Anna Richards Brewster:
American Impressionist
1870 - 1952
Although it won't open for eight months, here is an exhibit to consider placing on your art appreciation calendar.
Fresno Metropolitan Museum
March 28 - June 14, 2009
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Born in 1870, Anna's journey through the world of art is quite a tale to tell. A gifted impressionist, she painted her way throughout the United States, Europe, and the Middle East.
But in a larger sense, her experience exemplifies the struggle shared by many other women of her time and others; women who strived to achieve while overcoming obstacles and limitations placed on her gender by a male-dominated society. |
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TRAFALGAR SQUARE, LONDON
Watercolor, 14" x 23" |
Like other women artists of the late 19th Century, her story is one of struggle and triumph, striving to express the wealth and richness of her artistic passion while being suppressed and confined to the traditional restrictions and boundaries of being a woman. Apart from her art, she forged the way for other women to break into professional and academic spheres of the art world.
Her family was quite accomplished. Two of her brothers attended Harvard, and one won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Anna read widely, and in her letters discussed ideas of Plato, Socrates, and Ralph Waldo Emerson. Emerson’s ideas of nature, that the world was imbued with moral values, is a key element Anna tried to express in her paintings.
After her art studies in Paris, before returning to New York, she established her artistic European credentials by setting up a studio in Clovelly, England and later in London. She traveled Europe, painting in Italy, France and Spain. Critics considered her scenes of London to be particularly fine examples of her talent. She was a thoughtful painter of nature, striving to bring the morality of nature to her canvas.
At the age of thirty-five, she married her brother’s college friend, William Tenny Brewster, an English literature professor. She accompanied her husband on sabbatical trips throughout the United States, Europe and the Middle East, which allowed her to paint in some exotic locales. She painted throughout the years of her marriage, exhibiting her work until the 1930’s.
Part of the Fresno exhibit are some of Anna’s letters to her family and to a close personal friend, Annie Ware Winsor Allen. She wrote of a |
wide range of topics, and exhibited a deep perception of her work, her relationships, world events, and her philosophy of life.
In one of her letters, she speaks of the mundane task of housekeeping. She admired the French ladies, who did their housekeeping perfectly, but refused to make it all-important.
She wrote .. “They (the French ladies) do the work very perfectly; and then, because they refuse to make it all-important and absorbing by continual discussion, they have time, plenty of time and energy to think of other things.” |
MISSION AT SANTA BARBARA 1940
Oil on Canvas, 5 3/4" x 8 3/4" |
