Adelaide Deming

Adelaide Deming (December 12, 1864 – 1956) was an American painter, associated for much of her life with Litchfield, Connecticut. She was the 1908 winner of the Beal Prize for her watercolor Moon Shadows.

Biography
Adelaide Deming

Born on December 12, 1864 in Litchfield, Connecticut,[1][2] Deming was descended from a family with deep roots in the community.[3] She received much of her training in New York City, studying at the Art Students League of New York; her teachers included William Merritt Chase, William Lathrop, Henry B. Snow, and Arthur Wesley Dow. She taught at the Pratt Institute for eight years. Deming resigned in 1910 along with other instructors when her department head, Edith Greer, was not reinstated.[4]

She was a member of the National Association of Women Painters and Sculptors and the American Watercolor Society. She was president of the local suffrage group, the Litchfield Equal Franchise League.[5] She also served on the town board of education, in which role she helped to bring hot lunches to schools and to build a new school in the 1920s.[6] In 1918, she was one of 50 Connecticut women to meet with Senator George P. McLean about women's suffrage.[7][8]

Several of her paintings are owned by the Litchfield Historical Society, many of which were donated to the Society by the artist herself.[9] The society also possesses her papers, including brief correspondence with Booker T. Washington and a request to Victor Hugo's secretary requesting an autographed photo.[1] When the Archives of American Art was established in 1954, for the purpose of acquiring materials to promote scholarship on American artists, Deming's papers were selected as part of the collection. The Smithsonian photocopied the archival records and returned the originals to Litchfield.[1][10]

Work
Black and white reproduction of Pottery and Jade by Adelaide Deming

Deming's work included landscapes, such as those exhibited at Pratt Institute in 1901, where the Brooklyn Daily Eagle wrote "attracted the attention of visitors."[11] Her landscapes were considered impressionist in nature and "bucolic," and part of the Colonial Revival period in the United States, according to Briann Greenfield, a professor of history at Central Connecticut State University.[12] The Los Angeles Herald wrote that her award-winning watercolor painting Moon Shadows was "full of the charm and mystery of moonlight."[13] Minna C. Smith wrote in The International Studio that Moonlight Shadows depicted a scene that was "alive with poetry, its own, yes, but also interpreted by the artist."[14] Special mention of her work, "A Quiet Harbor," on show at the Woman's Art Club of New York in 1905 was made by Charles Henry Hart in the Collector and Art Critic.[15] Her painting of an Adirondack landscape was noted by American Art News at the Woman's Art Club of New York exhibitions in 1907,[16] 1909,[17] and 1910.[18] In 1915, American Art News wrote that she "excels in the choice of picturesque subjects, which she renders with truth and simplicity."[19]

She traveled widely in Europe, the Caribbean, and Egypt, but her best-known works were her New England landscapes, frequently depicting scenes from her hometown.[6] She was the first woman to earn the William R. Beal award at the New York Water Color Club award in 1908 with her painting Moon Shadows.[20][21] In 1915 she exhibited a group of paintings alongside pieces by Alice Schille, Helen Watson Phelps and Emma Lampert Cooper;[22][23] during her career she also showed at the National Academy of Design, the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, and the Brooklyn Museum, and she participated in the Panama Pacific Exposition in 1915.[6] Her watercolors won prizes in numerous exhibitions.[24][25][26] She was also active as a muralist.[27] She showed with other Connecticut artists, such as Emily Vanderpoel and Alexander Theobald Van Laer, and held memberships in a number of the state's art groups, including the Connecticut Academy of Fine Arts, the Paint and Clay Club of New Haven, and the Kent Art Association.

References
  1. Archives of American Art. "Summary of the Adelaide Deming letters, 1879–1918 – Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution". Retrieved 5 March 2016.
  2. Kurtz, Charles M. (1910). Catalogue of oil paintings, water colors, and drawings of the late Charles M. Kurtz. New York City, New York: Fifth Avenue Galleries.
  3. "Julius Deming". Retrieved 5 March 2016.
  4. "TEN TEACHERS RESIGN.; Because Pratt Institute Trustees Removed Their Head, Miss Greer". The New York Times. 9 January 1910. Retrieved 17 June 2017.
  5. Jenkins, Jessica D. (2015). "Fashioning a Model Retreat". The House of Worth: Fashion Sketches, 1916-1918. The Litchfield Historical Society. p. 19. ISBN 9780486799247.
  6. "The Litchfield Historical Society". Archived from the original on 5 October 2016. Retrieved 5 March 2016.
  7. "50 Suffragists From This State Going to Call on Sen. McLean". The Bridgeport Times and Evening Farmer. 22 April 1918. Retrieved 18 June 2017.
  8. "Fifty Women Visit M'Lean". The Bridgeport Times and Evening Farmer. 1 May 1918. Retrieved 18 June 2017.
  9. "Museum acquires two landscapes by Adelaide Deming « My Country". Archived from the original on 6 March 2016. Retrieved 5 March 2016.
  10. Kendall, Sue Ann (Fall 1986). "Archives of American Art/Smithsonian Institution". Art Documentation: Journal of the Art Libraries Society of North America. Chicago, Illinois: The University of Chicago Press for the Art Libraries Society of North America. 5 (3): 106–108. doi:10.1086/adx.5.3.27947611. ISSN 0730-7187. JSTOR 27947611. S2CID 192208621.
  11. "Exhibit of Pictures". Brooklyn Daily Eagle. 20 October 1901. Retrieved 17 June 2017.
  12. Greenfield, Briann. "Colonial Revival Movement Sought Stability during Time of Change | ConnecticutHistory.org". ConnecticutHistory.org. Retrieved 2017-06-18.
  13. "With Southern California Artists". Los Angeles Herald. 29 November 1908. Retrieved 17 June 2017.
  14. Smith, Minna C. (1908). "New York Water-Color Club Exhibition". The International Studio. 36.
  15. Hart, Charles Henry (1905). "The Earliest European Artist in America". The Collector and Art Critic. 3 (8): 116–117. doi:10.2307/25435529. JSTOR 25435529.
  16. "Exhibitions Now On". American Art News. 5 (17): 6. 9 February 1907. JSTOR 25590248.
  17. "Woman's Art Club Display". American Art News. 7 (29): 5. 1 May 1909.
  18. "Woman's Art Club Display". American Art News. 9 (7): 2. 26 November 1910. JSTOR 25590648.
  19. "Four Clever Women Artists Show". American Art News. 13 (22): 6. 6 March 1915. JSTOR 25588547.
  20. "Hilda Belcher: paintings, drawings & watercolors". ArtfixDaily. 2 May 2013. Retrieved 2017-06-17.
  21. "New York Water Color Club 1911: Twenty-second Annual Exhibition" (PDF). New York Water Color Club. 1911. Retrieved 23 June 2017.
  22. "Group exhibition of recent paintings by Helen Watson Phelps, Alice Schille, Adelaide Deming and Emma Lampert Cooper [electronic resource] : pictures of India, Mar. 1–13, 1915". Internet Archive. Retrieved 4 March 2016.
  23. Kathleen A. Foster (2017). American Watercolor in the Age of Homer and Sargent. Yale University Press. p. 458. Retrieved June 23, 2017.
  24. The International Studio. John Lane Company. 1909. pp. 96–.
  25. Sir Humphry Davy (1907). The collected works of Sir Humphry Davy ...: Discourses delivered before the Royal society. Elements of agricultural chemistry, pt. I. Smith, Elder and Company. pp. 1–.
  26. Florence Nightingale Levy (1911). American Art Directory. R.R. Bowker. pp. 211–.
  27. City Art Museum of St. Louis (1913). Special Exhibition Catalogue. pp. 4–.
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