From one of the current exhibitions, “Forever Seeing New Beauties” The Art of Mary Rogers Williams. Despite an active career as a painter, pastellist, portraitist, and teacher, Williams (1857-1907) faced the challenge of acceptance in an art world that was largely closed to women at the time. Her artistic contributions would have descended into obscurity if not for a few supporters who believed in her work and made an effort to preserve it after her unexpected death at the age of fifty. Mary’s sisters kept around 70 works and almost all of her letters, which were entrusted to her good friend and fellow artist, Henry C. White. Henry’s grandson, the artist Nelson Holbrook White, has inherited the collection and is having Mary’s paintings restored gradually. Thanks to the White family’s stewardship, this retrospective recovers and examines her contributions to the American Tonalist movement, unusual in the fact that she was one of the only women to be identified with this style.
Posted on: Sat, 03 Jan 2015 22:45:01 +0000