The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1908-09-07

to make a bust of William Jenning
Bryan, the Democratic nominee TO
President. When she finishes this worl
she will return to Honolulu. Tn,
Omaha Sunday World Herald of Angus
% has the following concerning Mrs
Couzens:
Mrs. Virginia Couzens, who has come
all the way from Holland, where she
on important commissions, to do bust
of Bryan, is the only woman sculptor
Nebraska boasts. Mrs Couzens has an
international reputation because of he1
bust portraits of children, which have
won for her place in the foremost
ranks of sculptors and artists. She is
also known both in New York and
abroad as one of the most talented OF
miniature painters, having painted
miniatures of many of the prominent
society women of New York and Paris.
Mrs. Couzens is a Nebraska woman
coming from Virginia when four years
old, her family having been among the
Nebraska pioneers in Pierce county.
/
woman county superintendent of
schools in the state, and her father was
closely associated with state politics
during his life in Nebraska. Her
grandfather, Robert Lucas, was the
first territorial governor of Iowa, and
her uncle, Samuel ]. Kirkwood, was
war governor of the same state. Sam
Houston was her great-uncle on her
mothers side, and Charles Sumner was
great-uncle on her fathers side of
the family. With this line of brilliant
ancestry on both sides, Mrs. Couzens
could hardly hope to escape the clever
ness and brillianey which have made
her noted in both society and artistic
circles at home and abroad.
Mrs. Couzens was pupil first of 70
nav and later of st. Gaudens, both of
whom welcomed her into the ranks of
rising young artists, with the JOY of
the real artist at discovering a kindred
soul So keen was her ambition to
study art, that when opposed by her
family, who objected to a young woman
leaving family and friends for study
abroad, she determined to make her
own way and to owe her success TO no
one but herself.
She paid for her own education by
her own efforts, and rose up the ladder
steadily, until she obtained recognition
from artists who had already "arriv.
ed' and who were glad to welcome
this enthusiastic, bronzed-haired little
lady in their midst.
NEBRASKA is getting to have a rep
utation Abroad said ST. Gaudens
when he met tourist from this state.
"There IS Borglum and there's little
woman from Nebraska who IS going to
startle the world some day with her
original ideas and clear conception of
art in her work.
Mrs Couzens has a studio in Paris,
one in New York and one in Homo
lulu, where she spent several years
studying among the natives of that
beautiful island. Some of her models
of the Hawaiians have been greatly
admired bv severe critics. who too of
ten lose the thought of the artist IN
their condemnation of trivial faults in
outline. Mrs. Couzens has painted
miniatures of Princess Kawananakoa
and made the famous miniature por-
trait bust of little Prince Kalakaua,
which won her much renown. She also
painted Mrs Sam Damon, who is really
the queen of the islands.
Perhaps the most widely admired of
her busts is that of Thunder Cloud,
Blackfoot Indian, who posed for Mrs
Couzens for several years. This bust, I
which is said to be one of the finest
conceptions of the Indian character
ever produced, has been widely photo
graphed and copied.
Success and the adulation of famous ,
artists have not turned the head OF |
Mrs. Couzens. who takes time every |
wear to visit her home in Nebraska and |
who is still the same unaffected charm |
ing parsonage she was in the years
when she defed her cautioning friends |
who attempted to dissuade her from |
the trials of the life of an artist.
s'I love my work and | am glad that |
II is recognized.' said Mrs. Couzens, |
who is now visiting friends in Omaha, |
81 but after all, the one accomplishment
7 am proudest of is my ability to cook.
When | am through with my paints and
NV CLAW. l love to put on a big apron |
and putter around with my pots and
pans and cook a delicious little din i
ner.'
Sometimes a few fortunate of her |
friends receive an invitation to one |
of these dinners. With a couple of /
copper cooking pots, a tiny alcohol
stove and spoon and fork, Mrs.
Couzens bushes herself with. her cook
ing. Then a charmingly flushed little /
hostess. with her glorious hair in
halo about her brow and with her
kindly blue eyes sparkling with happi-
ness. dishes up a chicken curry that
could not be duplicated in a hundred
years. except by herself. In every
country she visits she learns the dishes.
and is able to offer you the national
dish of France with pretty French
phrase. or the Italian spaghetti with
a droll italian word or two.
Mrs. Couzens obtains her sittings in
a peculiar way. When she consents to
model bust or paint miniature
and she refuses a commission unless
the face strikes her fancy as worth re-
producing-she simply watches the sit
ter at work or at play. She condemns
hot no tr,Va |