Partner Susan Metcalfe
Queer Places:
Académie Julian, Passage des Panoramas, 75002 Paris
535 Park Ave, New York, NY 10065, USA
Strawberry Hill, 28 Yale Hill Rd, Stockbridge, MA 01262
Lydia Field Emmet (January 23, 1866 - August 16, 1952) was an accomplished American artist and portraitist born on January 23, 1866, in New Rochelle,
New York, as the seventh of eight children to merchant William Jenkins Emmet and illustrator Julia Colt Pierson. Her family had a rich and distinguished
lineage; her paternal great-grandfather was Thomas Addis Emmet, a prominent lawyer and Irish nationalist involved in the United Irishmen, while her
maternal grandfather, Josiah G. Pierson, was an inventor who patented an early nail-cutting machine. Growing up amidst deep-rooted artistic talents, two
of her surviving sisters, Rosina Emmet Sherwood and Wilfrid de Glehn, as well as her first cousin
Ellen Emmet Rand, also achieved notable success as professional artists, and her brothers excelled in
engineering, military service, and architecture.
Her artistic journey began in childhood with lessons from her older sister Rosina, eventually leading them to attend the Académie Julian in Paris
during 1884 and 1885 funded by a family inheritance. Though uninspired by Julian's strict academic constraints, Lydia highly valued instructor Tony
Robert-Fleury. Upon returning to New York, she and her sister studied under the influential American painter William Merritt Chase, alongside other
luminaries like Harry Siddons Mowbray and Kenyon Cox. Emmet later expanded her European training under William-Adolphe Bouguereau and Frederick William
MacMonnies, participating in a prominent American artist summer colony near Claude Monet's home in Giverny, France.
Emmet's professional career flourished through diverse artistic contributions. At just sixteen, she illustrated Henrietta Christian Wright's
children's book Little Folk in Green, and she later assisted William Merritt Chase by teaching preparatory classes at his Shinnecock Hills Summer School
of Art. In 1893, she joined other celebrated women artists, including Mary Cassatt and her sister Rosina, to
create murals for the Woman's Building at the World's Columbian Exposition. Beyond portraiture, she designed stained glass windows for Louis Comfort
Tiffany, worked as a prolific illustrator for Harper's Bazaar, and designed the prestigious Cullum Geographical Medal for the American Geographical
Society.
Though she found critical acclaim for her sensitive portraits of children—including a famous painting of her nephew, playwright Robert Emmet
Sherwood—she personally preferred painting adult sitters. Her prestige culminated in high-profile commissions, such as an official portrait of First Lady
Lou Henry Hoover commissioned by President Herbert Hoover, which now hangs in the White House. She exhibited widely and received numerous accolades,
including prizes at multiple international expositions, the Thomas R. Proctor Prize, and the Maynard Prize from the National Academy of Design, where she
was elected an Academician in 1911.
Reflecting her personal life and independent community ties among female artists of her era, Emmet formed significant personal partnerships and shared
real estate ventures. By 1905, in a joint venture with singer and close companion Susan Metcalfe, Emmet
built "Strawberry Hill," a spacious summer house in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, reflecting the vibrant communal and domestic networks shared among
independent women artists of the period. Emmet continued her artistic legacy until her passing on August 16, 1952, leaving behind a body of work
celebrated in major institutions like the Metropolitan Museum of Art and honored generations later through retrospective family exhibitions.
References:
Other references:
- Swinth, Kirsten. Painting Professionals: Women Artists & the Development of Modern American Art, 1870–1930. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2001.
- Tufts, Eleanor. American Women Artists, 1830–1930. Washington, DC: National Museum of Women in the Arts, International Exhibitions Foundation, 1987.
- Hoppin, Martha J. The Emmets: A Family of Women Painters. Exhibition catalog. Berkshire Museum, Pittsfield, MA; The Danforth Museum, Framingham, MA, 1982.
- Tappert, Tara Leigh. The Emmets: A Generation of Gifted Women. Exhibition catalog. Borghi & Co., New York; Olin Gallery, Roanoke College, VA, 1993.
- Byrne, James P., Philip Coleman, and Jason King. Ireland and the Americas: Culture, Politics, and History. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 2008.
- Emmet, Thomas Addis. Incidents in My Life. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1911.
- Rubenstein, Charlotte Streifer. American Women Artists: From Early Indian Times to the Present. New York: G.K. Hall, 1982.
- Lübbren, Nina. Rural Artists' Colonies in Europe, 1870–1910. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2001.
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