Forever Seeing New Beauties: The Forgotten Impressionist Mary Rogers Williams, 1857-1907

by Eve M. Kahn

Overview

Revolutionary artist Mary Rogers Williams (1857—1907), a baker's daughter from Hartford, Connecticut, biked and hiked from the Arctic Circle to Naples, exhibited from Paris to Indianapolis, trained at the Art Students League, chafed against art world rules that favored men, wrote thousands of pages about her travels and work, taught at Smith College for nearly two decades, but sadly ended up almost totally obscure. The book reproduces her unpublished artworks that capture pensive gowned women, Norwegian slopes reflected in icy waters, saw-tooth rooflines on French chateaus, and incense hazes in Italian chapels, and it offers a vivid portrayal of an adventurer, defying her era's expectations.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780819578754
Publisher:	Wesleyan University Press
Publication date:	12/13/2022
Series:	The Driftless Connecticut Series & Garnet Books
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	272
File size:	30 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

EVE M. KAHN is an independent scholar specializing in art and architectural history, design and preservation, and was weekly Antiques columnist at The New York Times, 2008—2016. She contributes regularly to the Times, The Magazine Antiques, Apollo, and Atlas Obscura.

Eve M. Kahn is an independent scholar specializing in art and architectural history, design and preservation, and was weekly Antiques columnist at The New York Times 2008—2016. She contributes regularly to the Times, The Magazine Antiques, Apollo and Atlas Obscura.

Table of Contents

Preface • Notes on Methodology • Chapter 1: Why She Matters • Chapter 2: A Cosmopolitan Emerges • Chapter 3: No Salvation but by Hard Work • Chapter 4: Conveying the Rudiments of Art • Chapter 5: Her Boss's Jealous Mistress • Chapter 6: A Rare Dear Overseas • Chapter 7: Wholly in Pale Tints • Chapter 8: He Certainly Is Unregenerate • Chapter 9: Strange and Beautiful Things • Chapter 10: Misfit in this Workaday World • Chapter 11: A Pastel Every Five Minutes • Chapter 12: To Exhibit in the Provincial Towns • Chapter 13: My Own Femme de Ménage • Chapter 14: The Most Magic House in the World • Chapter 15: Crisp and Free in Treatment • Chapter 16: A Serene and Confident Air • Chapter 17: I'd Like to Run Away • Chapter 18: Old Friends and Some New Ones • Chapter 19: I Feel Like Thirty Cents • Chapter 20: Light So Exquisite • Chapter 21: Nervous Energy Spent Teaching • Chapter 22: Out of the Harness • Chapter 23: Pangs of Loneliness • Chapter 24: A Peaceful Comfortable Feeling • Chapter 25: Wild to Go Out on a Comet Hunt • Chapter 26: How Hard It Is for My Sisters • Chapter 27: Exquisite and Unerring Artistic Taste • Chapter 28: Logical Custodians in Chaotic Days • Chapter 29: The Resurrectionists • Appendix • Acknowledgments • Notes • IndexPreface • Notes on Methodology • Chapter 1: Why She Matters • Chapter 2: A Cosmopolitan Emerges • Chapter 3: No Salvation but by Hard Work • Chapter 4: Conveying the Rudiments of Art • Chapter 5: Her Boss's Jealous Mistress • Chapter 6: A Rare Dear Overseas • Chapter 7: Wholly in Pale Tints • Chapter 8: He Certainly Is Unregenerate • Chapter 9: Strange and Beautiful Things • Chapter 10: Misfit in this Workaday World • Chapter 11: A Pastel Every Five Minutes • Chapter 12: To Exhibit in the Provincial Towns • Chapter 13: My Own Femme de Ménage • Chapter 14: The Most Magic House in the World • Chapter 15: Crisp and Free in Treatment • Chapter 16: A Serene and Confident Air • Chapter 17: I'd Like to Run Away • Chapter 18: Old Friends and Some New Ones • Chapter 19: I Feel Like Thirty Cents • Chapter 20: Light So Exquisite • Chapter 21: Nervous Energy Spent Teaching • Chapter 22: Out of the Harness • Chapter 23: Pangs of Loneliness • Chapter 24: A Peaceful Comfortable Feeling • Chapter 25: Wild to Go Out on a Comet Hunt • Chapter 26: How Hard It Is for My Sisters • Chapter 27: Exquisite and Unerring Artistic Taste • Chapter 28: Logical Custodians in Chaotic Days • Chapter 29: The Resurrectionists • Appendix • Acknowledgments • Notes • Index

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

"Eve Kahn evocatively reconstructs Impressionist painter Mary Rogers Williams' life in a jaunty style fitting her upbeat, globe-trekking, paintbrush-wielding subject. A rare woman's perspective on 19th century cosmopolitan life, it's a must-read."—Katherine Manthorne, art historian, CUNY Graduate Center

"From a forgotten box of letters Eve Kahn meticulously stiches together the life, travels, work, opinions, humor and travails of Mary Rogers Williams. Kahn's zealous detective work begs the question, how many other women, erased to history, await discovery?"—Marcia Ely, Executive Vice President, Brooklyn Historical Society

"Two decades before Virginia Woolf's "A Room of One's Own," Mary Rogers Williams wrestled with the indignities of life as a professional woman artist. Subject to the sexism of her age, she nonetheless honed an original approach to her art, building a life around her passion for travel, friends, her sisters, and her refusal to forfeit her independent views. Eve Kahn immerses us in Williams's pictures and thoughts, at long last bringing this vivid woman the attention she deserves."—Amy Kurtz Lansing, Curator, Florence Griswold Museum

"Eve Kahn has created a vivid portrait of an artist who was too self-effacing to paint one of herself. Grounded in New England pastoralism, European decadence, art salon politicking and misogynistic backstabbing, the story of Mary Rogers Williams is one of significant toughness."—Julie Lasky, journalist, author, and critic

Editorial Reviews

"Eve Kahn evocatively reconstructs Impressionist painter Mary Rogers Williams' life in a jaunty style fitting her upbeat, globe-trekking, paintbrush-wielding subject. A rare woman's perspective on 19th century cosmopolitan life, its a must-read."—Katherine Manthorne, art historian, CUNY Graduate Center

"From a forgotten box of letters Eve Kahn meticulously stiches together the life, travels, work, opinions, humor and travails of Mary Rogers Williams. Kahn's zealous detective work begs the question, how many other women, erased to history, await discovery?"—Marcia Ely, Executive Vice President, Brooklyn Historical Society

"Two decades before Virginia Woolf's "A Room of One's Own," Mary Rogers Williams wrestled with the indignities of life as a professional woman artist. Subject to the sexism of her age, she nonetheless honed an original approach to her art, building a life around her passion for travel, friends, her sisters, and her refusal to forfeit her independent views. Eve Kahn immerses us in Williams's pictures and thoughts, at long last bringing this vivid woman the attention she deserves."—Amy Kurtz Lansing, Curator, Florence Griswold Museum

"Eve Kahn has created a vivid portrait of an artist who was too self-effacing to paint one of herself. Grounded in New England pastoralism, European decadence, art salon politicking and misogynistic backstabbing, the story of Mary Rogers Williams is one of significant toughness."—Julie Lasky, journalist, author, and critic

From the Publisher