Alice Acheson ( Stanley; August 12, 1895 – January 20, 1996) was an American painter and printmaker.

Life

Born in

Charlevoix Charlevoix ( , ) is a cultural and natural region in Quebec, on the north shore of the Saint Lawrence River as well as in the Laurentian Mountains area of the Canadian Shield. This dramatic landscape includes rolling terrain, fjords, headlands ...

Michigan Michigan () is a state in the Great Lakes region of the upper Midwestern United States. With a population of nearly 10.12 million and an area of nearly , Michigan is the 10th-largest state by population, the 11th-largest by area, and the ...

, the daughter of artist Jane C. Stanley and the granddaughter of

John Mix Stanley John Mix Stanley (January 17, 1814 – April 10, 1872) was an artist-explorer, an American painter of landscapes, and Native American portraits and tribal life. Born in the Finger Lakes region of New York, he started painting signs and portraits ...

; her father, Louis Stanley, was a railroad lawyer. She grew up in

Detroit Detroit ( , ; , ) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is also the largest U.S. city on the United States–Canada border, and the seat of government of Wayne County. The City of Detroit had a population of 639,111 at th ...

. She majored in art at

Wellesley College Wellesley College is a private women's liberal arts college in Wellesley, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1870 by Henry and Pauline Durant as a female seminary, it is a member of the original Seven Sisters Colleges, an unofficial g ...

, where among her classmates was the sister of

Dean Acheson Dean Gooderham Acheson (pronounced ; April 11, 1893October 12, 1971) was an American statesman and lawyer. As the 51st U.S. Secretary of State, he set the foreign policy of the Harry S. Truman administration from 1949 to 1953. He was also Truman ...

, who introduced the couple; the two married in May 1917, the same month she graduated from college. She continued her artistic studies both before and after moving to

Washington, D.C. ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...

with her husband, taking lessons at the

School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston The School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts University (Museum School, SMFA at Tufts, or SMFA; formerly the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston) is the art school of Tufts University, a private research university in Boston, Massachusett ...

, the

Corcoran School of Art The Corcoran School of the Arts and Design (known as the Corcoran School or CSAD) is the professional art school of the George Washington University, in Washington, DC.Peggy McGloneUniversity names first director of Corcoran School of the Arts and ...

, and the school at the

Phillips Collection The Phillips Collection is an art museum founded by Duncan Phillips and Marjorie Acker Phillips in 1921 as the Phillips Memorial Gallery located in the Dupont Circle neighborhood of Washington, D.C. Phillips was the grandson of James H. Laughlin ...

. From 1919, she was active as an artist in Washington, eventually joining and exhibiting with the

Society of Washington Artists The Society of Washington Artists was established in 1890 in Washington, D.C. The Society was organized by the ''Art Students League of Washington''. The Society's first exhibit was in 1891, held at the Woodward & Lothrop building. Within a few ...

, from which she received an honorable mention in 1940. She was also an active member of the Washington Water Color Club, the Artists Guild of Washington, and the

National Association of Women Artists The National Association of Women Artists, Inc. (NAWA) is a United States organization, founded in 1889 to gain recognition for professional women fine artists in an era when that field was strongly male-oriented. It sponsors exhibitions, awards ...

. For the duration of

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, she abandoned painting to pursue agriculture in support of the war effort, also teaching painting and drawing to wounded servicemen at the Forest Glen annex of

Walter Reed Army Medical Center The Walter Reed Army Medical Center (WRAMC)known as Walter Reed General Hospital (WRGH) until 1951was the U.S. Army's flagship medical center from 1909 to 2011. Located on in the District of Columbia, it served more than 150,000 active and ret ...

. She took it up again when her husband was appointed

United States Secretary of State The United States secretary of state is a member of the executive branch of the federal government of the United States and the head of the U.S. Department of State. The office holder is one of the highest ranking members of the president's Ca ...

, but she refused to exhibit until he returned to private life, feeling she would be using his fame to further her own career. During the war, she worked with the

Woman's Land Army of America The Woman's Land Army of America (WLAA), later the Woman's Land Army (WLA), was a civilian organization created during the First and Second World Wars to work in agriculture replacing men called up to the military. Women who worked for the WLAA ...

and was the chair of its Women's Advisory Committee. Grave of Dean Acheson - Oak Hill Cemetery - 2013-09-04

Acheson was described as a fashionable woman who, though she took scant interest in foreign affairs, was devoted to her husband and would defend him against any ill feeling. The couple were the parents of three children, all of whom survived her, as did six grandchildren and six great-grandchildren. She was noted for her passion for

Scrabble ''Scrabble'' is a word game in which two to four players score points by placing tiles, each bearing a single letter, onto a game board divided into a 15×15 grid of squares. The tiles must form words that, in crossword fashion, read left t ...

and for her independent spirit, at 85 telling off a teenage mugger who attempted to rob her. Acheson died at her home in Washington, and was buried in Oak Hill Cemetery alongside her husband.

Works

Acheson worked in

pastel A pastel () is an art medium in a variety of forms including a stick, a square a pebble or a pan of color; though other forms are possible; they consist of powdered pigment and a binder. The pigments used in pastels are similar to those use ...

s, watercolor, and oils during her career, progressing from a representational style to something approaching abstraction. Four of her works are in the collection of the

Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden The Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden is an art museum beside the National Mall, in Washington, D.C., the United States. The museum was initially endowed during the 1960s with the permanent art collection of Joseph H. Hirshhorn. It was des ...

, part of the original bequest by

Joseph Hirshhorn Joseph Herman Hirshhorn (August 11, 1899 – August 31, 1981) was an entrepreneur, financier, and art collector. Biography Born in Mitau, Latvia, the twelfth of thirteen children, Hirshhorn emigrated to the United States with his widowed moth ...

; they include a still-life in oil, dated before 1956; an undated landscape in oil; a 1975 watercolor view of

Phnom Penh Phnom Penh (; km, ភ្នំពេញ, ) is the capital and most populous city of Cambodia. It has been the national capital since the French protectorate of Cambodia and has grown to become the nation's primate city and its economic, indus ...

; and a 1970 collage titled ''The City''. Two undated watercolors are owned by the

Smithsonian American Art Museum The Smithsonian American Art Museum (commonly known as SAAM, and formerly the National Museum of American Art) is a museum in Washington, D.C., part of the Smithsonian Institution. Together with its branch museum, the Renwick Gallery, SAAM holds o ...

. Other pieces are owned by the Phillips Collection, the

National Museum of Women in the Arts The National Museum of Women in the Arts (NMWA), located in Washington, D.C., is "the first museum in the world solely dedicated" to championing women through the arts. NMWA was incorporated in 1981 by Wallace and Wilhelmina Holladay. Since openin ...

, and the

Harry S. Truman Presidential Library and Museum The Harry S. Truman Presidential Library and Museum is the presidential library and resting place of Harry S. Truman, the 33rd president of the United States (1945–1953), his wife Bess and daughter Margaret, and is located on U.S. Highwa ...

. Her work was formerly in the collection of the

Corcoran Gallery of Art The Corcoran Gallery of Art was an art museum in Washington, D.C., United States, that is now the location of the Corcoran School of the Arts and Design, a part of the George Washington University. Overview The Corcoran School of the Arts & Design ...

, and may be found as well at

American University The American University (AU or American) is a private federally chartered research university in Washington, D.C. Its main campus spans 90 acres (36 ha) on Ward Circle, mostly in the Spring Valley neighborhood of Northwest D.C. AU was charte ...

and in the Barnett-Aden Collection. Several of her linoleum cut prints were used to illustrate ''New Roads in Old Virginia'' by Agnes Rothberg in 1937. A vertical file pertaining to Acheson's work is at the library of the Phillips Collection; other papers may be found with her husband's private documents at the

Yale University Library The Yale University Library is the library system of Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. Originating in 1701 with the gift of several dozen books to a new "Collegiate School," the library's collection now contains approximately 14.9 milli ...

. She is also featured in some materials held among her husband's official papers at the Harry S. Truman Presidential Library and Museum. Paintings and further biographical details can be found on the website of Simonis & Buunk

References

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Acheson, Alice 1895 births 1996 deaths American women painters American women printmakers 20th-century American painters 20th-century American printmakers 20th-century American women artists People from Charlevoix, Michigan Artists from Detroit Painters from Michigan Painters from Washington, D.C. Wellesley College alumni School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts alumni Corcoran School of the Arts and Design alumni Burials at Oak Hill Cemetery (Washington, D.C.) American centenarians Spouses of Connecticut politicians Women centenarians Woman's Land Army of America members