Elizabeth Coffin

Elizabeth Rebecca Coffin

Elizabeth Rebecca Coffin (born September 9, 1850 in Brooklyn , New York City , † June 21, 1930 in Nantucket , Massachusetts ) was an American artist , educator and philanthropist who was known for her Nantucket paintings. She had a good academic and artistic training and was one of the new women of the 19th century . She was the first person in the United States to earn a Master of Fine Arts and she was the first woman to be admitted to the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in The Hague . She founded a school on Nantucket and offered courses there for artisanal men and women.

Life

Elizabeth Coffin,
The Window Towards the Sea: Phebe Folger Pitman,
ca.1886–1887,
Nantucket Historical Association

Elizabeth Rebecca Coffin,
Portrait of the Artist in Conversation with Subject (unfinished),
circa 1890,
Nantucket Historical Association

Elizabeth Rebecca Coffin,
Fishing Boat at Nantucket Harbor ,
1906,
Nantucket Historical Association

Elizabeth Rebecca Coffin, called Lizzie , was born on September 9, 1850 into a Quaker family in Brooklyn , New York. She was the daughter of Andrew G. Coffin and Elizabeth M. Sherwood Coffin. Her father was from Nantucket Island and her mother from New York City. Eighth generation descended from the original first settlers of Nantucket Tristram Coffin and Dionis Coffin.

education

She studied at Friends Seminary in New York City. She then attended Vassar College , where she was taught by the Dutch painter Henry Van Ingen . She obtained a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1870. In 1872 she enrolled at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in The Hague , the first woman to be admitted to that school. Coffin studied in The Hague for three years. There she received awards for anatomy, composition, perspective and ancient drawing. She received her Master of Fine Arts from Vassar College in 1876. She was the first person in the United States to take this degree. Maria Mitchell , professor of astronomy at Vassar, became Coffin's mentor and remained friends with her for life.

She later studied at the Art Students League of New York and the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts . She also traveled extensively across Europe and California. Coffin was a student of Thomas Eakins .

Career

artist

Coffin spent summers regularly on Nantucket since the 1880s. In 1900 she completely moved to Nantucket. She painted in the style of American realism . Her paintings preserve the way of life of the residents of Nantucket, which was no longer a haven for whalers. Her painting Hanging the Nets was exhibited at the National Academy of Design in 1892 and won the Norman W. Dodge Prize for best painting by a woman. She won this award again in 1902. In 1893 she exhibited her pictures at the Chicago World's Fair .

She was one of the 19th century New Woman , a well-trained female artist who had never married, much like Ellen Day Hale , Mary Cassatt , Elizabeth Nourse, and Cecilia Beaux . Around 1890, Coffin painted a self-portrait. As did Hale and Nourse. In these portraits they presented themselves as individuals who disregarded social constraints and did not allow themselves to be put back into the place that society had assigned women. The portraits of the New Woman of the 1880s and 1890s show energetic, confident, and cultured women.

Coffin was a member of the Brooklyn Art Guild and the Art Students League of New York . Some of her work is in the collection of the Vassar College Art Gallery ,

A retrospective of her work was held at Vassar College in 1920 during her 50th grade reunion. More than 70 of her works have been exhibited at Taylor Hall. The Nantucket Historical Society exhibited their work in 2007.

pedagogue

In her later years, she devoted most of her energy to reviving the craft lessons associated with the Greek Revival at the Coffin School on Nantucket. The building was constructed in 1852 for the nautical and private education of boys and for the descendants of city founders Tristram Coffin and Admiral Sir Isaac Coffin. The school closed in 1898 and Elizabeth Coffin reopened it to high school students in 1903.

The curriculum for men included woodworking, technical drawing, plumbing, and metalworking. The women were taught basketry, cooking and sewing. Until Coffin taught basket weaving to women, baskets were traditionally made by boys and retired seafaring men on Nantucket. Her students also included women from the Goldenrod Literary and Debating Society , which was founded in 1895 for girls. Coffin's reopening of the school came at a time when the election industry, which was the economic backbone of the island, was coming to an end. Learning the trades helped the men and women of Nantucket find new ways to earn a living. The Coffin School exhibits paintings by Elizabeth Coffins.

Private life

In 1910, Coffin lived at 30 Remsen Street in Brooklyn, New York City. Then she traveled to Europe, where she wanted to stay for two years. In 1927 she sailed from Southampton to New York on the Nieuw Amsterdam with Fred Coffin, who lived on 30 Remsen Street in Brooklyn, New York City. Her address was the Vassar Club on 57th Street, New York City. She lived on Nantucket at 23 Lily Street. She was interested in sailing, hiking, and driving. Also for theater, opera and music.

Throughout her life she worked with boys and girls, including a high school at the Nantucket Athletic Club for children, for the settlement movement and the women's movement . Coffin was a member of the Association of Collegiate Alumni , Vassar Alumni Association, and the Vassar Student's Aid Association . She has served on the National Child Labor Committee , the College-Settlements Association , the Maria L. Owen Society for the Preservation of Wild Flowers , the Nantucket Historical Association, and the Nantucket Civil League .

Elizabeth Rebecca Coffin died in her home on Lily Street, Nantucket on June 21, 1930. She was buried in Friends Cemetery at Prospect Park in Brooklyn, New York .

gallery

• 

  Elizabeth Rebecca Coffin,
  Grandmother's Garret,
  1884,
  Nantucket Historical Association

• 

  Elizabeth Rebecca Coffin,
  Small Head in Profile (Portrait of Mary Eliza Starbuck) ,
  circa 1890,
  Nantucket Historical Association

• 

  Elizabeth Rebecca Coffin,
  Old Age Portrait of Anna G. Chase Derrick,
  1892,
  Nantucket Historical Association

literature

• Margaret Moore Booker: Nantucket Spirit: The Art and Life of Elizabeth Rebecca Coffin . Mill Hill Press; 2001. ISBN 978-0-9612984-1-8 .
• Carolyn Kinder Carr: National Museum of American Art (US); National Portrait Gallery (Smithsonian Institution). Revisiting the white city: American art at the 1893 World's Fair . National Portrait Gallery; March 1993. ISBN 978-0-937311-01-1 . Page 221.
• William H. Gerdts. Art across America: two centuries of regional painting, 1710-1920 . Abbeville Press; October 15, 1990. ISBN 978-1-55859-033-5 . p. 59-60.
• The Nantucket Maria Mitchell Association. Twenty-Ninth Annual Report . 1930. page 10.
• The Nantucket Maria Mitchell Association. Annual Report . 1931. page 10.

Web links

Commons : Elizabeth Rebecca Coffin  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c d} The Other Islanders . S. 152 ( books.google.de ).
2. ↑ ^{a b} Paulena Stevens Janney. The Civil War period journals of Paulena Stevens Janney, 1859-1866 . Gateway Press, Inc .; January 2007. page 380.
3. ↑ ^{a b} Elizabeth R. Coffin, Passport issued June 2, 191-. Passport applications, January 2, 1906 to March 31, 1925. NARA micro publication M1490, 2740 rolls. Department of State General Records, Record Group 59th National Archives, Washington, DC
4. ↑ ^{a b c d e f g h i j k l} John William Leonard: Woman's Who's who of America: A Biographical Dictionary of Contemporary Women of the United States and Canada, 1914-1915 . American Commonwealth Company, 1914 ( books.google.com ).
5. ↑ Paulena Stevens Janney. The Civil War period journals of Paulena Stevens Janney, 1859-1866 . Gateway Press, Inc .; January 2007. Pages 380–381.
6. ^ Nineteenth Century . Victorian Society in America .; 2002. page 42.
7. ^ About Books - Vassar, the Alumnae / i Quarterly. In: vassar.edu. vq.vassar.edu, accessed June 24, 2016 . 
8. ↑ ^{a b c} About Books - Vassar, the Alumnae / i Quarterly. In: vassar.edu. vq.vassar.edu, accessed June 25, 2016 . 
9. ^ ^{A b c d} Exhibitions at the Nantucket Historical Association. In: nha.org. Retrieved June 25, 2016 . 
10. ^ The Vassar Miscellany . Vassar College., January 1, 1891, p. 438 ( books.google.com ).
11. ^ Holly Pyne Connor, Newark Museum, Frick Art & Historical Center: Off the Pedestal: New Women in the Art of Homer, Chase, and Sargent . Rutgers University Press, 2006, ISBN 978-0-8135-3696-5 , pp. 25 ( books.google.com ).
12. ^ Holly Pyne Connor, Newark Museum, Frick Art & Historical Center: Off the Pedestal: New Women in the Art of Homer, Chase, and Sargent . Rutgers University Press, 2006, ISBN 978-0-8135-3696-5 , pp. 27, 39 ( books.google.com ).
13. ^ Vassar College: Annual Catalog ... January 1, 1908, p. 108, 113 ( books.google.com ).
14. ^ ^{A b} Sandy MacDonald: Quick Escapes Boston: 25 Weekend Getaways from the Hub . Globe Pequot, 2002, ISBN 978-0-7627-2200-6 , pp. 92 ( books.google.com ).
15. ^ ^{A b c} Susan Simon: The Nantucket Holiday Table . Chronicle Books, 2000, ISBN 978-0-8118-2508-5 , pp. 159 ( books.google.de ).
16. ↑ Elizabeth Coffin, Nieuw Amsterdam, arrival in New York on October 2, 1927. Arrived in Southampton, England on September 22, 1927. Page 555 of 983. Passenger and Crew Lists of Vessels Arriving at New York, New York, 1897-1957 . Microfilm Publication T715, 8892 rolls. Records of the Immigration and Naturalization Service; National Archives in Washington, DC
17. ↑ "Elizabeth R. Coffin obituary." New York Times. June 22, 1930.