Gertrude Boyle Kanno

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Gertrude Boyle Kanno
Gertrude Boyle Kanno with husband Takeshi in 1914
Born(1878-01-26)January 26, 1878
San Francisco, California
DiedAugust 14, 1937(1937-08-14) (aged 59)
NationalityAmerican
Alma materCogswell College,
Lick School (California School of Mechanical Arts),
Mark Hopkins Institute of Art
Known forSculpture
SpouseTakeshi Kanno

Gertrude Farquharson Boyle Kanno (January 26, 1878 – August 14, 1937) was an American sculptor noted for her portrait busts.[1]

Biography[edit]

Boyle was born in San Francisco on January 26, 1878. She was the sixth child of John Boyle and Helen Milliken Clark. She met Japanese poet Takeshi Kanno at Joaquin Miller's summer home, The Hights.[2] They were married in Seattle, Washington, on May 22, 1907. They lived in a bungalow on the estate of Joaquin Miller, close to the poet's home.[3] In 1915 she sought divorce with the complaint of Kanno's extreme jealousy and refusal to provide, and the statement that she had "supported herself entirely by her own labor".[2]

She attended Cogswell College, Lick School (California School of Mechanical Arts) and Mark Hopkins Institute of Art.[4] She studied under Douglas Tilden and Arthur Mathews.

In New York after 1915, she lived with Eitaro Ishigaki until about 1928.

She was art editor of the Birth Control Review for about three years.

Work[edit]

Boyle did portrait busts and medallions in plaster and bronze of many famous persons including: Isadora Duncan, Eitaro Ishigaki, Henry Cowell, Uldrick Thompson, Margaret Miller, Teddy Roosevelt, Franklin D. Roosevelt, John Muir, Ida Tarbell, Ezra Meeker, John Swett, Joseph LeConte, David Starr Jordan, Joaquin Miller, Edwin Markham, William Keith, Luther Burbank, Albert Einstein, Charles Erskine Scott Wood, John Fremont, Susan Mills, Horace Traubel, Christy Mathewson and Sidney Gulick.[5]

She was selected by Joaquin Miller to create a portrait of his mother for the University of Oregon and also executed a bust of the poet which she titled "The Spirit of the West".[3]

She died on August 14, 1937, at St. John's Hospital.[1]

Local work in the San Francisco Bay Area[edit]

Art includes various works accessible to the public, including bronze bust of Joseph LeConte created during the year of his death in 1901. The plaster version is held in the University of California Archives. The finished bronze sculpture is located at UC Berkeley in the Earth Sciences & Map Library.

References[edit]

  1. ^ a b "Gertrude B. Kanno, Noted Sculptress. Wife of Japanese Poet Dies in California. Made Busts of Many Leaders". New York Times. August 17, 1937. Retrieved 2011-04-02.
  2. ^ a b "Suit of White wife of Jap is begun". Vol. XLI, no. 206. Los Angeles Herald. June 29, 1915. Retrieved 21 December 2018.
  3. ^ a b Taylor, Marian (July 12, 1913). "The Arcadia of a Great Poet: the home of Joaquin Miller, Singer of the Sierras, built on the Heights". California Outlook. XV (1): 11. Retrieved 21 December 2018.
  4. ^ Taylor, Marian (1916). "A California Sculptress". Overland Monthly: 365–369.
  5. ^ "Gertrude Boyle's Family Call Her Insane. Married Eight Years Ago to Kanno, She Now Prefers Ishigaki". Boston Globe. March 28, 1915. Retrieved 2011-04-12. The family of Gertrude F. Boyle, sculptress, was willing to call it unconventionality when eight years ago she married Takeshi Kanno, a Japanese writer. ...

External links[edit]