Rowena Fischer Meeks Abdy (April 24, 1887 – August 18, 1945) was an American

modernist Modernism is both a philosophical and arts movement that arose from broad transformations in Western society during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The movement reflected a desire for the creation of new forms of art, philosophy, an ...

painter. She primarily painted

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

s and worked in

Northern California Northern California (colloquially known as NorCal) is a geographic and cultural region that generally comprises the northern portion of the U.S. state of California. Spanning the state's northernmost 48 counties, its main population centers incl ...

Early life and education

She was born in Vienna, Austria, in 1878 to American parents, John and Anna Meeks, who compensated for Rowena's deformed leg by encouraging her natural talent in art. An online facsimile of the entire text of Vol. 1 is posted on the Traditional Fine Arts Organization website (). After prolonged stays in Vienna, Dresden, Paris, and London the family moved to San Francisco, California, in the 1890s. For the academic year 1904-05 Abdy studied under the tonalist painters

Arthur Frank Mathews Arthur F. Mathews (October 1, 1860 – February 19, 1945) was an American Tonalist painter who was one of the founders of the American Arts and Crafts Movement. Trained as an architect and artist, he and his wife Lucia Kleinhans Mathews had a s ...

, Charles C. Judson, and Will Sparks at the California School of Design in the Mark Hopkins Institute of Art, where she was awarded an honorable mention for drawing. Her street scenes and landscapes in oils, watercolors and mixed-media drawings appeared in over fifty exhibitions throughout California from 1908 to the mid-1940s.

Mid life and career

Abdy was considered a historian on early California, which she often displayed in her artwork. She primarily painted landscapes, with a focus on the landscapes of

, including coastal towns,

Spanish missions The Spanish missions in the Americas were Catholic missions established by the Spanish Empire during the 16th to 19th centuries in the period of the Spanish colonization of the Americas. These missions were scattered throughout the entirety of ...

, and the scenery of

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...

. Abdy would travel from her home in

Russian Hill Russian Hill is a Neighborhoods in San Francisco, California, neighborhood of San Francisco, California. It is named after one of List of San Francisco, California Hills, San Francisco's 44 hills, and one of its original "Seven Hills". Location ...

to paint

mining town A mining community, also known as a mining town or a mining camp, is a community that houses miners. Mining communities are usually created around a mine or a quarry. Historic mining communities Australia * Ballarat, Victoria * Bendigo, ...

s and the

Sierra Nevada The Sierra Nevada () is a mountain range in the Western United States, between the Central Valley of California and the Great Basin. The vast majority of the range lies in the state of California, although the Carson Range spur lies primarily ...

. Her main studio was located in her Russian Hill home, which was located on what would eventually become the crooked part of Lombard Street. She bought the property in 1921. Abdy had a large "KEEP OUT" sign on her garden, which was frequented by uninvited curious tourists. From her studio, Abdy could see

Marin County Marin County is a county located in the northwestern part of the San Francisco Bay Area of the U.S. state of California. As of the 2020 census, the population was 262,231. Its county seat and largest city is San Rafael. Marin County is acros ...

Contra Costa County ) of the San Francisco Bay , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = United States , subdivision_type1 = State , subdivision_name1 = California , subdivision_type2 ...

and the

San Francisco Bay San Francisco Bay is a large tidal estuary in the U.S. state of California, and gives its name to the San Francisco Bay Area. It is dominated by the big cities of San Francisco, San Jose, and Oakland. San Francisco Bay drains water from a ...

. Abdy believed that

abstract art Abstract art uses visual language of shape, form, color and line to create a composition which may exist with a degree of independence from visual references in the world. Western art had been, from the Renaissance up to the middle of the 19th ...

should be used beyond paintings, and into the home through decorative arts. She painted "what she feels about what she sees."

1910s

She married writer Harry Bennett Abdy. He would promote Abdy's work using his writing skills. In 1915, couple took a

steamboat A steamboat is a boat that is marine propulsion, propelled primarily by marine steam engine, steam power, typically driving propellers or Paddle steamer, paddlewheels. Steamboats sometimes use the ship prefix, prefix designation SS, S.S. or S/S ...

trip from

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, ...

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania Pittsburgh ( ) is a city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, United States, and the county seat of Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, Allegheny County. It is the most populous city in both Allegheny County and Wester ...

. They met artist Armin Hansen, who would make drawings that would eventually be used to create by Abdy. The Abdy's finished their trip in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

, where Abdy exhibited work created during the trip. Harry wrote a book on the trip, ''On the Ohio,'' which featured illustrations by Abdy. When they got back to California, Abdy built a home on the

Monterey Peninsula The Monterey Peninsula anchors the northern portion on the Central Coast of California and comprises the cities of Monterey, Carmel, and Pacific Grove, and the resort and community of Pebble Beach. History Monterey Monterey was founded in 17 ...

. She called her studio and home, Forest Haven. It was there where she would main many Spanish missions and coastal landscapes. She then moved, in 1917, to

San Diego, California San Diego ( , ; ) is a city on the Pacific Ocean coast of Southern California located immediately adjacent to the Mexico–United States border. With a 2020 population of 1,386,932, it is the eighth most populous city in the United States ...

. In San Diego, she painted landscapes of

Old Town In a city or town, the old town is its historic or original core. Although the city is usually larger in its present form, many cities have redesignated this part of the city to commemorate its origins after thorough renovations. There are ma ...

. In 1919, she was represented by Helgesen Galleries in San Francisco. The gallery showed her watercolors, charcoal drawings, and landscapes of

Mission San Juan Bautista Mission San Juan Bautista is a Spanish mission in San Juan Bautista, San Benito County, California. Founded on June 24, 1797 by Fermín Lasuén of the Franciscan order, the mission was the fifteenth of the Spanish missions established in presen ...

1920s

'Decoration - Wild Geese' by Rowena Meeks Abdy

During this period, she took road trips, in her sedan. Her sedan was equipped with special storage spaces for her art supplies. The work from this road trip period would be published in a

coffee table book A coffee table book, also known as a cocktail table book, is an oversized, usually hard-covered book whose purpose is for display on a table intended for use in an area in which one entertains guests and from which it can serve to inspire convers ...

called ''Old California''. The book consisted primarily of watercolors. It was printed by John Henry Nash and it was dedicated to Henry E. Huntington.

Gottardo Piazzoni Gottardo Fidele Piazzoni (1872–1945) was a Swiss-born American landscape painter, muralist and sculptor of Italian heritage, a key member of the school of Northern California artists in the early 1900s. Life and career Born in Intragna, Switz ...

wrote the foreword. The book was

limited edition The terms special edition, limited edition, and variants such as deluxe edition, or collector's edition, are used as a marketing incentive for various kinds of products, originally published products related to the arts, such as books, prints, r ...

, only 400 copies were made, and copies today are collectors items. Some plates from the book were utilized by the

University of California The University of California (UC) is a public land-grant research university system in the U.S. state of California. The system is composed of the campuses at Berkeley, Davis, Irvine, Los Angeles, Merced, Riverside, San Diego, San Francisco, ...

alumni magazine and '' Standard Oil Monthly''. She lived and worked briefly on

Montgomery Street Montgomery Street is a north-south thoroughfare in San Francisco, California, in the United States. It runs about 16 blocks from the Telegraph Hill neighborhood south through downtown, terminating at Market Street Market Street may refer to: * ...

, before moving into her Lombard Street home in 1921. In the mid-1920s she started painting

still life A still life (plural: still lifes) is a work of art depicting mostly wikt:inanimate, inanimate subject matter, typically commonplace objects which are either natural (food, flowers, dead animals, plants, rocks, shells, etc.) or artificiality, m ...

s and flowers. In 1926, she exhibited her painting, ''Old Spanish Street, Monterey'', at the

California Palace of the Legion of Honor The Legion of Honor, formally known as the California Palace of the Legion of Honor, is an art museum in San Francisco, California. Located in Lincoln Park, the Legion of Honor is a component of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, which a ...

. It was the first time American artists exhibited at the museum. That same year, Abdy became a founding member of the

cooperative A cooperative (also known as co-operative, co-op, or coop) is "an autonomous association of persons united voluntarily to meet their common economic, social and cultural needs and aspirations through a jointly owned and democratically-control ...

art space, Club Beaux Arts, in San Francisco. She had a solo show there that November, followed by multiple solo and group exhibitions at the space throughout the rest of the decade. During the decade, Abdy and Harry divorced. In 1927, Abdy created a painting of the

Greene and Greene Greene and Greene was an architectural firm established by brothers Charles Sumner Greene (1868–1957) and Henry Mather Greene (January 23, 1870 – October 2, 1954), influential early 20th Century American architects. Active primarily in Cali ...

, D. L. James House, once owned by the writer

Daniel Lewis James Daniel Lewis James, (January 14, 1911 – May 18, 1988), was an American writer, best known for his novel, ''Famous All Over Town,'' about Mexican-Americans in Los Angeles. He published the novel under his pseudonym, Danny Santiago, and during mos ...

. The painting shows the sandstone and granite

Mediterranean The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean Basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Western and Southern Europe and Anatolia, on the south by North Africa, and on the e ...

-style house on a bluff in

Carmel Highlands, California Carmel Highlands is an unincorporated community in Monterey County, California, United States. It is south of Carmel-by-the-Sea (better known as simply, "Carmel"), at an elevation of 318 feet (97 m). Carmel Highlands is also located just south ...

overlooking the water.

1930s and 1940s

In the early 1930s, Abdy stopped using white paint in her watercolors, which she exhibited in March 1931 in San Francisco. When her drawings and paintings from California and Italy were given a solo exhibition at the Palace of the Legion of Honor in March 1932, the opinions of critics were divided between H.L. Dungan, who praised her "clean colors and entertaining imagination," and Junius Cravens,The Argonaut (San Francisco), 25 March 1932, p. 13. who found her compositions "weak in that they lack unity and logic." Abdy joined and exhibited with the

Carmel Art Association The Carmel Art Association (CAA) is a Not-for-profit arts organization and Art museum, gallery located in Carmel-by-the-Sea, California. The CAA is Carmel's oldest gallery. It features the work of many local artists living on the Monterey Peninsu ...

between 1934 and 1942. She contributed to the art display at the Golden Gate International Exposition on Treasure Island in 1936. Due to declining health she preferred to spend the winters in the desert. Her exhibition of Death Valley scenes at the Legion of Honor in 1942 was praised for its simple and totally un-sensational manner.

Later life and legacy

She lived in San Francisco until she died in August, 1945.

Ephemera Ephemera are transitory creations which are not meant to be retained or preserved. Its etymological origins extends to Ancient Greece, with the common definition of the word being: "the minor transient documents of everyday life". Ambiguous in ...

related to her life and work are held in the collection of 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 ...

Major collections

* ''Ravello'', date unknown,

Seattle Art Museum The Seattle Art Museum (commonly known as SAM) is an art museum located in Seattle, Washington, United States. It operates three major facilities: its main museum in downtown Seattle; the Seattle Asian Art Museum (SAAM) in Volunteer Park on Cap ...

, Seattle, Washington * ''View of an Italian Hill Town'', ca. 1920,

Mills College Art Museum Mills College Art Museum is a museum and art gallery in Oakland, California. The originally all-girls' school Mills College was founded by Susan and Cyrus Mills, who were both interested in art and history. Susan's sister Jane Tolman was an ar ...

, Oakland, California * ''Decoration: Wild Geese,'' ca. 1925, Mills College Art Museum, Oakland, California * ''The Robert Louis Stevenson House in Monterey'', 1928, California Palace of the Legion of Honor, San Francisco, California

Footnotes

References

* Hailey, Gene. ''California Art Research: Rowena Meeks Abdy, Geneve Rixford Sargeant, E. Charlton Fortune, Clark Hobart. San Francisco: California Art Research Project,

Works Progress Administration The Works Progress Administration (WPA; renamed in 1939 as the Work Projects Administration) was an American New Deal agency that employed millions of jobseekers (mostly men who were not formally educated) to carry out public works projects, i ...

(1936). {{DEFAULTSORT:Abdy, Rowena Meeks 20th-century American painters American women painters American Impressionist painters 1887 births 1945 deaths Painters from California Artists from San Francisco 20th-century American women artists American expatriates in France American expatriates in Austria-Hungary