Janet Scudder

Janet Scudder

Netta Deweze Frazee Janet Scudder (born October 27, 1869 in Terre Haute , Indiana , † June 9, 1940 in Rockport , Massachusetts ) was an American sculptor who became known for her fountains , which she created for private and public clients.

Life

Netta Scudder was born in Terre Haute, the third daughter of William Hollingshead Scudder and his wife Mary Sparks. She had six siblings. Her ancestors were among the first settlers to settle in Massachusetts in 1635, and later generations moved to Kentucky and Indiana via New Jersey . When Scudder was five, her mother died, and a few years later her grandmother, who had introduced her to art. Her father was a withdrawn person. A maid looked after the children, who showed Scudder little warmth. Scudder found her childhood bleak.

Netta Scudder attended school in Terre Haute and also attended drawing courses on Saturday at the Rose Polytechnic Institute . When she turned 18, her father sent her to the Art Academy of Cincinnati . There she studied anatomy, drawing and modeling with Louis Rebisso . Netta Scudder found her first name too awkward and changed it to Janet . She found work as a wood carver and was able to earn additional money. Her father died in 1890 when she was in the second year of her education. Her eldest brother supported her so that she could graduate in the third year. In 1891 she moved to her brother in Chicago.

World's Columbian Exposition

In Chicago she could not work as a wood carver because the association (Art Academy of Cincinnati) did not allow women. Instead, she found work as a sculptor at Lorado Taft . She became a member of the White Rabbits , a group of young female sculptors who worked with Taft on exhibits for the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893 and who had their own works at the World's Fair. In addition to working for Taft, she received commissions from a sponsor in Terre Haute to create sculptures for buildings in Illinois and Indiana. She designed the allegorical figure Justice for the Illinois Building and the Nymph of the Wabash for the Indiana Building.

Studies in Paris

While working on the exhibition site, she observed the installation of a fountain by Frederick William MacMonnies . She was fascinated by his work, and after the exhibition ended, she traveled to Paris with Lorado Taft's sister, Zulime Taft , to study with MacMonnies. Since a letter of recommendation did not lead to MacMonnie's invitation, she went to the MacMonnie's studio, knocked, and asked to be allowed to study there. A year later, she was MacMonnie's assistant. From him she also learned how to engrave flat reliefs, which she later used to design medallions . At the same time she studied at the Académie Colarossi and at the Académie Vitti . She returned to New York in 1894 because she no longer had enough money to live in Paris.

After a difficult start, she received her first assignment in New York from the bar association, for which she designed a seal. She received further orders for the design of ornaments on buildings and the design of medallions. After earning enough, she returned to MacMonnies' studio in Paris. She financed her maintenance by designing urns and other parts for cemeteries. Scudder created an allegorical figure of music for the Paris World Exhibition in 1900 .

Fountain

Frog Fountain

Tortoise Fountain

On a trip to Florence from 1899 to 1900 she got to know the characters of Donatello and Verrocchio . They aroused in her the joy of designing children's sculptures. On her further trip to Naples and Pompeii , she wanted to create sculptures. The Frog Fountain , modeled shortly after her trip to Italy, was the first of Scudder's fountains. It is now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art . Other fountains that were created during this period were the Tortoise Fountain in Brookgreen Gardens and the Young Diana sculpture . She received thirty other commissions from wealthy Americans, including John D. Rockefeller , Henry Huntington, and Stanford White . Her sculpture Seated Faun from 1924 is owned by the Brooklyn Museum .

Her sculptures were exhibited at the Panama-Pacific International Exposition in San Francisco in 1915 . There she won a silver medal. In 1920 she became a member of the National Academy of Design . Janet Scudder often traveled between the United States and Paris, where she owned a house in Ville-d'Avray just outside the city . She made this available to the Red Cross and the YMCA during World War I and worked as a volunteer for the Red Cross. In 1920 she was awarded the Chevalier de la Légion d'Honneur .

Janet Scudder served on the art commission for the National American Woman Suffrage Association . As a feminist, she took part in parades and demonstrations on women's issues. She refused separate exhibitions for male and female artists. Scudder lived in Paris with her partner, the writer Marion Benedict Cothren , with whom she returned to the United States at the beginning of the Second World War . She was warmly welcomed as one of the most famous citizens of Terre Haute, and her paintings and sculptures were shown in an exhibition in the women's club. Eight months later, she died of pneumonia in Rockport.

literature

• Janet Scudder: Modeling my live Harcourt Brace and Company (1925)

Individual evidence

1. ^ ^{A b c d e f} Radcliffe College: Notable American Women, 1607-1950: A Biographical Dictionary . Harvard University Press, 1971, ISBN 978-0-674-62734-5 ( books.google.de ).
2. ↑ John Joseph Flinn: Official Guide to the World's Columbian Exposition . Columbian Guide Company, 1893, p.  151
3. ↑ Allen Stuart Weller: Lorado Taft: The Chicago Years . University of Illinois Press, 2014, ISBN 978-0-252-03855-6 , p. 78
4. ^ ^{A b c d} Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York NY), Lauretta Dimmick, Donna J. Hassler: American Sculpture in the Metropolitan Museum of Art: A catalog of works by artists born between 1865 and 1885 . Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1999, ISBN 978-0-87099-923-9 , pp. 525 ( books.google.de ).
5. ^ Frog Fontaine at MET , accessed October 2, 2018
6. ^ Cleveland Art Collection , accessed October 2, 2018
7. ↑ Seated Faun in the Brooklyn Museum , accessed October 2, 2018
8. ↑ Janet Scudder - Spellman Gallery. In: spellmangallery.com. Retrieved October 2, 2018 (American English).  

Web links

Commons : Janet Scudder  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Janet Scudder in the database of Find a Grave (English)