Cecilia Beaux and the Art of Portraiture by Tara Leigh Tappert

my grip is pretty hard as a rule.” (Burns, “Under the Skin: Reconsidering Cecilia Beaux and John Singer Sargent,” Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, 2000) Critics were soon describing her work as “virile” and “strong,” comparing her canvases to those of John Singer Sargent. She wrote in a letter, “You know how I hate to fail. Her diaries reveal that she struggled under the pressure of the Académie Julian, but Beaux never lost her ambition and determination. Like many ambitious nineteenth-century artists, she honed her skills in Paris. and London: National Museum of American Art with the Smithsonian Institution Press, 1985)Ĭecilia Beaux began as a commercial artist, making exacting sketches of fossils for a United States Geological Survey project and painting portraits on porcelain. William Kloss Treasures from the National Museum of American Art (Washington, D.C. 1935, largest lifetime exhibition, American Academy of Arts and Letters. From 1899, a prominent portrait artist with many distinguished commissions and exhibitions. 1898, Gold Medal of Honor from Pennsylvania Academy. 1896, France and England exhibited at Champs-de-Mars, Paris. 1895-1915, taught at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. 1893, elected to Society of American Artists.

Worked in Concarneaux, Brittany traveled in Italy. 1877–79, studied Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. 1875, fossil drawings on commission from U.S. Before 1872, studied drawing with Dutch artist Adolf van der Whelen.

Cecilia Beaux and the Art of Portraiture by Tara Leigh Tappert