Fort Wayne Museum of Art
Fort Wayne, IN
219-422-6467
http://www.fwmoa.org/
Lasting Impressions: American Women Artists
from the Sellars Collection
November 20, 1999 - February 20, 2000
On exhibition for the first time in the state of Indiana, Lasting
Impressions celebrates the achievements of over 60 women artists active
primarily during the years of 1850 - 1930. This represents a mere sampling
of a private art collection 
in excess of 400 paintings, drawings, and sculptures
by over 250 women artists. Louise and Alan Sellars envisioned collecting
a body of works by women who received little recognition. Names of many
women in this exhibition may be unfamiliar, and yet, these women were pioneers.
They exhibited alongside their male counterparts, received accolades and
awards, and secured for the women who followed them equal access to instruction
and admission to the premier art academies. Nineteenth-century women artists,
including those in this exhibition, faced many challenges. Social expectations,
limited professional opportunities, and sexual discrimination in both instruction
and exhibiting works hindered the advancement of many of these brilliant
women. (left: Jessie Arms Botke (1883-1971), The Ranch, 1925,
oil on panel, 9 x 11 1/2 inches, The Sellars Collection; right: Anna Elizabeth
Klumpke (1856-1942), Little Lady Blanche, 1884, oil on canvas, 57
x 39 1/2 inches, The Sellars Collection)
Lasting
Impressions reveals a variety of styles and subjects
favored by women painters. The exhibition includes paintings that depict
different parts of the 
country, still-lifes with flowers, portraits, and
depictions of everyday life. Collectors Alan and Louise Sellars were perceptive
when they chose to collect the work of these important painters, but possessed
even more foresight when they decided to exhibit their collection widely,
allowing these women artists to begin to have the exposure they were never
granted in their lifetime. (left: Marion E. Crocker, n.d., Changing
Times, watercolor, 10 x 16 1/4 inches, The Sellars Collection; right:
Ellen Robbins (1828-1905), Nasturtiums, 1888, watercolor, 16 3/4
x 23 inches, The Sellars Collection)
Lasting Impressions is organized
by Patricia Watkinson, Director and Sachi Yanari-Rirzo, Associate Curator
of Collections of the Fort Wayne Museum of Art.
Lasting Impressions is sponsored
by the Fort Wayne Art League. Media sponsors for the exhibition are PBS-39
and WBNI 89.1 FM.
.
Read more about the Fort
Wayne Museum of Art in Resource
Library Magazine
For further biographical information on selected artists
cited above please see America's Distinguished
Artists, a national registry of historic artists.
rev. 11/26/10
Search Resource
Library for thousands of articles and essays on American art.
Copyright 2010 Traditional Fine Arts Organization, Inc., an Arizona nonprofit corporation. All rights
reserved.
On exhibition for the first time in the state of Indiana, Lasting
Impressions celebrates the achievements of over 60 women artists active
primarily during the years of 1850 - 1930. This represents a mere sampling
of a private art collection 
in excess of 400 paintings, drawings, and sculptures
by over 250 women artists. Louise and Alan Sellars envisioned collecting
a body of works by women who received little recognition. Names of many
women in this exhibition may be unfamiliar, and yet, these women were pioneers.
They exhibited alongside their male counterparts, received accolades and
awards, and secured for the women who followed them equal access to instruction
and admission to the premier art academies. Nineteenth-century women artists,
including those in this exhibition, faced many challenges. Social expectations,
limited professional opportunities, and sexual discrimination in both instruction
and exhibiting works hindered the advancement of many of these brilliant
women. (left: Jessie Arms Botke (1883-1971), The Ranch, 1925,
oil on panel, 9 x 11 1/2 inches, The Sellars Collection; right: Anna Elizabeth
Klumpke (1856-1942), Little Lady Blanche, 1884, oil on canvas, 57
x 39 1/2 inches, The Sellars Collection)
