Abigail May Alcott Nieriker
Abigail May Alcott Nieriker | |
---|---|
School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, William Morris Hunt, William Rimmer , Krug, Vautier and Müller | |
Known for | Painting |
Spouse |
Ernest Nieriker (m. 1878) |
Children | Louisa May (Nieriker) Rasim (1879–1975) |
Abigail May Alcott Nieriker (July 26, 1840 – December 29, 1879) was an American artist and the youngest sister of Louisa May Alcott. She was the basis for the character Amy[1] (an anagram of May) in her sister's semi-autobiographical novel Little Women (1868). She was named after her mother, Abigail May, and first called Abba, then Abby, and finally May, which she asked to be called in November 1863 when in her twenties.[citation needed]
Early life
Her temperament was elastic, susceptible. She had a lively fancy, a clear understanding... [I]ndependence was a marked trait.… She held her fortunes in her hands, and failure was a word unknown in her vocabulary of effort.
Amos Bronson Alcott, her father[2]
Abigail May Alcott was born July 26, 1840, in Concord, Massachusetts, the youngest of the four daughters born to Amos Bronson Alcott and Abigail May Alcott.[3][4]
Her sister was the novelist Louisa May Alcott, who supported her studies in Europe and with whom she had a fond relationship, although Louisa May was, at times, jealous of her family life and her ability to get what she wanted and needed.[5]
Artistic from an early age, she inspired the character of Amy, one of the sisters in Louisa May Alcott's Little Women, whom Louisa described as follows: "She was never so happy as when copying flowers, designing fairies, or illustrating stories with queer specimens of art."[6]
Public education
She studied teaching at the Bowdoin School, a
Art
19th-century women artists
As educational opportunities expanded in the 19th century, women artists became part of professional enterprises, which included them founding their own art associations. Artwork created by women was considered to be inferior; women, in response to that stereotype, helped overcome it by becoming "increasingly vocal and confident" in promoting women's work, and thus became part of the emerging image of the educated, modern, and freer "New Woman".[11] Artists, then, "played crucial roles in representing the New Woman, both by drawing images of the icon and exemplifying this emerging type through their own lives."[12]
Education
Beginning in 1859, Alcott studied art at the
She studied in Paris, London, and Rome during three European trips in 1870, 1873 and 1877, which the 1868 publication of her sister Louisa's book Little Women made possible.[3][15] She traveled on at least one of the trips with Alice Bartlett and her sister Louisa May,[nb 1] where she "came into her own as an artist." She studied sculpture, sketching and painting.[17] In the meantime, she found that women had greater educational opportunities in Europe than in the United States, but the art academies did not allow women to paint live nude models. For that, she studied under Krug, who enabled both male and female students to paint live models.[18]
Alcott had illustrated the first edition of Little Women, to a negative critical reception. The early illustrations were made before her trips to and studies in Europe.
Career
After studying in Paris, she divided her time between Boston, London and Paris. Her strength was as a copyist and as a painter of still life, either in oils or watercolors.[19] Her success as a copyist of Turner was such as to command the praise of Mr. John Ruskin and secure the adoption of some of her work for the pupils to copy at the South Kensington schools in London.[4][19][20]
She published Concord Sketches with a preface by her sister Louisa May (Boston, 1869).[4][19][21] After having studied in Europe, she had become "an accomplished artist" by the 1870s, and her works during that time showed marked improvement compared to the earlier illustrations for Little Women and the "quirky" depiction of Walden Pond in Concord Sketches. Her works after her European studies and exposure to great works of art reflected "a surer hand, a clearer focus, and a broader vision as the world".[17]
She created the plan and outfitted a studio in 1875 for a Concord art center to support and promote emerging artists.[22]
In 1877, her
She was living in London and studying landscape art when she met Ernest Nieriker. The couple married on March 22, 1878, in London. Authors Eiselein and Phillips claimed that the marriage occurred despite her family's reluctance.
The following year, she made the painting La Négresse, which was exhibited at the Paris Salon, "what might be judged her masterpiece" of her career.[17] It is a realistic painting of a black woman that portrays her unique individuality without being romantic or erotic.[18]
In her letters to family members, May expressed her happiness of married life as an artist in Paris.[23]
In her book Studying Art Abroad, and How to do it Cheaply (Boston 1879) she advised:
"There is no art world like Paris, no painters like the French, and no incentive to good work equal to that found in a Paris atelier."[29]
Childbirth and death
On November 8, 1879, in Paris, May gave birth to a daughter, Louisa May "Lulu." Seven weeks later on December 29, 1879, May died, possibly of childbed fever.[17][30][nb 3] By her wish and because Ernest traveled often for work, May's sister Louisa May brought up Lulu[nb 4] until her death in 1888. Then Ernest Nieriker, May’s widower and Lulu’s father, raised Lulu in Zurich, Switzerland.[3][25][nb 5]
Though Louisa placed a stone with her initials at the family plot at Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, May is buried in Paris[31] at Montrouge.[30]
In 2002, an exhibition of her work and life, "Lessons, sketching, and her dreams: May Alcott as Artist", was the first major show of her work.[17]
Gallery
-
May Alcott Nieriker, Amos Bronson Alcott in his study, by 1879
-
Ernest Nieriker, May Alcott's husband
Publication
- Nieriker, May Alcott (1879). Studying Art Abroad: And How to Do It Cheaply. Boston: Roberts Brothers. OL 6929381M.
- Reprinted (2015) Fb &C Limited ISBN 978-1-330-70442-4
- Reprinted (2015) Fb &C Limited
Notes
- ^ After the death of Anna Alcott's husband John Pratt in 1871, Louisa returned to Concord, while May stayed in Europe to begin serious study.[citation needed]
- ^ Louisa May Alcott depicted the couple in the novel, Diana and Persis that she wrote about art in Boston's Bellevue Hotel. Persis was based upon May and August on Ernest.[27] In it, "Alcott sets out to prove Avis in the wrong about a woman's ability to combine art, matrimony, and motherhood."[28]
- ^ Her cause of death may have been unrelated to childbirth.[23]
- ^ Lulu crossed the Atlantic and was brought to Boston, Massachusetts, in the United States by her father's sister, Sophie Nieriker, and a nurse sent by Louisa May Alcott in September 1880.[23]
- ^ Lulu's library represents the stories that her aunt Louisa wrote for her niece,[23] and Louisa's last story, Lu Sing, was a parable written about Lulu, set in China. The story is included in a modern book The Uncollected Works of Louisa May Alcott which is illustrated by May's paintings and drawings. The proceeds of the book helped to fund the restoration of the Alcott family house, Orchard House.[1] During her childhood, Lulu had an easy life in Concord, in the care of her aunt Louisa who considered her a "precious legacy" of her sister's life and warmly rose to the role of caretaker, comforter, storyteller, and supporter.[5] Upon her aunt Louisa's death eight years later, she lived with her father, his sister Alice and niece Hanny in Zurich. She had difficulty adjusting to the German language and strict lifestyle of her father's family.[23]
References
- ^ a b c Dinitia Smith. From Alcott, a Parable for a Spirited Niece." The New York Times. March 27, 2002. Retrieved March 2, 2014.
- ^ Daniel Shealy, ed., Little Women Abroad: The Alcott Sisters' Letters from Europe, 1870-1871.[dead link] Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 2008. p. lxix.
- ^ a b c d e f May Alcott Nieriker Archived 2016-12-07 at the Wayback Machine Louisa May Alcott, Orchard House Museum. Retrieved February 25, 2014.
- ^ a b c d e This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Wilson, J. G.; Fiske, J., eds. (1900). . Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography. New York: D. Appleton.
- ^ ISBN 978-0-8203-1950-6. p. 12.
- ISBN 978-1-4290-9312-5. p. 31.
- ISBN 978-0-8203-1950-6. p. 70.
- ISBN 978-0-8203-3009-9. p. xxiv.
- ^ ISBN 978-0-8203-1950-6.
- ISBN 978-1-55553-417-2. p. 104.
- ISBN 978-0-674-00486-3. pp. 145–146.
- ISBN 978-0-674-00486-3. p. 160–161.
- ^ "Alcott-Nieriker - academie julian". sites.google.com.
- .
- ^ ISBN 978-1-61640-251-8. p. 255.
- ISBN 978-1-57233-067-2. p. 40.
- ^ a b c d e Conni Maloni. "Lessons, sketching and her dreams: May Alcott as Artist." Archived 2010-05-27 at the Wayback Machine Massachusetts: Concord Magazine. Autumn 2008. Retrieved March 2, 2014.
- ^ a b Deborah Barker, Aesthetics and Gender in American Literature: Portraits of the Woman Artist.[dead link] Lewisburg, PA: Bucknell University Press, 2000. p. 222
- ^ a b c public domain: Johnson, Rossiter, ed. (1906). "Alcott, May". The Biographical Dictionary of America. Vol. 1. Boston: American Biographical Society. p. 69. One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in the
- ^ Rines, George Edwin, ed. (1920). Encyclopedia Americana. .
- New International Encyclopedia(1st ed.). New York: Dodd, Mead.
- ^ Deborah Barker, Aesthetics and Gender in American Literature: Portraits of the Woman Artist.[dead link] Lewisburg, PA: Bucknell University Press, 2000. pp. 220-221
- ^ ISBN 978-0-313-30896-3. pp. 232-233.
- ^ ISBN 978-0-8203-1950-6. p. 209.
- ^ a b Judy Stone. "A Look At Another Branch of the Louisa May Alcott Family Tree." Philadelphia: The Inquirer. January 15, 1995. Retrieved March 2, 2014.
- ISBN 978-0-8203-1950-6. p. xxiv.
- ISBN 978-0-313-30896-3. pp. 79, 232-233.
- ^ Deborah Barker, Aesthetics and Gender in American Literature: Portraits of the Woman Artist.[dead link] Lewisburg, PA: Bucknell University Press, 2000. p. 94
- ISBN 978-0-915977-42-0. p. 17.
- ^ ISBN 978-0-8203-1950-6. p. 219.
- ISBN 978-0-8050-8299-9
Further reading
- Julia Dabbs, May Alcott Nieriker: Author and Advocate. Travel Writing and Transformation in the Late Nineteenth Century (Anthem Press, 2022). ISBN 1-78527-864-9
- The Forgotten Alcott: Essays on the Artistic Legacy and Literary Life of May Alcott Nieriker, eds. Azelina Flint and Lauren Hehmeyer (Routledge, 2022) ISBN 978-0-367-69159-2
- Julia K. Dabbs, "Empowering American Women Artists: The Travel Writings of May Alcott Nieriker," Nineteenth-Century Art Worldwide (2016)
- Erica E. Hirshler, A Studio of Her Own: Women Artists in Boston 1870-1940 ISBN 0-87846-482-4
- The Uncollected Works of Louisa May Alcott ISBN 0-9655309-9-X
- Caroline Ticknor, May Alcott: A Memoir (Little, Brown, 1928)
- Selected Letters of Louisa May Alcott