biografia di Elisabeth NOURSE (1859-1938)

Birth place: Cincinnati, OH

Death place: Paris, France

Addresses: Paris, France, with her sister Louise from 1887

Profession: Painter

Studied: Cincinnati Sch. Des. (McMicken Sch. Art), with W.H. Humphreys, T.S. Noble, B. Pitman (wood-carving), M. Eggers (china painting), L. Rebisso (sculpture), all 1874-81; ASL, with W. Sartain, 1882; again under T.S. Noble, 1885-86; Académie Julian, Paris with Boulanger and Lefebvre, 1887; also with Henner and Carolus-Duran in Paris, 1887 (also traveled to Italy and Holland)

Exhibited: Cincinnati Indus. Exhib., 1879, 1881-84, 1886; AWCS, 1884, 1886, 1911; Detroit Art Loan exhib., 1883; Paris Salon: Royal Acad., London, 1889, 1892; Soc. Nat. Art. Français, 1888-89 and Soc. Nat. Beaux-Arts, 1890-1914, 1918-21; Phila. AC, 1891; Royal Soc. British Artists, 1892; Walker AG, Liverpool, 1892; Munich Exhib., 1892; Columbian Expo, Chicago, 1893 (medal); Cincinnati AM (100 works in 1893, her only solo exhib.; 9 other exhib. after 1897); V. G. Fischer Gal., Wash., DC (her dealer, 1894-12); NAD, 1894; AIC, 1895-1914; PAFA Ann., 1895-1914 (16 times); St. Louis Expo, 1895, 1904 (medal); Copenhagen Inst. 1897; CI (7 times from 1897); Tennessee Cent., Nashville, 1897 (gold); Inst. de Carthage, 1897 (medal); Paris Expo, 1900 (medal); Womans AC, NYC, 1902, 1904 (prize), 1911; Expo des Orientalistes, Paris, 1904, 1906; Union des Femmes PS, Paris, 1905, 1916; Amis des Arts, Nantes, 1905, 1908, 1911, 1912; Colonial Expo, Nugent, France 1905, (medal); Lodge AL, Paris (5 times from 1906); Corcoran Gal annuals/biennials, 1907, 1910, 1912; Soc. Int. WCP, Paris 1908, 1910; Pan-Pac. Expo, San Francisco, 1915; (gold medal); Int. Artists Union; Closson Gal., Cincinnati, 1941 (exhib. of works from her estate); Nat. Mus. Am. Art, Wash., DC, 1983 (retrospective); Cincinnati AM, 1983 (retrospective)

Member: Soc. Nat. des Beaux-Arts (assoc., 1895, full mem., 1901); Cincinnati Women's Pottery Cl., 1879; Cincinnati Etching Cl., 1881; Lodge AI, Paris, (pres.,1906-07); NAWA, 1914; Am. Women's AA, Paris (pres., 1899-1900); MacD. Soc., Cincinnati, 1914; Phila. WCC, 1914.

Work: large collection, Cincinnati AM; NMAA; TMA; Detroit AI; Luxembourg Mus., Paris; AIC; Nat. Gal.; Adelaide MA Australia; Newark Mus.; Univ. Minnesota; Univ. Nebraska; Smith Col.; Univ. Wash., Seattle; Tennessee State Mus.

Comments: By 1883 Nourse was supporting herself and her sister (in Cincinnati) through sales of her art and decorative commissions. Spent part of the summers of 1884-86 in the mountains of Tennessee. Left Cincinnati for Paris in 1887 in order to study but ended up making that city her home. There (and back in the U.S.) she became known for her intimate scenes of rural women engaged in domestic (indoor and outdoor) work and for her depictions of women with children. She also painted portraits and still lifes, as well as landscapes, especially of Brittany and the Rambouillet Forest. She and her sister were devout Catholics and members of the lay group Third Order of St. Francis.

Sources: WW38; Mary Alice Heekin Burke, Elizabeth Nourse, 1859-1938: A Salon Career (Wash., DC: Smithsonian Inst. Press for the National Museum of American Art and the Cincinnati Art Museum, 1983); obit., Cincinnati Enquirer Oct. 10, 1938, 24:1; Cincinnati Painters of the Golden Age, 89-91 (w/repro.); Kelly, "Landscape and Genre Painting in Tennessee, 1810-1985," 76-77 (w/repro.); Tufts, American Women Artists, cat. no. 49; Fink, American Art at the Nineteenth-Century Paris Salons, 376; Falk, Exh. Record Series.

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