Terre Haute Living Winter 2022 | Page 11

Garden in Giverny
FOR STARTERS arts

Treasures of the Swope

Garden in Giverny
Each issue , Terre Haute Living features a work of art from the Swope Art Museum . This month ’ s work is on display in the first-floor gallery as part of a new exhibition , Renoir and Hoosier Impressionists . The museum is open noon to 5 p . m . Tuesday- Sunday and until 8 p . m . on First Fridays .
“ Garden in Giverny ” is “ one of the great paintings created in that most famous of all Impressionist art colonies ,” according to noted American art historian , Dr . William H . Gerdts . It is one of the paintings featured in the current exhibit , “ Renoir and Hoosier Impressionists ,” now on view in the redone first floor gallery of the Swope .
The painting is by Mary MacMonnies , one of the most important woman artists of her day . Along with her husband , noted sculptor Frederick MacMonnies , she began frequenting Giverny around 1888 . Later they purchased an estate next to Claude Monet , who had made Giverny famous .
“ Garden in Giverny ” is one of several seasonal paintings MacMonnies did in her garden . The time is an autumn sunrise in all its luminosity .
The piece
“ Garden in Giverny ,” c 1901 , Mary Fairchild MacMonnies ( New Haven , Connecticut 1858 — Bronxville , New York 1946 ); oil on linen , 29 ¾ by 55 inches ; 1999.40 .
She had studied at Washington University of St . Louis and became its first woman faculty member . For a quarter of a century , she was one of the leading figures in a large community of American women artists who went to Paris to study .
At the Swope , she is best known for “ Five O ’ Clock Tea ,” the large Impressionist work that anchors the west end of the Zaun Gallery on the first floor . Her paintings are also in the National Academy in New Your City and Musee Vernon in France .
At age 27 , she moved to Paris to study at the Academie Julian where she studied with several masters . It was there that she experimented with the bright , sunlit style that became her trademark .
She met the young , charismatic sculptor Frederick MacMonnies , offered him apartment and studio space , and soon eloped with him . He is best known for his sculpture of Nathan Hale in New York City ’ s City Hall Park and a sculpture group for the Soldiers ’ and Sailors ’ Memorial Arch in Brooklyn .
At the same time , she exhibited at the Paris Exposition Universelle and was soon recognized as one of the best-known American painters in Paris . Both Mary and Frederick received commissions for the 1893 Chicago Exposition : Frederick to create the centerpiece majestic Columbian fountain ; Mary to paint a giant mural , “ Primitive Woman ,” for the rotunda of the Woman ’ s Building . Mary Cassatt did the companion work , “ Modern Woman .”
The couple divorced after having three children . She married Will Low and moved to New York . She exhibited at the 1904 World ’ s Fair and continued to paint . Toward the end of her life , she painted portraits , including one of Fanny Stevenson , widow of Robert Louis Stevenson . She died in 1946 .
“ Garden in Giverny ” will be on display through May 30 .
January / February 2022 • Terre Haute Living 11