Lydia Field Emmet
Lydia Field Emmet (1866 - August 16, 1952) was an American artist possibly best recalled for her portrait work.
Early life
Born in New Rochelle, New York, she was the seventh child of ten siblings.[1]. Lydia Field Emmet's grandmother Elizabeth (1794-1878) emigrated to the United States of America as a young girl from Dublin, Ireland with her father Thomas Addis Emmet. Her great-great-uncle Robert Emmet was a notable Irish nationalist who was hanged in 1803 for high treason by the British court for his attempt to implement an abortive Irish rebellion. Thomas Addis Emmet would later become the New York State Attorney General and Lydia's grandmother mother would study portraiture under the direction of a steamboat designer and portrait artist named Thomas Fulton.[2]
Both her older sister Rosina Emmet Sherwood (1854-1948) and younger sister Jane Emmet de Glehn (1873-1961) would also become successful artists, as well as their first cousin Ellen Emmet "Bay" Rand (1876-1941).[3]
Career
One of Lydia Field Emmet's first artistic achievements came in 1883 at the age of 16 when she illustrated the Henrietta Christian Wright penned children's book Little Folk in Green.
Lydia, along with her sister Rosina, attended the Académie Julian in Paris, France in 1884-1885, then along with their first cousin Ellen became students of the notable American painter William Merritt Chase in New York. During her tenure in New York, she also studied with such artists as: Henry Siddons Mowbray, Kenyon Cox and Robert Reid. She continued her training in Paris with William-Adolphe Bouguereau, Louis-Joseph-Raphaël Collin, Tony Robert-Fleury, and the American sculptor and painter Frederick William MacMonnies. She worked mainly in the mediums of watercolor and oil.[4]
While Emmet Field studied in Europe, she joined the summer colony of American artists near Claude Monet's home in Giverny, France. During in the 1890s, she worked as William Merritt Chase's assistant and taught his preparatory classes at his summer school at Shinnecock Hills, on Long Island, New York.[4]
In 1893 Lydia Field Emmet was selected, along with fellow prominent women American artists such as Mary Cassatt, Mary MacMonnies-Low, Lucia Fairchild Fuller and her sister Rosina, to paint murals in the new constructed Women's Building at the World's Columbian Exposition. Field Emmet's contributions included a painting of entitled Seal of the New York State Board and a mural entitled Art, Literature and Imagination.[5]
Field Emmet also designed stained glass windows for Louis Comfort Tiffany[6] and was a prolific illustrator for Harper's Bazaar magazine. She is possibly best recalled for her portrait and figure work and some of her most popular portraits are those of children; one of her most famous portraits is that of her young nephew, playwright Robert Emmet Sherwood.[2]
Legacy
In late April 2007, Arden Galleries in Manhattan held a family exhibit of five generations of the Emmet women's paintings. The 130 exhibits by 14 artists began with nine portraits by Lydia Field Emmet's grandmother mother Elizabeth Emmet and ended with nine sculptures by great-great-grandniece Julia Townsend, aged 22, and with two by Beulah Emmet, aged 18.[2]
Memberships
- National Academy of Design[7]
- Stockbridge Art Association
- Connecticut Academy of Fine Arts
- National Association of Women Artist
- American Federation of the Arts
- New York Watercolor Club
- National Association of Portrait Painters
Institutions in possession of works by Lydia Field Emmet include:
- New York Historical Society[7]
- Parrish Art Museum, Southampton, New York
- National Society of Colonial Dames of America, State of Vermont
- Groton School, Groton, Massachusetts
- National Academy of Design, New York City, New York
- United States Military Academy Museum, West Point, New York
- Museum of the City of New York
- Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City
- White House, Washington, D.C.
- National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
- Lyme Academy of Fine Arts, Lyme Academy Gallery, Old Lyme, Connecticut
- National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, D.C.
- Delaware Art Museum, Wilmington, Delaware
- Brooklyn Museum, New York City
References
- ^ Emmet family tree
- ^ a b c Time magazine. Friday, May 4, 2007
- ^ Messum's
- ^ a b Tappert, Tara Leigh: The Emmets: A Generation of Gifted Women. New York: Borghi and Co., 1993.
- ^ The Women's Building at the 1893 Exposition
- ^ Delaware Art Museum
- ^ a b FineOldArt.com