The year 2020 marks the one-hundredth anniversary of the ratification of the 19th Amendment, which granted millions of women in the U.S. the right to vote.
The Frick is celebrating with a series of videos honoring the stories of women who made, appeared in, collected, and took care of art in this collection. In the second-to-last episode, meet Elsie de Wolfe, America’s first professional interior designer, who decorated the Frick’s Fifth Avenue home. #WhatsHerStory
Elsie de Wolfe, also known as Lady Mendl, (December 20, c. 1859 – July 12, 1950) was an American actress and interior decorator.
Born in New York City, de Wolfe was acutely sensitive to environment from her earliest years, and became one of the first women interior designers, replacing heavy Victorian styles with light, intimate effects and uncluttered room layouts. Her marriage to English diplomat Sir Charles Mendl was seen as one of convenience, though she was proud to be called Lady Mendl, and her lifelong companion was Elisabeth Marbury, with whom she lived in New York and Paris. De Wolfe was a prominent social figure, who entertained in the most distinguished circles.
Compelled to chronicle the life and world around her, Abigail Faye McBride paints with the heart of a poet. Her oil paintings and charcoal drawings bear witness to a time, person or passing glimmer of light. Abigail paints landscape, figure and still life working interchangeably with brush and palette knife. Collectors, nationally and internationally, appreciate the color, mood and elegance of her work.
Award winning artist, Jennifer McChristian, was born and raised in Montreal, Canada. From an early age, she knew she wanted to be an artist. Upon completing high school, McChristian began her art education at Dawson’s College in Montreal, Canada. In 1986, she and her family took permanent residency in California, where she earned a Bachelor of Fine Art Degree with Honors from Otis Art Institute in 1990.
ulia Hobsbawm is a writer, speaker, social entrepreneur and strategist whose work focuses on finding solutions for humans in an ever-changing world. She speaks to Georgina Godwin about her latest book, ‘The Simplicity Principle: Six Steps Towards Clarity in a Complex World’.
The show has been curated by Sheila Barker of The Medici Archive Project and the Advancing Women Artists foundation is running a challenge to inspire the creation of contemporary art based on Garzoni’s oeuvre. While her role in the evolution of scientific illustration is widely acknowledged, Giovanna Garzoni is less familiar as an illustrator of geographical fantasy in the age of the Baroque.
Leonor Fini
Self-made and self-taught, she preferred to work on her own and was known for her fierce independence and provocative panache. A prolific painter, Fini also wrote, worked extensively in book illustration and printmaking, and designed for plays, ballets, operas, and film.
The first comprehensive publication exploring the life and art of pioneering American abstract artist Alice Trumbull Mason is perfect for audiences eager to discover unsung yet brilliantly talented women artists.
Alice Trumbull Mason features essays that illuminate and contextualize the artist’s multifaceted work and personal life through her paintings, prints, poetry, and letters. The book reveals the full life story of a seminal abstractionist, making a sound argument for adding her to the annals of great twentieth-century artists.
Boomers Daily 