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Lucia Fairchild Fuller
self-portrait
Born
Lucia Fairchild

(1872-12-06)December 6, 1872
Boston, Massachusetts
DiedMay 21, 1924(1924-05-21) (aged 51)
Madison, Wisconsin
NationalityAmerican
Known forPainting
Spouse
Henry Brown Fuller
​
(m. 1893)​
Parent(s)Elizabeth Elisabeth A. (née Nelson) and Charles S. Fairchild

Lucia Fairchild Fuller (December 6, 1870 – May 21, 1924)[1] was an American painter and member of the New Hampshire Cornish Art Colony. She was inspired to pursue art by John Singer Sargent. Fuller created a mural entitled The Women of Plymouth for the Woman's Building at the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893. Best known for her portrait miniatures, she was a founding member and treasurer of the American Society of Miniature Painters.

She was awarded a bronze medal at the Paris Exposition of 1900, a silver medal at Buffalo in 1901, and a gold medal at the Saint Louis Exposition of 1904.

Early life and education[edit]

Lucia Fairchild was born in Boston, Massachusetts, the daughter of Elisabeth A. (née Nelson) and Charles Fairchild,[2][3] who served during under President Grover Cleveland's administration as the Secretary of the Treasury Department.[4] Her paternal grandfather was Jairus C. Fairchild, the first Mayor of Madison, Wisconsin, and her uncle was Lucius Fairchild, Governor of Wisconsin.[4]

John Singer Sargent, a great family friend,[5] inspired Fairchild to become an artist.[6] She wrote of her recollections of a visit to the Louvre with Sargent.[7][a]

She was educated at Shaw's Private School and the Cowles Art School in Back Bay, Boston, under Dennis Miller Bunker, a friend of Sargent's. She then continued her studies at the Art Students League of New York, under William Merritt Chase and the muralist, Henry Siddons Mowbray.[3] Lydia Emmet was a colleague of hers at the Art Students League in 1889. Fairchild's skill in academic drawing classes at the League has recently been noted.[8]

See also: Fairchild family

Career[edit]

A self portrait done in 1890 conveys Fairchild's powers at age 18.[9] She also did a portrait of her brother Blair Fairchild at the piano in 1891.[9] Fairchild intended initially to paint murals, and was commissioned in 1893 to do one of six individual murals for the Woman's Building at the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago, along with Lydia Emmet, Mary Cassatt, and and Mary Fairchild MacMonnies.[10] Her chosen subject was female New England settlers, and was titled The Women of Plymouth. It was considered a significant commission.[10][b]

After a multi-year love affair, Fairchild married in 1893 her fellow student, the American painter Henry Brown Fuller. After she became pregnant, the immediate need to provide financial support for her family was pressing. Her father had recently lost his fortune in Boston, and she had married against his wishes.[5] Pregnant with her first child, she turned to portraiture, and produced chiefly miniatures. Henry Fuller made it clear he was above the pursuit of money for his art.[5] Fairchild Fuller resorted to living in a dark and small room in New York City, using her significant social connections to contract for commissions, producing nearly two hundred by 1903.[5]

She was awarded a bronze medal at the Paris Exposition of 1900, a silver medal at Buffalo in 1901,[11] and a gold medal at the Saint Louis Exposition of 1904.[12][13] Five works were at exhibited at the Panama-Pacific International Exhibition in San Francisco in 1915. Fairchild Fuller also exhibited her work in New Hampshire at Dartmouth College in 1916.[14]

In 1899 she was a founding member and treasurer of the American Society of Miniature Painters.[15] She also served as president in 1913. She was an elected member of the National Academy of Design and the Society of American Artists. She maintained memberships with the National Association of Women Artists and the New York Watercolor Club.[12]

Personal and later life[edit]

Lucia and Henry had two children, Clara Bertram, born in 1895, and Charles, born in 1897.[c] In 1897, they purchased a home in Plainfield, New Hampshire, and were active members of the Cornish Art Colony.[d] Fairchild Fuller's brother, "Jack" John Cummings Fairchild, married the painter Francis C. Lyons Houston's daughter, Charlotte Fairchild, in 1898.[18]

Lucia and Henry became estranged in 1901. The first painting of Fairchild Fuller as a model by Cornish Colony founder and painter, Thomas Wilmer Dewing, was made in 1902, titled, "The Spinet, or Lady and Spinet, or Lady Playing Harpsichord, or Portrait of Lucia." A nearly identical "partner" painting by Dewing was also done of Fairchild Fuller that same summer.[17]

In 1905, Henry and Lucia separated. Henry returned to his family home in Deerfield, Massachusetts to live with his mother, Agnes Higginson Fuller. Lucia and Henry remained owners of their home in Plainfield, and continued to spend time in the area, often renting their home to other artists, including Ethel Barrymore and the Zorachs.[19]

In 1905, Fairchild Fuller painted another self portrait. It was titled "In the Looking Glass." A 6 x 4 inch watercolor on ivory, she depicts herself as a mature woman with eyeglasses, looking directly at the viewer. The work, owned by Fairchild Fuller's family, was included in the 1987 publication American Women Artists, 1830-1930, by Eleanor Tufts, one of the first publications by the newly opened National Museum of Women in the Arts.[20] Fairchild Fuller moved to New York City, where she taught at the Art Students League in the years 1910-11 and 1914-15. The only school specializing in miniature painting in New York City, The American School of Miniature Painting, operated from 1914-24. Fairchild Fuller taught alongside the artist Elsie D. Pattee and trained the Texan artist Elsie Motz Lowdon.[15]

In 1920, Fairchild Fuller published an article about her friend from the Cornish Art Colony, the sculptor, Frances Grimes.[21] They were the same age, had arrived in Cornish about the same time, and had shared a decade of experience in the Cornish Colony.[15]

Fairchild Fuller's recurrent illness forced her to return to her father's family hometown, Madison, Wisconsin in 1918.[1] Her daughter, Clara Bertram Fuller Taylor, a graduate of University of Madison, Wisconsin, cared for her[citation needed] until she died of multiple sclerosis on May 21, 1924 at the age of 51.[13][22]

Notes[edit]

  1. ^ Fairchild Fuller's recollections are available in manuscript at Dartmouth College Special Collections
  2. ^ The mural was placed in the Blow-Me-Down Grange in Plainfield, New Hampshire in 1900. The building and the mural have undergone restoration. The whereabouts of the murals produced by other women artists for the Columbian Exposition remain unknown.[10]
  3. ^ A photograph taken of Lucia and Clara posing for Henry Brown Fuller's 1900 painting, Illusions, is included in the large collection of Fairchild Fuller papers at Dartmouth College.[16] The final painting includes the figures of Lucia and Clara in the foreground, barely clad, and Mount Ascutney, with one of the many newly built Cornish Colony homes, in the background.[17]
  4. ^ After a devastating fire in 1899, they rebuilt the main house and added tennis courts and a swimming pool.[18]

References[edit]

  1. ^ a b Metropolitan Museum of Art; Barratt, Carrie Rebora; Zabar, Lori (2010). American Portrait Miniatures in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Metropolitan Museum of Art. p. 248. ISBN 978-1-58839-357-9.
  2. ^ Wallace, Natasha (1 August 2010). "Portrait of Elizabeth Nelson Fairchild, 1887". John Singer Sargent Virtual Gallery. Retrieved 6 November 2012.
  3. ^ a b "Madison Artist Doubly Famous". Wisconsin State Journal. May 25, 1924. p. 6. Retrieved March 13, 2019 – via Newspapers.com. Open access icon
  4. ^ a b Corn, Wanda M.; Garfinkle, Charlene G.; Madsen, Annelise K. (2011-03-08). Women Building History: Public Art at the 1893 Columbian Exposition. Univ of California Press. p. 194. ISBN 978-0-520-24111-4.
  5. ^ a b c d Lucey, Donna (2017). Sargent's Women. New York: W.W. Norton & Co. ISBN 978-0-393-07903-6.
  6. ^ Miller, Lucia (1986). "John Singer Sargent in the Diaries of Lucia Fairchild 1890 and 1891". Archives of American Art Journal. 26, no. 4: 2–16 – via www.jstor.org/stable/1557205. Accessed 24 Feb. 2021.
  7. ^ The Fairchild-Fuller Papers in the Dartmouth College Library. Hanover, N.H: [The Library], 1981. Print.
  8. ^ Weiss, Jerry (January 4, 2021). "Lucia Fairchild Fuller's Life of Privilege and Hardship". Studio Notes of the Art Students League of New York.
  9. ^ a b Gilbert, Alma (2003). The Women of the Cornish Colony, Part II. Cornish, NH: Cornish Colony Gallery & Museum. pp. p.26. {{cite book}}: |pages= has extra text (help)
  10. ^ a b c Garfinkle, Charlene G. (1993). "Lucia Fairchild Fuller's "Lost" Woman's Building Mural". American Art. Vol. 7, no. 1: 2–7. {{cite journal}}: |volume= has extra text (help)
  11. ^ Fielding, Mantle (1974). Dictionary of American Painters, Sculptors and Engravers, Enlarged Edition. Greens Farms, CT: Modern Books and Crafts, Inc. pp. 130–131. ISBN 0-913274-03-8.
  12. ^ a b "Fuller, Lucia Fairchild". The Encyclopedia Americana. Retrieved 11 August 2018.
  13. ^ a b "Lucia Fairchild Fuller". Smithsonian American Art Museum. Retrieved 11 August 2018.
  14. ^ Zug, George Breed (1916). ""Exhibition of Cornish Artists"". Art and Archaeology. Vol.3, no. 4: 207–211. {{cite journal}}: |volume= has extra text (help)
  15. ^ a b c Metropolitan Museum of Art (2010). American portrait miniatures in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Carrie Rebora Barratt, Lori Zabar. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art. ISBN 978-1-58839-357-9. OCLC 444387908.
  16. ^ Meyers, Fern (2005). Images of America. New Hampshire's Cornish Colony. Charleston, SC: Arcadia Publishing. p. 112. ISBN 0-7385-3753-5.
  17. ^ a b Hobbs, Susan (2018). Thomas Wilmer Dewing : beauty into art : a catalogue raisonné. Abeles, Shoshanna. [Alexandria, VA]: The Thomas Wilmer Dewing Catalogue Raisonne. pp. 404f, 406. ISBN 978-0-300-21921-0. OCLC 1025395688.
  18. ^ a b Zea, Philip (1991). Choice White Pines and Good Land. A History of Plainfield and Meriden, New Hampshire. Portsmouth, New Hampshire: Peter E. Randall Publisher. p. 346.
  19. ^ Colby, Virginia (2010). Footprints of the Past: Images of Cornish, New Hampshire. Cornish, New Hampshire: Cornish Historical Society, Cornish, New Hampshire. p. 207. ISBN 0-915916-22-3.
  20. ^ Tufts, Eleanor (1987). American women artists, 1830-1930. National Museum of Women in the Arts, International Exhibitions Foundation. Washington, D.C. ISBN 0-940979-02-0. OCLC 15815023.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  21. ^ Fuller, Lucia Fairchild (November 1920). "Francis Grimes: A Sculptor in Whose Works One Reads Delicacy". Arts & Decoration. 13/14: 34, 74.
  22. ^ "Lucia Fairchild Fuller obit". Marshfield News-Herald. May 21, 1924. p. 4. Retrieved February 28, 2021.
  23. ^ A Circle of Friends:Art Colonies of Cornish and Dublin. Durham, New Hampshire: University of New Hampshire. 1985. p. 88.

Further reading[edit]

  • Lucey, Donna. (2017) Sargent's Women. New York: W.W. Norton & Co. "The Sorcerer's Apprentice."

External links[edit]

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