marks that the energy and movement of the moment was not lost but retained through her forms and choices of color … Artists work in a variety of formats and media. They choose the formats because of a message they might want to convey or because a certain size might speak to them. Schille was an internationally known miniaturist. She too her format seriously, and her decades of artistic research continue to stand up to the test of time.” “Nothing small about impact of Ohio native’s miniature paintings” Anderson Turner For the Akron Beacon Journal Posted January 4, 2020 Updated January 5, 2020 WWW. KE N YG A L L E RI E S .CO M

William H. Robinson Senior Curator of American Art The Cleveland Museum of Art

1914

‘ITALIAN STREET SCENE’

‘LETTUCE MARKET, PHILADELPHIA’

Circa 1914

Circa 1917 - 1918

‘SUNLIT TREES’

‘IN THE STREETS OF

‘DUSK, OAXACO’

Circa 1920 - 1925

MEXICO, NO.1’

Circa 1934

Circa 1923

‘MOTHER AND CHILD IN ARCHWAY, MEXICO’

‘FRENCH MARKET’

Circa 1923

Circa 1914

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The Miniature Watercolors

‘THE WHITE BRIDGE’

Permanent Collections CANTON ART MUSEUM, OHIO

COLBY MUSEUM OF ART, WATERVILLE, MAINE

COLUMBUS MUSEUM OF ART, OHIO

EL PASO MUSEUM OF ART, TEXAS

THE FINE ARTS MUSEUMS OF SAN FRANCISCO ACHENBACH FOUNDATION FOR GRAPHIC ARTS

HIGH MUSEUM OF ART, ATLANTA INDIANAPOLIS MUSEUM OF ART MARION KOOGLER MCNAY ART MUSEUM, SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS

METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART, NEW YORK

Permanent Collections

MUSKEGON MUSEUM OF ART, MICHIGAN THE OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY, COLUMBUS PE N N SYLVA N I A ACA D E M Y O F T H E F I N E A RTS , PH I L A D E L PH I A

PHILADELPHIA MUSEUM OF ART

SCHUMACHER GALLERY, CAPITAL UNIVERSITY, COLUMBUS , OHIO

SPRINGFIELD MUSEUM OF ART, OHIO ZANESVILLE ART CENTER, OHIO

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Alice Schille

Considered one of America’s leading watercolorists, Columbus, Ohio native Alice Schille earned international recognition, including top prizes from arts institutions in San Francisco, New York, Washington and Chicago for her fine Impressionist and Post Impressionist watercolors of street scenes, beaches, markets and children. William Robinson, Curator of the Cleveland Museum of Art, wrote, “In retrospect, Schille was clearly one of the earliest American artists to assimilate European modernism and to bring its influence to the United States. She discovered and understood the new movement at a profound level…Above all, Schille developed her own highly original, personal style that is at once lyrical and powerful, sophisticated in technique and formal design, spare yet richly orchestrated.” Graduating from the Columbus Art School (which later became the Columbus College of Art and Design) at the top of her class in 1893, Schille continued her studies in New York and Paris. In 1904, five of her paintings were accepted for exhibition at Société Nationale des Beaux Arts, and from that time on her work was included regularly in important American annual exhibitions. Schille returned to Columbus and began what was to become a lifelong career in education, teaching watercolor and portrait painting at her alma mater for 40 years. Traveling each summer to paint,

her unique style expanded to reflect what she had absorbed while in England, Germany, France, Spain, Holland, Yugoslavia, North Africa, Mexico, New Mexico, Guatemala, Norway, Turkey, Greece and Belgium. In 1915, she won a gold medal for her watercolors at the International Panama-Pacific Exposition in San Francisco in competition with the finest artists in the United States and abroad.

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Biography

(American, 1869-1955)

Checklist

1. MAN WITH PIPE

c. 1903-1905 24 x 12 inches 2. DUTCH INTERIOR

c. 1903 19 3/8 x 23 1/4 inches

3. THE MIRROR

c. 1906 20 1/2 x 16 inches 4. TWO CHILDREN

c.1908 20 7/8 x 17 inches 5. A GRAY MARKET

c. 1908 10 1/2 x 14 1/2 inches

6. THE MARKET BEGINS

c. 1911-1912 20 x 24 inches 7. WA S H DAY, L E PUY, F R A N C E

c. 1911-1912 14 1/2 x 19 1/2 inches

8. BEACH SCENE, NORTHERN FRANCE

c. 1914 18 x 21 inches 9. PROVENCE

c. 1914 17 1/2 x 20 1/2 inches 10. JOYOUS COLOR OF THE EAST SIDE

1915 24 x 20 inches

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11. FISHING BOATS , GLOUCESTER

c. 1916-1918 18 x 21 inches 12. RANCHOS DE TAOS , ADOBE HOUSE IN THE DISTANCE

c. 1919-1920 18 x 21 inches 13. THE BLUE DOOR, TUNIS

c. 1922 inches 14 . WATER CARRIER, TUNIS

1922 17 1/2 x 20 1/2 inches 15. THE ROAD -VERNET LES BAINS, PYRENEES, ORIENTALES , FRANCE

c. 1928 / 23 1/2 x 19 1/2 inches

Miniature Watercolors

16. THE GARDEN DOOR

c. 1920-1925 20 7/8 x 17 3/8 inches

THE WHITE BRIDGE 1 7. F I E STA , N EW M EXI CO

c. 1914 5 x 6 inches

c. 1925-1930 17 3/4 x 20 1/4 inches

FRENCH MARKET

c. 1914 4 3/4 x 5 1/2 inches

18. THE GREEN HAT, NEW MEXICO

c. 1930-1935 15 x 20 inches

ITALIAN STREET SCENE

19. GUATEMALAN MOTHER AND CHILD

20. NEW ENGLAND HARBOR

c. 1930-1935 17 3/4 x 20 3/4 inches

LETTUCE MARKET, PHILADELPHIA

c. 1917-1918 4 1/2 x 5 1/2 inches SUNLIT TREES

c. 1920-1925 4 3/4 x 5 3/4 inches MOTHER AND CHILD IN ARCHWAY, MEXICO

c. 1923 4 5/8 x 5 3/4 inches IN THE STREETS OF NEW MEXICO, NO.1

c. 1923 5 3/4 x 4 3/4 inches DUSK, OAXACO

c. 1934 5 1/8 x 6 1/8 inches

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Artwork Checklist

c. 1935 17 3/4 x 19 inches

c. 1914 5 3/8 x 4 1/2 inches

OUTSTA N D I NG

M A N Y

S I D E D

G E N I U S

WAT ER CO LO R S

300 E AST BECK ST R E E T COLU MBU S, O H , 43206 P: (614) 464. 1 228 IN FO@ KEN YGAL L ERI E S. COM