Annie Shepley Omori (1856 – 1943) was an American artist, activist, and translator. For the first fifty years of her life, she produced work under her maiden name, Annie Barrows Shepley. She studied art in New York under Harry Siddons Mowbray and in Paris at Académie Julian under

Jules Joseph Lefebvre Jules Joseph Lefebvre (; 14 March 183624 February 1911) was a French figure painter, educator and theorist. Early life Lefebvre was born in Tournan-en-Brie, Seine-et-Marne, on 14 March 1836. He entered the École nationale supérieure des Bea ...

and

Lucien Simon Lucien Joseph Simon (1861 – 1945) was a French painter and teacher born in Paris. Early life and education Simon was born in Paris. After graduating from the Lycée Louis-le-Grand, he studied painting at the studio of Jules Didier, then from ...

. After that, she established studios in New York and Connecticut, where she worked as a

portrait 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 r ...

painter and children's book illustrator. She married

Hyozo Omori was a Japanese physical education specialist who studied in America and married the American artist Annie Barrows Shepley. In Japan, they established ''Yurin En'' (友隣園; House of the Friendly Neighbor), which was a settlement house and leade ...

, a Japanese exchange student, in 1907 and moved with him to Japan, where they established the ''Yurin En'' settlement house to provide educational and recreational opportunities to the poor in Tokyo. They were leaders in the Japanese playground movement. Hyozo Omori died in 1913, and Shepley continued running the center. She also translated '' Diaries of Court Ladies of Old Japan'' with Kochi Doi in 1920.

Artist

Shepley studied art under Harry Siddons Mowbray in New York. In Paris, she studied at Académie Julian under

and

. She established a studio in New York and later in Connecticut, where she painted portraits and illustrated children's books. Shepley exhibited her painting ''Work and Play'' at the

Palace of Fine Arts The Palace of Fine Arts is a monumental structure located in the Marina District of San Francisco, California, originally constructed for the 1915 Panama–Pacific International Exposition to exhibit works of art. Completely rebuilt from 1964 to ...

and ''The Wonderful Story'' at the Woman's Building at the 1893

World's Columbian Exposition The World's Columbian Exposition (also known as the Chicago World's Fair) was a world's fair held in Chicago in 1893 to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus's arrival in the New World in 1492. The centerpiece of the Fair, hel ...

in Chicago, Illinois. Other paintings that were representative of her work were ''Portrait of Artist's Niece (Rosamund Sargeant)'' and ''Portrait of a Young Woman.'' ''Portrait'' and ''Study of a Head'' were exhibited at the annual

Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (PAFA) is a museum and private art school in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

exhibition held from December 1896 through February 1897. At that time, she lived at 96 Fifth Avenue in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

. She exhibited a painting entitled ''Echo'' in 1897 at the Art Club of Philadelphia. About a dozen of her works were shown in a New York gallery owned by William Clausen in 1905. Annie Barrows Shepley, Portrait of Artist's Niece (Rosamund Sargeant).jpg, Annie Barrows Shepley, ''Portrait of Artist's Niece'' (Rosamund Sargeant) Annie Barrows Shepley, Portrait of a Young Woman.jpg, Annie Barrows Shepley, ''Portrait of a Young Woman''

Japan

In October 1907, she married

, who in 1905 graduated from Stanford University. He came to the US as a YMCA exchange student who studied in Springfield, Massachusetts. In 1908, after his return to Japan, he introduced basketball to the country. Hyozo Omori became dedicated to welfare work and Shepley was described as someone "with delicate refinement, high idealism, and scholarly outlook, she found all the elements of happiness." In Tokyo, they established a community center, ''Yurin En'' (House of the Friendly Neighbor) which offered drama lessons and a playground for children. It also offered courses in sewing, flower arranging, cooking, and crafts as well as mother's meetings and opportunities for people to speak English. Initially, they met resistance because of their co-educational programs, the fact that the Omoris were Christian, and that they broke down well-established class barriers. In 1913, after her husband's death Shepley continued running ''Yurin En'', becoming a leader in the Japanese playground movement. She translated ''Diaries of Court Ladies of Old Japan'' in 1920. The book, published with Kochi Doi, combined a translation of ''

The Diary of Lady Murasaki is the title given to a collection of diary fragments written by the 11th-century Japanese Heian era lady-in-waiting and writer Murasaki Shikibu. It is written in kana, then a newly-developed writing system for vernacular Japanese, more common a ...

'' with that of

Izumi Shikibu was a mid-Heian period Japanese poet. She is a member of the . She was the contemporary of Murasaki Shikibu, and Akazome Emon at the court of empress Joto Mon'in. She "is considered by many to have been the greatest woman poet of the Heian p ...

(The ''Izumi Shikibu nikki'') and of the '' Sarashina nikki''. Their translation had an introduction by

Amy Lowell Amy Lawrence Lowell (February 9, 1874 – May 12, 1925) was an American poet of the imagist school, which promoted a return to classical values. She posthumously won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1926. Life Amy Lowell was born on Febru ...

. A more recent English translation was published by

Richard Bowring Richard John Bowring (born 6 February 1947) is an English academic serving as Professor of Japanese Studies at the University of Cambridge and an Honorary Fellow of Downing College. In 2013, Bowring was awarded the Order of the Rising Sun 3rd Cla ...

in 1982. She was decorated by the Japanese government for her heroic service during the 1922 earthquake. She died in 1943, during

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 opposing ...

References

External links

Yurin-en: a Pioneer of Social Welfare Service in Japan
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Omori, Annie Shepley 1856 births 1943 deaths People from St. Cloud, Minnesota Académie Julian alumni Settlement houses Painters from Tokyo American expatriates in Japan 19th-century American painters 20th-century American painters 19th-century American women painters 20th-century American women painters