Women in the fine arts, from the Seventh Century B.C. to the Twentieth Century A.D Part 36

RHODA HOLMES NICHOLS]

Mrs. Nicholls is also known as an ill.u.s.trator. Harold Payne says of her: "Rhoda Holmes Nicholls, although an ill.u.s.trator of the highest order, cannot be strictly cla.s.sed as one, for the reason that she is equally great in every other branch of art. However, as many of her best examples of water-colors are ultimately reproduced for ill.u.s.trative purposes, and as even her oil paintings frequently find their way into the pages of art publications, it is not wrong to denominate her as an ill.u.s.trator, and that of the most varied and prolific type. She may, like most artists, have a specialty, but a walk through her studio and a critical examination of her work--ranging all along the line of oil paintings, water-colors of the most exquisite type, wash drawings, crayons, and pastels--would scarcely result in discovering her specialty.... As a colorist she has few rivals, and her acute knowledge of drawing and genius for composition are apparent in everything she does."

NICHOLS, CATHERINE MAUDE, R. E. The pictures of this artist have been hung on the line at the Royal Academy exhibitions a dozen times at least. From Munich she has received an official letter thanking her for sending her works to exhibitions in that city. Fellow of the Royal Painter-Etchers' Society; president of the Woodp.e.c.k.e.r Art Club, Norwich; Member of Norwich Art Circle and of a Miniature Painters' Society and the Green Park Club, London. Born in Norwich. Self-taught. Has worked in the open at Barbizon, in Normandy, in Cornwall, Devon, London, and all around the east coast of Norfolk.

Miss Nichols has held three exhibitions of her pictures both in oil and water-colors in London. She has executed more than a hundred copper plates, chiefly dry-points. The pictures in oils and water-colors, the miniatures and the proofs of her works have found purchasers, almost without exception, and are in private hands. Most of the plates she has retained.

Miss Nichols has ill.u.s.trated some books, her own poems being of the number, as well as her "Old Norwich." She has also made ill.u.s.trations for journals and magazines.

One is impressed most agreeably with the absence of mannerism in Miss Nichols' work, as well as with the p.r.o.nounced artistic treatment of her subjects. Her sketches of sea and river scenery are attractive; the views from her home county, Norfolk, have a delightful feeling about them.

"Norwich River at Evening" is not only a charming picture, but shows, in its perspective and its values, the hand of a skilful artist. "Mousehold Heath," showing a rough and broken country, is one of her strongest pictures in oils; "Stretching to the Sea" is also excellent. Among the water-colors "Strangers' Hall," Norwich, and "Fleeting Clouds," merit attention, as do a number of others. One could rarely see so many works, with such varied subjects, treated in oils, water-colors, dry point, etc., by the same artist.

I quote the following paragraph from the _Studio_ of April, 1903: "Miss C. M. Nichols is an artist of unquestionable talent, and her work in the various mediums she employs deserves careful attention. She paints well both in water-colors and in oil, and her etchings are among the best that the lady artists of our time have produced. Her drawing is good, her observation is close and accurate, and she shows year by year an improvement in design. Miss Nichols was for several years the only lady fellow of the Royal Society of Painter-Etchers."

Her "Brancaster Staithe" and "Fir Trees, Crown Point," dry points, are in the Norwich Art Gallery, presented by Sir Seymour Haden, president of the Royal Society of Painter-Etchers. Two of her works, a large oil painting of "Earlham" and a water-color of "Strangers' Hall," have been purchased by subscription and presented to the Norwich Castle Art Gallery.

NICOLAU Y PARODY, TERESA. Member of the Academy of San Fernando and of the Academy of San Carlos of Valencia. This artist, who was born in Madrid, early showed an enthusiasm for painting, which she at first practised in various styles, but gradually devoted herself entirely to miniature. She has contributed to many public exhibitions, and has received many prizes and honorable mentions, as well as praise from the critics. Among her portraits are those of Isabel de Braganza, Was.h.i.+ngton, Mme. de Montespan, Mme. Dubarry, Queen Margaret of Austria, and Don Carlos, son of Philip II. Her other works include a "Magdalen in the Desert," "Laura and Petrarch," "Joseph with the Christ-Child," "Francis I. at the Battle of Pavia," and many good copies after celebrated painters.

NIEDERHaUSEN, MLLE. SOPHIE. Medal at the Swiss National Exposition, 1896. Member of the Exposition permanente de l'Athenee, Geneva. Born at Geneva. Pupil of Professor Wymann and M. Albert Gos, and of M. and Mme.

Demont-Breton in France.

Mlle. Niederhausen paints landscapes princ.i.p.ally, and has taken her subjects from the environs of Geneva, in the Valais, and in Pas-de-Calais, France.

Her picture, called the "Bord du Lac de Geneve," was purchased by the city and is in the Rath Museum. She also paints flowers, and uses water-colors as well as oils.

n.o.bILI, ELENA. Silver medal at the Beatrice Exposition, Florence, 1890. Born in Florence, where she resides. She is most successful in figure subjects. She is sympathetic in her treatment of them and is able to impart to her works a sentiment which appeals to the observer. Among her pictures are "Reietti," "The Good-Natured One," "September," "In the Country," "Music," and "Contrasts."

NORMAND, MRS. ERNEST--HENRIETTA RAE. Medals in Paris and at Chicago Exposition, 1893. Born in London, 1859. Daughter of T. B. Rae, Esquire.

Married the artist, Ernest Normand, 1884. Pupil of Queen's Square School of Art, Heatherley's, British Museum, and Royal Academy Schools. Began the study of art at the age of thirteen. First exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1880, and has sent important pictures there annually since that time.

Mrs. Normand executed decorative frescoes in the Royal Exchange, London, the subject being "Sir Richard Whittington and His Charities."

In the past ten years she has exhibited "Mariana," 1893; "Psyche at the Throne of Venus," 1894; "Apollo and Daphne," 1895; "Summer," 1896; "Isabella," 1897; "Diana and Calisto," 1899; "Portrait of Marquis of Dufferin and Ava," 1901; "Lady Winifred Renshaw and Son," and the "Sirens," 1903, which is a picture of three nude enchantresses, on a sandy sh.o.r.e, watching a distant galley among rocky islets.

[_No reply to circular_.]

NOURSE, ELIZABETH. Medal at Chicago Exposition, 1903; Nashville Exposition, 1897; Carthage Inst.i.tute, Tunis, 1897; elected a.s.sociate of the Beaux-Arts, Paris, 1895; silver medal, Paris Exposition, 1900; elected Societaire des Beaux-Arts, 1901. Born in Cincinnati, Ohio, where she began her studies, later going to the Julian Academy, under Boulanger and Lefebvre, and afterward studying with Carolus Duran and Henner. This artist idealizes the subjects of every-day, practical life, and gives them a poetic quality which is an uncommon and delightful attainment.

At the Salon des Beaux-Arts, 1902, Miss Nourse exhibited "The Children,"

"Evening Toilet of the Baby," "In the Shade at Pen'march," "Brother and Sister at Pen'march," "The Madeleine Chapel at Pen'march." In 1903, "Our Lady of Joy, Pen'march," "Around the Cradle," "The Little Sister," and "A Breton Interior."

[_No reply to circular_.]

OAKLEY, VIOLET. Member of Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Philadelphia Water-Color Club, Plastic Club, Philadelphia. Born in New Jersey, but has lived in New York, where she studied at the Art Students' League under Carroll Beckwith. Pupil of Collin and Aman-Jean in Paris and Charles Lasar in England; also in Philadelphia of Joseph de Camp, Henry Thouron, Cecilia Beaux, and Howard Pyle.

Miss Oakley has executed mural decorations, a mosaic reredos, and five stained-gla.s.s windows in the Church of All Saints, New York City, and a window in the Convent of the Holy Child, at Sharon Hill, Pennsylvania.

In the summer of 1903 she was commissioned to decorate the walls of the Governor's reception room in the new Capitol at Harrisburg. Before engaging in this work--the first of its kind to be confided to an American woman--Miss Oakley went to Italy to study mural painting. She then went to England to thoroughly inform herself concerning the historical foundation of her subject, the history of the earliest days of Pennsylvania. At Oxford and in London she found what she required, and on her return to America established herself in a studio in Villa Nova, Pennsylvania, to make her designs for "The Romance of the Founding of the State," which is to be painted on a frieze five feet deep. The room is seventy by thirty feet, and sixteen feet in height.

The decoration of this Capitol is to be more elaborate and costly than that of any other public edifice in the United States. In mural decoration Miss Oakley will be a.s.sociated with Edwin A. Abbey, but the Governor's room is to be her work entirely, and will doubtless occupy her during several years.

Mr Charles A. Caffin, in his article upon the exhibition of the New York Water-Color Club, January, 1904, says: "Miss Oakley has had considerable experience in designing stained-gla.s.s windows, and has reproduced in some of her designs for book covers a corresponding treatment of the composition, with an attempt, not very logical or desirable, considering the differences between paint and gla.s.s, to reproduce also something of her window color schemes.... But for myself, her cover, in which some girls are picking flowers, is far more charming in its easy grace of composition, choice gravity of color, and spontaneity of feeling. Here is revealed a very _nave_ imagination, free of any obsessions."

OCCIONI, SIGNORA LUCILLA MARZOLO. Diploma of gold medal at the Women's Exhibition, Earl's Court, London, 1900. Born in Trieste. Pupil, in Rome, of Professor Giuseppe Ferrari.

This artist paints figure subjects, portraits, landscapes, and flowers, in both oils and water-colors, and also makes pen-drawings. Her works are in many private galleries. She gives me no list of subjects. Her pictures have been praised by critics.

O'CONNELL, FREDERIQUE EMILIE AUGUSTE MIETHE. Born in Potsdam.

1823-1885. She pa.s.sed her early life in her native city, having all the advantages of a solid and brilliant education. She early exhibited a love of drawing and devoted herself to the study of anatomical plates. She soon designed original subjects and introduced persons of her own imagination, which early marked her as powerful in her fancy and original in her manner of rendering her ideas.

A picture of "Raphael and the Fornarina," which she executed at the age of fifteen, was so satisfactory as to determine her fate, and she was allowed to study art.

When about eighteen years old she became the pupil of Charles Joseph Begas, a very celebrated artist of Berlin. Under his supervision she painted her first picture, called the "Day of the Dupes," which, though full of faults, had also virtues enough to secure much attention in the exhibition. It was first hung in a disadvantageous position, but the crowd discovered its merits and would have it noticed. She received a complimentary letter from the Academy of Berlin, and the venerable artist Cornelius made her a visit of congratulation.

About 1844 she married and removed to Brussels. Here she came into an entirely new atmosphere and her manner of painting was changed. She sought to free herself from all outer influence and to express her own feeling. She studied color especially, and became an imitator of Rubens.

She gained in Brussels all the medals of the Belgian expositions, and there began two historical pictures, "Peter the Great and Catherine" and "Maria Theresa and Frederick the Great." These were not finished until after her removal to Paris in 1853. They were bought by Prince Demidoff for the Russian Government.

She obtained her first triumph in Paris, at the Salon of 1853, by a portrait of Rachel. She represented the famous actress dressed entirely in white, with the worn expression which her professional exertions and the fatal malady from which she was already suffering had given to her remarkable face. The critics had no words for this portrait which were not words of praise, and two years later, in 1855, Madame O'Connell reached the height of her talent. "A Faunesse," as it was called, in the exposition of that year, was a remarkable work, and thus described by Barty:

"A strong and beautiful young woman was seated near a spring, where beneath the shade of the chestnut trees the water lilies spread themselves out upon the stream which flowed forth. She was nude and her flesh palpitated beneath the caresses of the sun. With feminine caprice she wore a bracelet of pearls of the style of the gold workers of the Renaissance. Her black hair had lights of golden brown upon it, and she opened her great brown eyes with an expression of indifference. A half smile played upon her rosy lips and lessened the oval of the face like that of the 'Dancing Faun.' The whole effect of the lines of the figure was bold and gave an appearance of youth, the extremities were studiously finished, the skin was fine, and the whole tournure elegant. It was a Faunesse of Fontainebleau of the time of the Valois."

Mme. O'Connell then executed several fine portraits--two of Rachel, one of M. O'Connell, others of Charles Edward and Theophile Gautier, which were likened to works of Vandyck, and a portrait in crayon of herself which was a _chef-d'oeuvre_. She excelled in rendering pa.s.sionate natures; she found in her palette the secret of that pallor which spreads itself over the faces of those devoted to study--the fatigues of days and nights without sleep; she knew how to kindle the feverish light in the eyes of poets and of the women of society. She worked with great freedom, used a thick pate in which she brushed freely and left the ridges thus made in the colors; then, later, she put over a glaze, and all was done. Her etchings were also executed with great freedom, and many parts, especially the hair, were remarkably fine. She finished numerous etchings, among which a "St. Magdalen in the Desert" and a "Charity Surrounded by Children" are worthy of particular notice.

After Madame O'Connell removed to Paris she opened a large atelier and received many pupils. It was a most attractive place, with gorgeous pieces of antique furniture, loaded with models of sculpture, books, alb.u.ms, engravings, and so on, while draperies, tapestries, armor, and ornaments in copper and bra.s.s all lent their colors and effects to enhance the attractions of the place. Many persons of rank and genius were among the friends of the artist and she was much in society.

In spite of all her talent and all her success the end of Madame O'Connell's life was sad beyond expression. Her health suffered, her reason tottered and faded out, yet life remained and she was for years in an asylum for the insane. Everything that had surrounded her in her Paris home was sold at auction. No time was given and no attempt was made to bring her friends together. No one who had known or loved her was there to shed a tear or to bear away a memento of her happy past. All the beautiful things of which we have spoken were sacrificed and scattered as unconscionably as if she had never loved or her friends enjoyed them.

In the busy world of Paris no one remembered the brilliant woman who had flashed upon them, gained her place among them, and then disappeared.

They recalled neither her genius nor her womanly qualities which they had admired, appreciated, and so soon forgotten!