Partner Ellen Day Hale
Queer Places:
Cornell University (Ivy League), 410 Thurston Ave, Ithaca, NY 14850
Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, 118-128 N Broad St, Philadelphia, PA 19102
Académie Julian, Passage des Panoramas, 75002 Paris, France
Bryn Mawr School, 109 W Melrose Ave, Baltimore, MD 21210
The Thickets, Granite St, Folly Cove, Rockport, MA 01966
Gabrielle
de Veaux Clements (September 11, 1858 – March 26, 1948) was an American
painter, print maker, and muralist.[2]
She studied art at the
Philadelphia School of Design for Women,
Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, and in Paris at
Académie Julian. Clements also studied science at
Cornell University and graduated with a
Bachelor of Science degree. She created murals, painted portraits, and
made etchings. Clements taught in Philadelphia and in Baltimore at Bryn Mawr
School. Her works have been exhibited in the United States and at the
Paris Salon. Clements works are in several public collections. Her life
companion was fellow artist
Ellen Day Hale.
Gabrielle de Veaux Clements was born in Philadelphia in 1858.[2]
Her parents were Dr. Richard Clements and Gabrielle de Veaux.[1]
Her mother Gabrielle de Veaux was from South Carolina.
American Revolutionary War hero, General
Francis Marion, her maternal ancestor, was called "Swamp Fox".[3]
Clements attended Miss Longstreth's school in Philadelphia[4]
and developed an interest in art as a teenager.[1]
In 1875, Clements attended the
Philadelphia School of Design for Women in Philadelphia[2]
under Charles Page, with whom she studied lithography.[1]
She then attended
Cornell University in Ithaca, New York from 1876 to 1880,[2]
where she studied science, made scientific drawings, and received her Bachelor
of Science degree. Her senior thesis was A Study of Two German Masters in
Medieval Art, Dürer and Holbein.[5]
After completing her studies at Cornell, Clements returned to Philadelphia and
attended the
Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts from 1881 to 1882,[2]
under
Thomas Eakins.[1]
She won the school's Toppan Prize.[1]
Stephen Parrish taught her to be an etcher in 1883.[1]
She produced a number of lithographs and scientific drawings during her school
years.[1]
In 1883, she met who would become her travel and life companion, American
Impressionist
Ellen Day Hale.[2]
About 1884, she attended
Académie Julian in Paris.[2]
Clements studied under
William-Adolphe Bouguereau and
Tony Robert-Fleury.[2]
Hale came to Paris with be with her.[1]
In 1885, Clements exhibited at the
Paris Salon[2]
and as the women traveled through France, Clements taught Hale to etch.[6]
In 1883, Clements began working professionally, making prints and
exhibiting her works.[1]
She created the appearance of 3-dimensions by overlapping, or interposition,
in Church and Castle,
Mont Saint-Michel (1885).[7]
In 1888, Clements exhibited 20 of her works at The Work of Women Etchers of
America show held by the Union League of New York, led on by
Sylvester Rosa Koehler.[8]
Held at the
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, it was the first show held at a museum of
women's works of art.[8][3]
David Tatham considered the exhibitions led by Koehler in the late 1880s to be
"ground-breaking women etcher's shows".[9]
Her etchings were based upon modern French techniques, like
a la
poupée, and were influenced by
Woodblock printing in Japan and the works of
James Abbott McNeill Whistler.[3]
Clement made a portrait of
Edmondo De Amicis,[10]
which was printed in an extra volume of etchings and photogravures to his 1888
book Spain and the Spaniards.[11]
She illustrated a book of verses entitled Easter Song by Charlotte
Pendleton, which was published in 1892.[12][13]
Clements painted sea, city and landscapes of places in the United States,
like Cape
Ann,
Massachusetts and
Baltimore,
Maryland
and other locations along the American East Coast.[2]
She also captured foreign destinations, like Palestine, Algiers, and France.[2][1]
During her career, her work was exhibited at a number of venues, some of which
are the
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston,
National Academy of Design, Philadelphia Society of Artists,
National Museum of American History, and
New York Etching Club.[1][3]
Clements' etchings were exhibited at international exhibitions alongside the
works of
Francis Seymour Haden and
James Abbott McNeill Whistler.[14]
She also exhibited at the
World's Columbian Exposition in 1893,
Louisiana Purchase Exposition of 1904, and the
Sesquicentennial Exposition in 1926.[3]
Clements painted five murals for churches in
Washington, D.C.,[2][1]
and in Baltimore she painted views of the city for Bendann Galleries[1]
and a mural of Oh, praise ye the Lord, al ye His angels.[15]
Clements also painted murals in
Detroit,
Chicago,
and
Philadelphia.[1]
Her mural, Harvest, was made for the
World's Columbian Exposition of 1893 and the 9 by 13 feet (2.7 by 4.0 m)
work of art is now in the
Cape Ann Museum collection and was conserved during a 2009 to 2010
exhibition at the museum.[16]
In 1910, she made a 10 by 22 feet (3.0 by 6.7 m) mural on canvas. In 2014, it
was in the process of being restored at the Hugh McCall Mansion, site of the
Women's Club of York, Pennsylvania. The plan was also to frame it in a
400-pound wood frame.[17]
She taught art at Baltimore's The Bryn Mawr School from 1895 to 1908.[1]
There she taught new techniques, like working with aquatint and color etching,[2]
by the turn of the 20th century, etching was not a profitable endeavor.[18]
She also taught art in Philadelphia.[4]
Clements taught print making, etching, and painting in
Charleston, South Carolina with Hale during the winters during
World
War I[2][1]
or more specifically, from 1916 to 1920.[19]
They helped inspire the creation of the Charleston Etchers' Club and influence
the
Charleston Renaissance[19]
and over time the works of
Lesley Jackson,
Alice Ravenel Huger Smith, and
Elizabeth O'Neill Verner.[3]
Beginning about 1880, Clements assisted
Eliza Sproat Turner and
Florence Kelley in the establishment
New Century Guild of Philadelphia. It offered educational classes and
programs for working women.[20]
Hale and Clements vacationed and painted together during the summers at a
house they bought, "The Thickets" in an artist's enclave in Folly Cove on Cape
Ann, Massachusetts.[2][1]
In addition to Charleston, South Carolina, Clements and Hale traveled to
Europe during the winter months.[2]
Margaret Lesley Bush-Brown, who was one of Clements' students;[1]
Cecilia Beaux[2];
and
Lilian Westcott Hale, Ellen Day Hale's sister-in-law; were their friends.[21]
She died in 1948 at Rockport,[1]
Folly Cove, Massachusetts[2]
on March 26, 1948.[4]
Her works were exhibited 1994–95 at the Washington Print Club Thirtieth
Anniversary Exhibition: Graphic Legacy and in 2005 at the Revival and the
Professional Woman Artist, both of which were conducted by the National Museum
of Women in the Arts.[2]
Her sketchbooks, correspondence, photographs, and other papers are in the
Archives of American Art at the
Smithsonian Institution.[22]
My published books:
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- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gabrielle_D._Clements