If you are anywhere near Tacoma, Washington you should find time over the holidays to visit the thoroughly engaging and satisfying exhibit, "Cecilia Beaux: American Figure Painter", running until January 6. For those on the East Coast, it will be in Philadelphia at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts from February 2, 2008 to April 13.
There is an abundance and joy in Beaux's painting that is cheering and uplifting. The content of her perspective is often, though not always, domesticity and grace, as the remarkable series on the Gilder family--especially the children--attests. In style she is representational in the very best way, emotionally evocative while technically precise. As a woman, she was a pioneer in her art and she remains, I believe, unexcelled.
The era of her painting is now a century behind us and she exemplifies its dignity and optimism as well as anyone. You will enjoy indulging your senses and your imagination in Miss Beaux' company.
Beaux was a personal friend of Richard Watson Gilder and his family, all of whose members she seems to have painted. Gilder, great-grandfather of Discovery Sr. Fellow George Gilder, was editor of Century magazine, an outpost of enlightened thinking on literary affairs and public policy. Gilder introduced Beaux to the Theodore Roosevelt family that ultimately commissioned several distinctive Beaux portraits. To me, Beaux exemplifies the way in which our too-compartmentalized lives--public life, home life, writing, art--can be fused into a creative whole.
I recommend the book, Cecilia Beaux: American Figure Painter, by art historian Sylvia Yount (University of California Press, 2007). It is based on the exhibit and aims to help raise Beaux back up to the heights of fame she enjoyed in the past. The book itself is an exciting success.