Mary Fairchild MacMonnies Low (1858–1946), born in

New Haven New Haven is a city in the U.S. state of Connecticut. It is located on New Haven Harbor on the northern shore of Long Island Sound in New Haven County, Connecticut and is part of the New York City metropolitan area. With a population of 134,02 ...

Connecticut Connecticut () is the southernmost state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, New York to the west, and Long Island Sound to the south. Its cap ...

was an American painter who specialized in

landscapes A landscape is the visible features of an area of Terrestrial ecoregion, land, its landforms, and how they integrate with Nature, natural or man-made features, often considered in terms of their aesthetic appeal.''New Oxford American Dictionar ...

genre paintings Genre painting (or petit genre), a form of genre art, depicts aspects of everyday life by portraying ordinary people engaged in common activities. One common definition of a genre scene is that it shows figures to whom no identity can be attached ...

, and

portrait A portrait is a portrait painting, painting, portrait photography, 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 type ...

Biography

Mary Fairchild MacMonnies Low studied at the

St. Louis School of Fine Arts The St. Louis School of Fine Arts was founded as the Saint Louis School and Museum of Fine Arts in 1879 as part of Washington University in St. Louis, and has continuously offered visual arts and sculpture education since then. Its purpose-buil ...

(where she won a three years' scholarship), and in

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...

at the

Académie Julian The Académie Julian () was a private art school for painting and sculpture founded in Paris, France, in 1867 by French painter and teacher Rodolphe Julian (1839–1907) that was active from 1868 through 1968. It remained famous for the number a ...

and under

Carolus Duran Charles Auguste Émile Durand, known as Carolus-Duran (Lille 4 July 1837 – 17 February 1917 Paris), was a French painter and art instructor. He is noted for his stylish depictions of members of high society in Third Republic France. Biograph ...

. She had her own studio at 11 Impasse du Maine, (now part of

Musée Bourdelle The Musée Bourdelle ( en, Bourdelle Museum) is an art museum located at 18, rue Antoine Bourdelle, in the 15th arrondissement of Paris, France, located in the old studio of French sculptor Antoine Bourdelle (1861–1929). The museum is open ...

). She married

Frederick MacMonnies Frederick William MacMonnies (September 28, 1863 – March 22, 1937) was the best known expatriate American sculptor of the Beaux-Arts school, as successful and lauded in France as he was in the United States. He was also a highly accomplishe ...

in 1888 and divorced him in 1909. She married Will H. Low that same year.

Chicago mural

Mary Fairchild MacMonnies - Primitive Woman - Decoration for the Woman's Building at the World's Columbian Exposition 1893

In April 1892, Low (then MacMonnies) was approached by

Sarah Tyson Hallowell Sarah Tyson Hallowell or Sara Tyson Hallowell (December 7, 1846 – July 19, 1924) was an American art curator in the years between the Civil War and World War I. She curated a number of major exhibitions in Chicago, arranged the loan exh ...

, agent for

Bertha Palmer Bertha Matilde Palmer (; May 22, 1849 – May 5, 1918) was an American businesswoman, socialite, and philanthropist. Early life Born as Bertha Matilde Honoré in Louisville, Kentucky, her father was businessman Henry Hamilton Honoré. Known wit ...

, the prime mover behind the

Woman's Building The Woman's Building was a non-profit arts and education center located in Los Angeles, California. The Woman's Building focused on feminist art and served as a venue for the women's movement and was spearheaded by artist Judy Chicago, graphic de ...

at the

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 (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordi ...

, Chicago, 1893, to paint one of the two mural tympana planned for the building's interior. The other was ''Modern Woman'', by

Mary Cassatt Mary Stevenson Cassatt (; May 22, 1844June 14, 1926) was an American painter and printmaker. She was born in Allegheny, Pennsylvania (now part of Pittsburgh's North Side), but lived much of her adult life in France, where she befriended Edgar De ...

. The topic of Low's mural was ''Primitive Women'' and it was by all accounts at the time deemed to be the more successful of the two. These were to be the only murals by these two painters. MacMonnies Low also exhibited her work 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 ...

at the 1893 Exposition. She is represented in the Museum of

Rouen, France Rouen (, ; or ) is a city on the River Seine in northern France. It is the prefecture of the region of Normandy and the department of Seine-Maritime. Formerly one of the largest and most prosperous cities of medieval Europe, the population of ...

, where she won a gold medal in 1903 and again in 1911. She also won a gold medal at

Dresden Dresden (, ; Upper Saxon: ''Dräsdn''; wen, label=Upper Sorbian, Drježdźany) is the capital city of the German state of Saxony and its second most populous city, after Leipzig. It is the 12th most populous city of Germany, the fourth larg ...

in 1902, at

Marseilles Marseille ( , , ; also spelled in English as Marseilles; oc, Marselha ) is the prefecture of the French department of Bouches-du-Rhône and capital of the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region. Situated in the camargue region of southern Franc ...

in 1905, and the Julia Shaw prize of the

Society of American Artists The Society of American Artists was an American artists group. It was formed in 1877 by artists who felt the National Academy of Design did not adequately meet their needs, and was too conservative. The group began meeting in 1874 at the home of ...

in 1902. She became an associate of the

National Academy of Design The National Academy of Design is an honorary association of American artists, founded in New York City in 1825 by Samuel Morse, Asher Durand, Thomas Cole, Martin E. Thompson, Charles Cushing Wright, Ithiel Town, and others "to promote the fin ...

Paintings

Mademoiselle Sarah Hallowell by Mary Louise Fairchild in 1886

* ''Gathering Apples'', 1866,

St. Louis Art Museum The Saint Louis Art Museum (SLAM) is one of the principal U.S. art museums, with paintings, sculptures, cultural objects, and ancient masterpieces from all corners of the world. Its three-story building stands in Forest Park in St. Louis, Mi ...

St. Louis, Missouri St. Louis () is the second-largest city in Missouri, United States. It sits near the confluence of the Mississippi River, Mississippi and the Missouri Rivers. In 2020, the city proper had a population of 301,578, while the Greater St. Louis, ...

* ''Gathering Flowers'', 1890, St. Louis Art Museum, St. Louis, Missouri * ''The Breeze'', 1895, ''In the Nursery-Giverny Studio'', 1897–98, and ''C'est la Fete a Bebe'', 1879–98,

Terra Foundation for American Art The Terra Foundation for American Art is a privately operated nonprofit organization dedicated to the support of American art exhibitions, projects, academic research, and publications worldwide. Its goal is to promote a greater understanding and a ...

Chicago, Illinois (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

* ''Five O'Clock Tea'' (1891),

Sheldon Swope Art Museum The Sheldon Swope Art Museum in Terre Haute, Indiana, United States, was originally funded by a bequest from Michael Sheldon Swope (1843–1929), a Civil War veteran and jeweler who lived in Terre Haute much of his adult life. Planning for the ar ...

. This painting, also known as ''Tea at Fresco'' was exhibited at the

Chicago 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 ...

, where "both the picture and the artist received favorable critical attention."‘’Revisiting the White City: American Art at the 1893 World’s Fair’’, National Museum of American Art and National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, Washington D.C., 1993 p. 189 * "The Green Butterfly" * "Early Morning Flower Market" (1910) * "Christmas Eve in the Studio" (1911) * "Little Women" (1911) * "Portrait of W.H. Low" (1911),

. Will Low was her husband at that time. * "Dogwood in Bloom" (1912) * "Portrait of E. S. D." (1913)

References

External links

*
Fairchield on artnet
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Low, Mary Fairchild 1858 births 1946 deaths Académie Julian alumni American women painters Artists from New Haven, Connecticut 19th-century American women artists 19th-century American painters 20th-century American women artists 20th-century American painters