Virginia Richmond Reynolds (1866 – 1903) was an American artist particularly known for her portrait miniatures. She was also an influential teacher of the genre. Virginia Reynolds miniature 2

Early life and education

Reynolds was born in

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

, and studied first at the Art Institute of Chicago and then in

Munich Munich ( ; german: München ; bar, Minga ) is the capital and most populous city of the German state of Bavaria. With a population of 1,558,395 inhabitants as of 31 July 2020, it is the third-largest city in Germany, after Berlin and Ha ...

with Carl Marr. While in Munich she married Wellington Jarard Reynolds who was also an art student there. The couple moved to Paris where Virginia continued her studies under the American impressionist painter Charles Augustus Lasar and began exhibiting her work.

Career

Her miniature portrait of a Dutch girl at the

American Art Association The American Art Association was an art gallery and auction house with sales galleries, established in 1883. It was first located at 6 East 23rd Street (South Madison Square) in Manhattan, New York City and moved to Madison Ave and 56th St. in ...

of Paris show of 1896 was the only work by a woman on display. The success of her miniatures at the Salon de Champ-de-Mars exhibition in 1898 led to her being elected as an Associate of the

Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts (SNBA; ; en, National Society of Fine Arts) was the term under which two groups of French artists united, the first for some exhibitions in the early 1860s, the second since 1890 for annual exhibitions. 1862 Es ...

. She also established her own school of miniature painting in Paris where her students included Lucy May Stanton, Eda Nemoede Casterton and Cornelia Ellis Hildebrandt.

Rosina Cox Boardman Rosina Cox Boardman (1878–1970) was an American painter of portrait miniatures and botanical illustrations. Early life Born in New York City in 1878, Boardman was a descendant of several of the oldest families in the state, including the Livin ...

was also influenced by her style.

Barratt, Carrie Rebora Carrie Rebora Barratt is an American art historian specializing in museum administration and collaborative nonprofit leadership. She has worked in this domain in New York City since the 1980s. Barratt was Curator of American Paintings and Sculptu ...

and Zabar, Lori (2010)
"Virginia Richmond Reynolds"
''American Portrait Miniatures in The Metropolitan Museum of Art'', p. 476.

Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 1000 ...

. Porter, Madge (21 April 1900)
"Women Miniature Painters Represented At The Paris Exhibition"
''Daily True American''. Retrieved 25 March 2013. Virginia Reynolds miniature 1

Reynolds was one of the founding members of the

American Society of Miniature Painters The American Society of Miniature Painters (ASMP) was an association of miniature painters, organized in March 1899. The ten founding members of the ASMP included Virginia Richmond Reynolds, Isaac A. Josephi, William Jacob Baer, Alice Beckington ...

in 1899 and periodically returned to Chicago where she had a studio and taught the first course in miniature painting at the Art Institute of Chicago. She died at the age of 37 from an embolism while on vacation with her family in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin. After her death, her husband remained in Chicago, teaching at the Art Institute and continuing his career as a painter. He died there in 1949. Reynold's technique of miniature painting, and one which she introduced to her students, involved freer, more "expressionistic" parallel brush strokes. Her portrait of Bessie Moore was one of three which she exhibited at the 1900 Exposition Universelle in Paris and is now in the collection of the

in New York City.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Reynolds, Virginia Richmond 1866 births 1903 deaths 19th-century American painters 20th-century American painters Portrait miniaturists American women painters Artists from Chicago Painters from Illinois American expatriates in France Deaths from embolism School of the Art Institute of Chicago alumni 20th-century American women artists 19th-century American women artists