Studio: international art (32.1904)

Studio- Talk

doubt, the portrait of the pianist L. De la Fosse by
J. S. Sargent, R.A., which was reproduced in The
Studio in 1900; and the finest piece of sculpture
was the bust of the poet Goffin by J. Lagae. We
are specially glad to be able to reproduce it (see
page 357), as it was placed in as bad a position as
possible at the exhibition.

We must also mention Le Mineur by C. Meunier,
L'Aufomne by E. Claus, Les Derniers Rayons by
F. Courtens, A Portrait by Blanche, the charming
coloured group by Desvallieres, the busts by J. de
Laing and J. Dillens, and, lastly, the numerous
exhibits of Vincotte and Gilsoul.

There were also very interesting exhibitions at
the Cercle Artistique, including some portraits by
Richier, some decorative work by Montald, and
some landscapes by Verdyen, which attracted many
admiring visitors. F. K.

PHILADELPHIA.—A very great honour
has just been shown to women artists
in the United States by the choice of
Miss Violet Oakley of Philadelphia along
with Mr. Abbey as the only artists selected by the
State of Pennsylvania to decorate the new State
Capitol building at Harrisburg. Miss Oakley has
been entrusted with the decoration of the Executive
reception room, which is 70 ft. by 40 ft, and will
have 15 panels, 6 ft. by 12 ft. in size, for her
paintings. Mr. James Huston, the well-known
Philadelphia architect, who is building the Capitol,
selected Miss Oakley for this important commission
from among all other women artists " purely
because of the superior excellence of her work,"
to quote his own words.

And this choice has not surprised those of us
who have had the privilege of watching Miss
Oakley's art career from its commencement, for
with her undoubted genius, she combines in-
domitable perseverance, and the love of hard
work. Seeing that she is not yet thirty, she has a
great future before her.

The choice of this artist for such a work is
specially interesting to us in England, as, though
she is an American born and of American
parentage, she is the great-niece of Oakley, the
English water-colour painter and Member of the
old Water-Colour Society.

Miss Oakley has only been at work with her
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artistic tools for the short space of eight years,
beginning her studies in 1893-94 with Carrol
Beckwith at the Art Students' League, and during
one winter she studied in Paris at the Academie
Montparnasse, under Raphael Collen and Aman
Jean. For a short time the following summer she
was working with Charles Lasar at Rye, in Sussex ;
and the next winter returning home she was
working hard at the Pennsylvania Academy in
Philadelphia, under Miss Beaux, Joseph de Camp,
and Henry Throun.

Not long after this, Miss Oakley started a studio
of her own in Philadelphia, and it is owing to the
influence of Mr. Horace Pyle that she first took up
stained glass designing, and in 1899 produced the
window of The Epiphany for the Church Glass and
Decorating Company of New York. It was owing
to their great admiration and appreciation of
her work, that she received the important com-
mission for the chancel decorations of the Church
of All Angels in New York, which she only finished
in December of 1901, doing the work in the short
space of two years.

These decorations consist of an altar-piece, and
two curving chancel sides of very great beauty and
devotional feeling, and four small stained windows,
representing St. Agnes, The Madonna, the aged
Anna and Simeon, and Faith. The altar-piece is
in mosaic from the artist's designs, but the decora-
tive work on the walls is entirely her own work and
is of great beauty. The verdict of competent
judges who saw the work was that a career of great
promise was before the artist, an opinion which
has been fully borne out by the selection of Miss
Oakley for the commission which the State of
Pennsylvania has entrusted to her.

Besides her other more important work, she finds
time to do illustrative work or the design of a book-
cover. In this new work in the State Capitol, Miss
Oakley will have enormous scope for her love of
harmonious colouring, for the series of paintings
which are to run through the entire building are to
represent the Romance of the Founding of a State,
and will recall the history of Pennsylvania from
the days of William Penn to the present time, and
will form an epic in painting.

Miss Oakley shares with two lady artist friends a
charming house and studios close to Philadelphia
called the Red Rose Inn, an old colonial building
of the first days of the colony, which in later years