Amelia C. Van Buren ( – 1942) was an American photographer. A noted portrait photographer, she was a student of

Thomas Eakins Thomas Cowperthwait Eakins (; July 25, 1844 – June 25, 1916) was an American realist painter, photographer, sculptor, and fine arts educator. He is widely acknowledged to be one of the most important American artists. For the length ...

, and the subject of his c. 1891 painting '' Miss Amelia Van Buren'', regarded as one of his finest works.

Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts

Van Buren was born in Detroit, Michigan. Both her parents died sometime prior to 1884, when she began attending the

Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (PAFA) is a museum and private art school in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She had already been exhibiting her artwork in Detroit for at least four years prior to attending the Academy. Thomas Eakins 005

Her talent soon led Eakins to tutor her personally, including controversial lessons using nude models, male and female. In 1885–86, several of Eakins's former art students (including

Thomas Pollock Anshutz Thomas Pollock Anshutz (October 5, 1851 – June 16, 1912) was an American painter and teacher. Known for his portraiture and genre scenes, Anshutz was a co-founder of The Darby School. One of Thomas Eakins's most prominent students, he succeede ...

and

Colin Campbell Cooper Colin Campbell Cooper, Jr. (March 8, 1856 – November 6, 1937) was an American Impressionism, American Impressionist painter, perhaps most renowned for his architectural paintings, especially of skyscrapers in New York City, Philadelphia, and Ch ...

) conspired to have Eakins fired from the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. They approached the Academy's Committee on Instruction, and made numerous charges against Eakins. They alleged that Eakins had used female students, including Van Buren, as nude models. Another highly inflammatory charge was that Van Buren had asked Eakins a question regarding pelvic movements, which Eakins answered by removing his pants and demonstrating the movements. He later insisted that the episode was completely professional in nature. The committee left Eakins under the impression that the charges had been filed by Van Buren, who had moved to Detroit to recover from

neurasthenia Neurasthenia (from the Ancient Greek νεῦρον ''neuron'' "nerve" and ἀσθενής ''asthenés'' "weak") is a term that was first used at least as early as 1829 for a mechanical weakness of the nerves and became a major diagnosis in North A ...

. That, however, was not the case, as she greatly respected Eakins and in years to come would defend him at every opportunity, as well as express pride in owning pieces of his artwork. After recovering, Van Buren returned to

Philadelphia Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...

, where she continued in her studies under Eakins at the

Art Students' League of Philadelphia Art Students' League of Philadelphia was a short-lived, co-operative art school formed in reaction to Thomas Eakins's February 1886 forced-resignation from the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. Eakins taught without pay at ASL from 1886 until t ...

. Van Buren and Eakins stayed in close contact for a number of years afterward. Three or four years after his dismissal, Eakins painted Van Buren in '' Miss Amelia Van Buren''.

Post-Academy

There is little information on Van Buren's life and professional career following her education at the Academy. No paintings by Van Buren are known to survive. She entered into a

Boston marriage A "Boston marriage" was, historically, the cohabitation of two wealthy women, independent of financial support from a man. The term is said to have been in use in New England in the late 19th/early 20th century. Some of these relationships were r ...

with fellow student

Eva Watson-Schütze Eva Watson-Schütze (1867–1935) was an American photographer who was one of the founding members of the Photo-Secession. Life She was born as Eva Lawrence Watson in Jersey City, New Jersey on September 16, 1867. Her parents were Dr. John and ...

. The two of them opened a

studio A studio is an artist or worker's workroom. This can be for the purpose of acting, architecture, painting, pottery (ceramics), sculpture, origami, woodworking, scrapbooking, photography, graphic design, filmmaking, animation, industrial design ...

and

art gallery An art gallery is a room or a building in which visual art is displayed. In Western cultures from the mid-15th century, a gallery was any long, narrow covered passage along a wall, first used in the sense of a place for art in the 1590s. The lon ...

Atlantic City, New Jersey Atlantic City, often known by its initials A.C., is a coastal resort city in Atlantic County, New Jersey, United States. The city is known for its casinos, boardwalk, and beaches. In 2020, the city had a population of 38,497.

, but Van Buren disliked having to make compromises in her aesthetic sense to sell any paintings, so she turned to photography instead. Both women were recognized as accomplished artists and exhibited together at the Camera Club of Pittsburgh in 1899, and Van Buren was noted for her

portraits A portrait is a painting, photograph, sculpture, or other artistic representation of a person, in which the face and its expressions are predominant. The intent is to display the likeness, personality, and even the mood of the person. For this re ...

, once declaring her goal was to make portraits "to stand with

hose of A hose is a flexible hollow tube designed to carry fluids from one location to another. Hoses are also sometimes called ''pipes'' (the word ''pipe'' usually refers to a rigid tube, whereas a hose is usually a flexible one), or more generally ...

Sargent and

Watts Watts is plural for ''watt'', the unit of power. Watts may also refer to: People *Watts (surname), list of people with the surname Watts Fictional characters *Watts, main character in the film '' Some Kind of Wonderful'' *Watts family, six chara ...

and the other masters". It is known that by 1900, when she sent some prints to

Frances Benjamin Johnston Frances Benjamin Johnston (January 15, 1864 – May 16, 1952) was an early American photographer and photojournalist whose career lasted for almost half a century. She is most known for her portraits, images of southern architecture, and various ...

, she had moved back to Detroit. She had the portrait of herself in her possession, likely a gift from the artist himself, which she sold to the Phillips Memorial Gallery in 1927, by which time she was living in

North Carolina North Carolina () is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States. The state is the 28th largest and 9th-most populous of the United States. It is bordered by Virginia to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the east, Georgia and So ...

. In the early 1930s

Lloyd Goodrich Lloyd Goodrich (July 10, 1897March 27, 1987) was an American art historian. He wrote extensively on American artists, including Edward Hopper, Thomas Eakins, Winslow Homer, Raphael Soyer and Reginald Marsh. He was associated with the Whitney Museu ...

, who was writing the first full-length biography of Eakins, wrote to Van Buren. However, she replied that she had no particular reminiscences of Eakins. Van Buren spent her later years in an artists' colony in

Tryon, North Carolina Tryon is a town in Polk County, on the southwestern border of North Carolina, United States. As of the 2010 census, the city population was 1,646. Located in the escarpment of the Blue Ridge Mountains, today the area is affluent and a center f ...

, where she died in 1942.

Works by Van Buren

Photograph of woman seated in dress - Amelia Van Buren.jpg, Portrait of a woman in a dress, File:Amelia Van Buren, Woman draped in veil, ca. 1900.jpg, ''Study of a head'', File:Mother and Child - A. C. Van Buren.jpg, ''Mother and Child'', File:Isabella - Amelia Van Buren.jpg, ''Isabella'',

Notes

References

External links