Goldthwaite, Anne Wilson (1869–1944)

American etcher, lithographer, and modernist painter of the South who helped found the Académie Moderne in Paris. Born in Montgomery, Alabama, on June 28, 1869; died in New York City on January 29, 1944; eldest of four children of Richard Wallach Goldth-waite (a lawyer) and Lucy Boyd (Armistead) Goldth-waite; attended Mrs. Coughanour's "Little Ladies School," a convent school in Dallas, Texas, Hammer Hall, an Episcopal school in Montgomery, and the National Academy of Design, New York; never married; no children.

Destined to be acclaimed one of America's outstanding women artists and a leading regional painter of the South, Anne Wilson Goldth-waite was born into a distinguished Alabama family and raised by relatives after the death of her parents. Seemingly destined for the life of a southern belle, her direction changed abruptly after a devoted beau was killed in a duel. At that time, a visiting uncle interceded, suggesting that she come North to pursue her longtime interest in art. New York eventually became Goldthwaite's adopted city, although she always recalled her early years in the South as golden. "They were filled with love and warmth and ease and approbation. I remember only happy things." Later, she paid regular summertime visits to the rural Alabama of her youth and made it the subject of some of her best work.

At the National Academy of Design, she studied etching with Charles Mielatz and painting with Walter Shirlaw, who was her major influence. In 1906, she went to Paris, where she studied with Charles Guérin and Othon Friesz and was one of a group of students who founded the Académie Moderne. Through her acquaintance with Gertrude Stein , she discovered the works of Cézanne, Matisse, and Picasso. Goldthwaite later recalled her first meeting with Stein at the Luxemburg Garden. She looked up from her sketching and saw a friend talking to a woman "who looked something like an immense dark brown egg. She wore, wrapped tight around her, a brown kimono-like garment and a large flat black hat, and stood on feet covered with wide sandals." When Stein later invited her home, Goldthwaite wondered if the shabby looking woman could even afford to give her tea. She was amazed to encounter Stein's elegant studio, filled with antique furniture and "the most remarkable pictures I had ever seen."

Returning to New York just before World War I, Goldthwaite exhibited in the 1913 Armory show, which showcased the early modernists. In the ensuing years, in addition to her prolific output, she continued to study, especially etching, and also taught at the Art Students League from 1922 until her death in 1944. She was not only a popular teacher, but an early advocate of women's rights. Never married, Goldthwaite was a member of numerous artists' organizations, including the New York Society of Women Artists, of which she served as president from 1937 to 1938.

Anne Goldthwaite's paintings and prints, which include trenchant portraits of her friends and relatives, are characterized by a relaxed, whimsical style. Although she embraced the modern movement early in her career, her work is more expressionistic than abstract, often reminiscent

of Manet, but "it never resembles the art of his insistently feminine disciples Berthe Morisot and Mary Cassatt ," writes Harry B. Wehle. Art historian Adelyn Breeskin , in discussing Goldthwaite's sympathetic studies of the poor Southern black with his mules, or of the women of the Goldthwaite clan taking an afternoon respite from the oppressive summer heat, writes: "The slow rhythm of lines, the very ease in execution, the sense of hot sun… mark these as among the most vivid and eloquent graphic works yet produced of the South."

Goldthwaite's work is exhibited in the Congressional Library and in many American museums, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Brooklyn Museum of Art, the Whitney Museum, and the Worcester (Massachusetts) Museum. Shortly before her death in 1944, she completed two murals on Southern life for the post offices at Atmore and Tuskegee, Alabama. The artist died in New York on January 29, 1944, at age 74. She was buried in Oakwood Cemetery, Montgomery.

sources:

Edgerly, Lois Stiles. Give Her This Day.

Petteys, Chris. Dictionary of Women Artists. Boston, MA: G.K. Hall, 1985.

Rothe, Anna, ed. Current Biography 1944. NY: H.W. Wilson, 1944.

Rubinstein, Charlotte Streifer. American Women Artists. NY: Avon, 1982.

Wehle, Harry B. "Anne Wilson Goldthwaite" in Edward T. James' Notable American Women 1607–1950. Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1971.

Barbara Morgan , Melrose, Massachusetts