Lot 104
Margaret Fitzhugh Browne
Massachusetts, (1884 - 1972)
portrait of a woman
graphite on paper
Signed lower right.
Biography from the Archives of askART: Margaret Fitzhugh Browne was a painter of portraits, indoor genre scenes, and still life. She was born in Boston, Massachusetts on June 7, 1884. Browne studied at the Massachusetts Normal School from 1904 to 1909, and one of her teachers was the popular artist Joseph DeCamp. She attended the Boston Museum School in 1909 and 1910, receiving instruction from Edmund Tarbell and Frank Benson. During this period she also received private instruction from the color theorist Albert Munsell and from Richard Andrew.
Her career included all aspects of the art world. In addition to painting, she taught classes at Annisquam, MA, was the art editor of the Boston Evening Transcript in 1919-20, and authored a book Portrait Painting in 1933. She served on the Advisory Board of Josephine Logan's Chicago based Society for Sanity in Art, an organization that promoted the retention of traditional values and styles in art.
Her success as an artist was assured, as she became known for her fine portraits, indoor genres, and colorful still lifes. She worked in all media and was known for her broad use of color.
Among her portraits are: Henry A. Wise Wood and Mrs. Wood of New York and the North Shore; Michael Driscoll, Mrs. George L. Huntress, a portrait notable for its sense of line; Senator Borah, Miss Eleanor Satterlee, Edmund D. Cook, Jr., with blue, gray, and deep brown combined in a smoothly finished surface; Miss Mary Hickey and Airedale, Gamecock Rover, Mrs. Gardiner Aspinwall, and Bobby Jones, commissioned by the City of Atlanta.
Browne excelled in figure subjects with a theme. The Springfield, Illinois, Art Association purchased one such theme painting, The Chess Player. In The Art Students, a boy and girl are studying a painting at an exhibition. Browne injects a great deal of feeling into a simple design, and demonstrates a flair for the human and pictorial qualities in her portraits. She was known to reduce her portrait subject to the simplest planes, attempting to attain a degree of force without crudeness, as in The Old Farmer's Almanac. In this picture a country man in shirt sleeves reads by a lamp in the comfort of a kitchen. Her model for the work was a farmer who lived near her summer studio in Annisquam, an attractive part of Gloucester, Massachusetts.
In 1927, the young and attractive Browne won a commission to go to Europe to paint the King of Spain for the New York Yacht Club. A yachtswoman herself, Margaret Fitzhugh Browne enjoyed the experience immensely, and the painting of Alfonso XIII is one of her finest works.
Browne was a member of most professional artist's groups of her time including the Guild of Boston Artists, Copley Society, Rockport Art Association and at least 14 others.
Her works were included in the exhibitions of most of these organizations and at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts and the Art Institute of Chicago. She was the recipient of many awards. Solo exhibitions of her work were held in Boston in 1915,1917,1926,1938 and 1957. Other one person shows were held in Duxbury, CT in 1916, New York City in 1924, Washington, DC in 1930, portraits at the Boston Art Club in 1936, and at the Newport Art Association in 1950.
Margaret Browne died in Boston in 1972 at the age of 87. In 1974 the Copley Society held a "Memorial Exhibition of Flower Compositions and a Few Portraits by Margaret Fitzhugh Browne."
Source:
Erica Hirshler, A Studio of Her Own
- Dimensions: 20 1/4"H x 15"W (sight), 27 3/4"H x 22 1/2"W (frame)
- Medium: graphite on paper
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