Dorothea Gilder papers regarding Cecilia Beaux
name: label: Creator
content: Gilder, Dorothea
label: Names
content: Beaux, Cecilia, 1855-1942
topic: label: Occupation
content: Collectors -- New York (State) -- New York
label: Occupation
content: Painters -- Pennsylvania -- Philadelphia
label: Topic
content: Art -- Collectors and collecting
label: Topic
content: Painting
label: Topic
content: Women artists
label: Topic
content: Women painters
acqinfo: label: Provenance
content: The papers were donated by Helena Newman, Dorothea Gilder's daughter, in two separate accessions in 1971 and 1978.
creator: label: Creator
content: Gilder, Dorothea
setName: label: See more items in
content: Dorothea Gilder papers regarding Cecilia Beaux
abstract: label: Summary
content: The Dorothea Gilder papers regarding Cecilia Beaux date from 1897 to 1920 and include correspondence between Beaux and Gilder, scattered printed materials, and two photographs of Beaux with Gilder and other friends. The papers are comprised primarily of correspondence between Cecilia Beaux and her close, life-long friend and intimate companion Dorothea Gilder between 1897 and 1920. The letters recount daily activities, travels, work, social life, attitudes, and aspects of their intimate relationship.
bioghist: label: Biographical Note
content: Dorothea Gilder was born in 1882 to socially prominent parents Richard Watson Gilder, a poet and publisher of Century Magazine, and Helena De Kay Gilder, an artist who had studied with Albert Pinkham Ryder and John La Farge, and who helped to found the Art Students League and the Society of American Artists. Painter Cecilia Beaux enjoyed a close friendship with the New York family from the mid 1890s until the end of her life. They travelled together in France in 1896, where Beaux had gone to see her paintings hung at the Paris salon. In her memoir, Background with Figures, Beaux describes extended visits at the Gilder's summer farm in Tyringham, Massachusetts, where the Gilders set up a studio for her in a tobacco barn, in which she painted Dorothea and Francesca, a.k.a. The Dancing Lesson (1899). She also attended the Gilders' private salon in New York, frequented by prominent artists, writers, musicians, and actors including Mark Twain and Walt Whitman.

Dorothea Gilder was a favorite portrait subject of Beaux's, sitting for numerous sketches and several major paintings, including Dorothea and Francesca, Dorothea in the Woods (1897), and After the Meeting (1914). Letters between Beaux and Dorothea Gilder contain constant references to their intimite, often physical affection for one another, and suggest a romantic relationship between them. In 1911, Gilder began what was to be a brief stage career under the name of Dorothea Coleman. In 1916, she married Dallas D.L. McGrew, a New York architect who had designed Beaux's summer home in Gloucester, Massachusetts and who had recently returned from the ambulance service in France. She had a child, Helena Gilder McGrew in 1917, and died in 1920 at the age of 38.
physdesc: label: Extent
content: 0.6 Linear Feet
unitdate: label: Date
content: 1897-1920
dataSource: label: Archival Repository
content: Archives of American Art
identifier: label: Identifier
content: AAA.gilddoro
objectType: label: Type
content: Collection descriptions
label: Type
content: Archival materials
label: Type
content: Photographs
arrangement: label: Arrangement
content: The collection is arranged into 3 series:

Series 1: Correspondence, 1897-1920 (Boxes 1-2; 0.6 linear feet)

Series 2: Printed Material, 1897-1910 (Box 2; 2 folders)

Series 3: Photograph, undated (Box 2; 1 item)
processinfo: label: Processing Information
content: The collection was microfilmed upon accession on microfilm reels 600 and 2786. Papers were merged and re-processed and described in this finding aid by Megan McShea in 2006 and digitized in 2007 as part of the Terra Foundation for American Art Digitization Project.
altformavail: label: Alternative Forms Available
content: The papers of Dorothea Gilder in the Archives of American Art were digitized in 2007, and total 1093 images.
genre_format: label: Genre/Form
content: Photographs
scopecontent: label: Scope and Content Note
content: The Dorothea Gilder papers regarding Cecilia Beaux date from 1897 to 1920 and include correspondence between Beaux and Gilder, scattered printed materials, a photograph of Beaux with Gilder, and a photograph of the two with other friends. The papers are comprised primarily of correspondence between Cecilia Beaux and her close, life-long friend and intimate companion Dorothea Gilder between 1897 and 1920. The letters recount daily activities, travels, work, social life, attitudes, and aspects of their intimate relationship. Also found is scattered third party correspondence. Two folders of printed materials include newspaper reviews of Beaux's 1903 exhibition, and four exhibition catalogs, several of which are not found in the papers of Cecilia Beaux. The photograph is a single snapshot of Beaux with Gilder. One additional photograph of Beaux, Gilder, and friends is found attached to a 1906 letter.
relatedmaterial: label: Related Material
content: The Archives of American Art holds the papers of Cecilia Beaux, as well as an oral history with Rosamund Gilder, Dorothea Gilder's sister and a prominent theater critic.