Have a question about American art?

Ask Joan of Art . Recently, a virtual visitor wrote, "I had a wonderful but quick visit to your museum in the Fall and admired a portrait titled Man with Cat. I can't remember the artist's name and would like to know more about her."

Dear Virtual Visitor,

I'm glad you enjoyed your visit to our museum!

The work you remember, Man With the Cat, was painted by Cecilia Beaux (1855–1942) in 1898. The man in the painting is Henry Sturgis Drinker, the artist's brother-in-law, who became president of Lehigh University. You are not alone in your admiration for this artist's work. Many museum visitors gravitate to this luscious portrait.

Born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in 1855, Cecelia Beaux lost her mother when she was young, and her distraught father returned to France, leaving his two daughters in the care of their maternal grandmother and two aunts in Philadelphia. There she took painting classes at Ms. Lyman's School. In January 1888, she and a cousin left for Paris, where Beaux continued her studies at the Académie Julian and the Académie Colarossi. Back in her Philadelphia studio she established herself as a portraitist, and became the first woman to be engaged as a full-time member of the faculty of the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. She was elected to full membership in the National Academy of Design in New York City in 1903. In 1919 Beaux was among eight American painters chosen to do three portraits each of important international personages at the close of World War I for a national portrait gallery. Her three subjects were Cardinal Mercier, whom she painted in Malines, Belgium; the British Admiral Lord Beatty, whom she painted in London; and the French Premier Georges Clemenceau, who had just signed the Peace Treaty of Versailles. All three portraits are now in the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C.

The information I have provided is adapted from North American Women Artists of the Twentieth Century, edited by Jules Heller and Nancy G. Heller (New York: Garland, 1995).

If you would like to see more works by this artist, there's a good chance that a museum in your geographic area also has some of her work. The Inventories of American Painting and Sculpture are a census of works in public and private collections. The Inventory lists more than 100 works by Beaux.

I hope this answers your question!

Sincerely,
.Joan of Art

Pictured: Cecilia Beaux (1855–1942 ), Man with the Cat (Henry Sturgis Drinker),1898, oil, 48 x 34 5/8 in., Smithsonian American Art Museum, Bequest of Henry Ward Ranger through the National Academy of Design.