The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1889-12-08
NEUTRALITY-SUSPICIOUS.
IN TIE STUDIOS OF A FEW WHO
ARE WINNING NAMES.

l
Amanda Brewster sewell, Mar ia R
Dixon, Agnes D. Abbatt, and Others
Who Weld the Palette Knife and
Brushes.
New YORK, Dec. 1T Is probable that
there viii be in future regular exhibitions
each winter of the work of women painters
in New York, which will bring out in
greater prominence tho strength of the art
work now being done by women. Women
in every profession are following the fashion
OF the day in organizing, and one of the
newest clubs is a club of women artists
which is not yet old enough to have re-
ceived a name, but which in its unchristened
babyhood already includes some two dozen
OF the best known workers, and will hold
its first exhibition, which is awaited as one
of the art events of the winter, in two or
three months time
Maria Brooks is one of the most vigorous
| painters among women. She is not an
! American, though she has had the good taste
let us say-to open q studio in New York,
| spending her winters here and returning in
| the summer to England. Miss Brooks has
| slight figure and serious, thoughtful, in
| tellectual face, somewhat suggesting the
best type of the New England school
teacher. She paints picture that is virile
| monious in coloring. Her early life
was spent in England and she was
painter when little more than a
child. She was a student at the South
Kensington art school and took a gold
medal for her work in design, painting at
this time. if | am not mistaken, a fan
mount for the queen. She was an indie
fakSr - g. =
O'Clock In the morning and devoting her.
self TO her brush all day. At the end of
this time she had six pictures well hung In
the Royal Academy, and thenceforward
exhibited there regularly for fourteen years.
Her work came into demand and she
had commissions for portraits from many
prominent people. Canadian admirers in
vited her to Montreal, and when she visited
that city receptions were given in her honor
by Sir William and Lady Dawson, and
special exhibition of her works was held.
From Canada she came to New York and
has made this city her home for three or
four years. though the deaths of members
Of her family calling for long visit to
England, together with an accident from
which she has not yet fully recovered, have
considerably reduced the actual working
time. She continues to exhibit abroad.
Miss Brooks has a large studio in the
Sherwood building, full of interesting can
vases. tapestry-hung and rug-strewn, where
small green paroquet perches on her finger
surveying the world from that vantage
ground. The first picture which she painted
in New York was half-length Of the Rev.
DIR. Huntington, of Grace church, and she
has since painted the Rev. DR.. Morgan Dix
in full canonlcals. Two of the eleven oils
attributed to women in the fall exhibition of
American paintings at the Fifth avenue art
galleries were from her brush. One of these,
which she calls down Piccadilly," is a bus
load of female Britons returning from Co
vent Garden with baskets of flowers. Ii is a
large canvas, treated with realistic force and
directness, and the types are admirable.
"Wayfarers' is a large picture now in her
studio which his never been exhibited in
the city. 1t shows a group of wanderers at
rest on moor, and its breadth of treatment.
strength and simplicity are very interest
ing. Gun Desir" is one of the most bea uti-
full things Miss Brooks has ever done. 1t is
the head of a girl in blue draperies, and
there is a world of aspiration in the eyes.
1t was painted, l think, from the artists
maid.
THE Dodge prize" for the best work in
the spring exhibition of the National
Academy, painted in the United States by
woman, has been awarded three times.
This year it went to Mrs. Ella Condie Lamb,
in 1888 to Miss Amanda Brewster, now
Mrs. R. v V. Sewell, for a portrait of
Dora Wheeler, and the year before that to
Mary Curtis Richardson. Mrs. Sewell
works with her husband, Mr.. Robert Van
Worst Sewell, the artist, in studio in West
Fiftieth street She has face of singular
sweetness. earnestness and womanly charm,
and paints q strong portrait, while her
work in genre is intellectual and poetic in
theme Mrs. Sewell was born in New
York and studied short time at the
A
ing three years in Paris at the Julien
Academy. She has exhibited several
times at the salon since her re-
turn. Mrs. Sewell has shown several
pictures from Dutch subjects, but one of
the finest things she has done is her "Mother
and Son" in the present exhibition at the
National academy, which has been pro-
nounced one Of the most satisfactory things
III the display. The costume of the mother
is simple and picturesque, and was designed
Mrs. Sewell says, by her sitter. She is row
at work on a figure piece for the spring ex-
hibition, showing maidens on their way to
offer flowers and fruits at the temple of
Ceres, the fine composition and harmonious
coloring of which are noteworthy. The
girls have thrown themselves on the
ground, while lad is piping to them, and
the draperies fall back from their round
arms. Mrs. Sewell is young woman, still
under 80, and her art work gains in strength
and maturity every year.
There are many of these artist marriages.
other notable examples being Mr.. and Mrs.
Frederick r. Lamb and Mr.. and Mrs.
Henry A. Loop. Mrs. Lamb is better
known as Ella Coudie Lamb, whose picture.
"An Advent Angel" took the Dodge prize
last spring and whose work marks her out
as possessed of serious aims and ideals Her
Head of an Indian Boyn at the Fifth
avenue galleries this fall was marked by
characteristic fidelity. 1t might we'll have
been portrait, the lineaments, color, hair
and expression being essentially Indian
Mr. and Mrs. Loop are now at Los Angeles.
but are expected in New York in the spring.
Mrs. Loop is one of the two women painters
who are associate academicians, the other
being Miss Fidelia Bridges. No woman has
been made an academician, and the Amer
lean Water Color Society has admitted few
women, Miss Bridges, Mrs. Rhoda Holmes
Nichols, Miss Agnes d. Abbatt, and Mrs.
George H. Smillie being the names which
occur to me.
The year of Mrs. Sewelrs success the
New York Herald said that "the Dodge
prize" should go to NJ. r. Dixon for charm
ing female figure called ''Reverie" This
non-committal signature has appeared on
much clever work in the last eight or nine
years, work broad and simple in its tech
nique, and oftener than not attributed to q
man. Mrs. Dixon has her studio at her
home in Brooklyn, and is a figure painter of
al ability upJ,tlxv