AFA Summer 2018

Antiques & Fine Art 83 2018 G ertrude Fiske (1879–1961) was an artistic virtuoso, considered to be one of the boldest and most talented painters of her time (Fig. 1). She was born into a prominent Boston family with direct ties to William Bradford, governor of Plymouth Colony. In 1904, she enrolled at the School for the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and completed the full seven-year curriculum. The noted Impressionists, Edmund C. Tarbell, Frank W. Benson, and Phillip L. Hale were among her teachers. In addition to her formal studies at the Museum School, Fiske spent her summers in Ogunquit, Maine, in the company of fellow artists who made this seaside enclave their creative space. Among them was Charles Woodbury, whose influence on Fiske’s work cannot be overestimated (Fig. 2). Fiske had the economic freedom to paint full time. Moreover, she had the talent and ambition to pursue this type of career. But most importantly, she had the genius to “see.” She was able to translate light, movement, gesture, and nuance to the delight of the art critics surveying her work in the early years of the twentieth century. The multitude of awards and prize winnings garnered during her career speak volumes for how her work was received. Her paintings resonate today with a bold energy that has not dimmed over time (Fig. 3). Considering the inherent disadvantage women had in the realm of the fine arts in the early twentieth century, Fiske’s success is a benchmark. Boston in Context In the late nineteenth century, as a reaction to the effects of the Industrial Age in the United States, there was a desire to return to what was considered to have been a more genteel time in America. This desire expressed itself in the Colonial Revival style in architecture, decorative arts, and landscape design. The fine arts seized on this notion nowhere more consistently than in Boston. Tarbell, Benson, and Hale, all promoted some of the ideas of Colonial Revivalism to their Museum School students. They also taught the new Impressionistic methods coming from France. Fig. 3: Gertrude Fiske (1879–1961), By the Pond, ca. 1916. Oil on canvas, 29½ x 36 inches. Private collection. Fig. 2: Gertrude Fiske (1879–1961), Old Cove, ca. 1922. Oil on canvas, 24 x 30 inches. Collection of Darin R. Leese and Frank E. Vandervort.