I saw this beautiful painting posted by Celebrating Female Artists in History and immediately wanted to know more about the artist, Grace Carpenter Hudson (1865-1937). She was a native Californian, born in Potter Valley, some 130 miles north of San Francisco in rural Mendocino County. Her interest in painting began as a young child, leading her to study art at the new San Francisco School of Design in the early1880s. She painted mostly portraits and landscapes.
It was an exciting time for women culturally. Hundreds of exceptional women artists, whose works were acknowledged and admired, emerged in the public sphere, along with the first generation of college-educated women, the emergence of a revitalized suffrage movement, and the rise of women reform leaders, philosophers, writers. It was a time when women organized and gathered together to support one another. The "Bonds of Womanhood" propelled women into a myriad of associations and clubs, women artists among them, rising up like sunflowers in fields across the land.
These artists, like some of the first women scholars and their work, disappeared from public awareness and public view after their deaths. As men rose to claim the field, and the canon, they often intentionally, often aggressively, pushed women aside. The women artists didn't stop painting, didn't stop creating art, of course. How could they? It's just that their work wasn't encouraged or exhibited. It wasn't celebrated. It was not shown in galleries. It was not bought by Museums for their collections. Galleries and auction houses didn't display and sell them.
Now this is changing. The art is being shown and the talent cannot be ignored. It cannot be ignored.
Grace Carpenter advanced her art as pioneer California grew and advanced its status in the United States. After she married Dr. John Hudson, who migrated from Tennessee to take a job as the physician for the San Francisco and Northern Pacific Railroad, she began painting the local Pomo people, whom she had known since childhood. John Hudson, also interested in Native cultures, encouraged her interest.
Given the atrocities being committed against the native people of America at the time, it's a wonder that this couple seemed to have an interest in documenting and preserving their culture. The painting to the right is of a basket weaver, and the baskets are beautiful.
Hudson's portrait of a sleeping Pomo child in 1881, entitled "National Thorn," turned out to be the first in a numbered series of paintings she did of the Pomo people. I'm not sure what the title means. Is it sarcastic, that a lovely sleeping child could be a thorn in America's side? The popularity of this painting at the time motivated so many copy-cats that Hudson took care to protect its progeny, and her future paintings as well.  |
Little Mendocino, Hudson's most
popular painting. This is a photo of the original. |
The series grew to over 680 paintings by the time of her death.
It does seem odd to me that there was this kind of interest in the paintings of native Americans when at the same time they were being rounded up, thrown on "reservations," killed by US poachers and US soldiers, and forced to "Americanize" their ways in a concerted effort to wipe out their heritage. The Trail of Tears, the Sioux Wars, Little Big Horn where Crazy Horse was killed, Wounded Knee are just a few of the close to one hundred wars and conflicts aimed at exterminating the indigenous people of America.
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While Grace painted the basket weavers,
her husband John collected them. They
are beautiful baskets.
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And still these paintings by Grace Hudson became so popular they were copied many times over. When her husband gave up his medical practice to study the Pomo people and follow his deep interests in archeology and ethnography,a famous duo was born. She kept painting, he researched, studied, and collected. In fact it's his collection of California Indian baskets and other Native American artifacts that you can see in the Smithsonian, the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago, the Brooklyn Museum, noted for its commitment to diversifying its collection, and the Grace Hudson Museum in Ukiah.
A Grace Hudson Museum? How wonderful. I didn't know about it until doing some research for this blog. I hope I can visit on my next trip to California. The museum houses the manuscripts, artifacts and some paintings of Grace Hudson. A "Sun House," designed and built by the Hudsons, a California bungalow built of redwood, is part of the museum complex. Here the Hudsons lived in retirement, researched, painted, collected, relaxed, entertained. They adopted the Hopi sun symbol as their family symbol, displayed prominently over the doorway. The museum is operated by the city of Ukiah. It's designated a California Historical Landmark and listed in the National Register of Historic Places.
Today, Grace Hudson's work enjoys renewed interest and recognition for its fine and sympathetic portrayals of native peoples. Her paintings sell well through Sothebys and other auction houses. It's a good omen for other women artists, and it pays homage to the persistence of native American culture against great odd that has enriched and continues to enrich our nation.  |
| Sun House entry door with Hopi sun symbol. Photo by User Binksternet |
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