Jane Peterson

Jane Peterson (1876–1965) was an American Impressionist and Expressionist painter. Her works are created in Impressionist and Expressionist styles using broad swaths of vibrant colors to combine an interest in light and in depiction of spontaneous moments and are well known for vivid, rich painted still life, beach scenes along the Massachusetts coast.[1]

Biography

Early life

Peterson was born in Elgin, Illinois, on November 28, 1876 as the daughter of an Elgin Watch Company employee and a homemaker. Though she was born as Jennie Christine she changed her name to Jane right after she graduated from high school, in 1894.[2] She didn't receive any formal art training as a child, but knew intuitively how to paint everything she saw.[3] As a child she attended public school. Later, at the 1893 Columbian Exposition in Chicago, she learned about the Pratt Institute, a fairly new technical school in Brooklyn, New York and took an art aptitude test. After she applied to Pratt, in 1895, she was accepted in the art department and Peterson borrowed $300 from her mother in to study there. In 1901 she graduated and went on to study oil and watercolor painting at the Art Students League in New York City with Frank DuMond.[4][5]

Marriage

Peterson married a corporate lawyer, M. Bernard Philipp, when she was fifty years old. Four years after her husband's death, she married a New Haven physician James S. McCarty in 1939. Their marriage lasted for less than a year.[5]

Death

During her lifetime, Peterson was featured in more than 80 one-woman exhibitions before her death on August 14, 1965. [4]

Career

Black and white reproduction of Mott Street, New York, 1916 New York Watercolor Club Exhibition

Peterson taught in Elmira, New York, as a drawing supervisor of public school teachers in Boston, Massachusetts, and the Maryland Institute in Baltimore for three years. In 1907, she extended her artistic career by taking a grand tour in Europe,[5] which was the best way for her to learn from the masters as a young artist. Peterson gained expert knowledge for painting techniques and composition from Frank Brangwn in Venice and London, Joaquin Sorolla in Madrid, and Jacques Blanche and Andre L' Hote in Paris. She was living during the time of Fauvism, Expressionism, Impressionism, and at the beginning of Cubism.[4]

Peterson started to exhibit her works in 1908 at the Societe des Artistes Francais in Paris France. She exhibited at the St. Botolph Club in Boston, Massachusetts, the Knoedler Gallery in New York City, and at the Bendann's Art Gallery in Baltimore, Maryland. From 1910 to 1914 Peterson had her own exhibitions at the Art Institute of Chicago, Illinois. She also participated in many group shows such as the American Watercolor Society and the New York Society of Painters both in New York City and the Baltimore Watercolor Club in Maryland.[5]

In 1912 Peterson started teaching watercolor at the Art Students League and became the Drawing Supervisor of the Brooklyn Public Schools.[4] In 1916 she joined Louis Comfort Tiffany for a transcontinental painting exhibition in his private railway car. Peterson travelled widely, painting from Maine to Florida and as far north as British Columbia. She annually visited Europe and spent six months in Turkey in 1924.[5]

Works

Brooklyn Museum - Fishing Boats, Gloucester - Jane Peterson - overall

Two of Peterson's famous works are held by the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Parade was created with gouache, watercolor, charcoal, and graphite on paper,[6] and Turkish Fountain with Garden (from Louis C. Tiffany Estate, Oyster Bay) created with oil and charcoal on canvas, in 1910.[7] The Floats was appraised on PBS' Antiques Roadshow on October 2014.[8] She was selected as the most outstanding individual of the year for her artistic achievement by the American Historical Society in 1938. During World War II she produced four portraits representing women in each branch of the military. These portraits were auctioned for $211,000 to build a war memorial.[3]

References

  1. ↑ "Tutt' Art". Retrieved 6 February 2015.
  2. ↑ "Fox Valley Arts Hal of Fame". Retrieved 4 February 2015.
  3. 1 2 Calvin, Paula E.; Deacon, Deborah A. (2011). American women artists in wartime, 1776-2010. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland. pp. 86–87. ISBN 978-0-7864-4987-3.
  4. 1 2 3 4 "The Caldwell Gallery". Retrieved 4 February 2015.
  5. 1 2 3 4 5 Heller, edited by Jules; Heller, Nancy G. (1995). North American women artists of the twentieth century : a biographical dictionary. New York: Garland. p. 435. ISBN 0-8240-6049-0.
  6. ↑ "Parade". Retrieved 6 February 2015.
  7. ↑ "Turkish Fountain with Garden". Retrieved 6 February 2015.
  8. ↑ "Antiques Roadshow". Retrieved 6 February 2015.
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