The Wine Shop, Quimperle, Brittany, C.1920 by M

The Wine Shop, Quimperle, Brittany, c.1920 by M. Elizabeth Price In the Words of the Artist • “Art appreciation is a hobby of mine.” - New York Sun, March 6, 1930 • "There is a peculiar appeal...in delicate forms—the fragility of buds and twigs." - n.d. • “When I first saw the original cottage it was painted such a vivid yellow that I instinctively thought of a pumpkin; and it was so small that I named it ‘Pumpkin Seed’ more in derision than anything else.” - n.d. M. Elizabeth Price (1877-1965), The Wine Shop, Quimperle, Brittany, c. About The Artist 1920, Oil on canvas, H. 19.75 x W. 15.25 inches, James A. Michener Art A dedicated and energetic artist and promoter of the arts, M. Elizabeth Museum. Michener Art Price was well known as a painter, lecturer, and art teacher. Price Endowment Challenge Gift of Mrs. painted a wide range of subjects including landscapes, townscapes, Mary Carter VanZanten. genre scenes, figure studies, street scenes and floral still lifes. She made her reputation painting decorative floral panels. Her most distinctive works were paintings executed on a background of gold and silver leaf, imitating the technique of primitive Italian Renaissance artists of Florence and Siena. These wooden panels were coated first with a mixture of gesso and red clay. Then, she applied gold or silver leaf on the surface, followed by the image in oil paint. She worked in an impressionist style, influenced in part by fellow members of the New Hope Art Colony, Daniel Garber and Rae Sloan Bredin.

Price was born in 1877 near the town of Martinsburg, West Virginia. Her parents were Quakers who moved to New Hope, Pennsylvania where her mother had been born. Price spent the rest of her childhood on the farm in Solebury Township, just north of New Hope.

Price came from a family of artists. Her brother, Frederic Newlin Price, owned the successful Ferargil Art Gallery on West 57th Street in New York. From 1914 to 1943, many of the leading American painters including the Pennsylvania Impressionists and members of The Philadelphia Ten sold their work through this gallery. Another brother, R. Moore Price, was an art dealer and an accomplished framemaker. He crafted beautiful frames for several painters in the New Hope Art Colony as well as standing screens for Price’s paintings. He was married to Elizabeth Freedley Price, who was also a painter of flowers. Alice Rachel Price, M. Elizabeth Price’s sister, married the painter, Rae Sloan Bredin, who was a member of the New Hope Group. A third brother, Carroll Price, remained on the family farm in Solebury with his wife, Edith.

Price attended The Pennsylvania Museum School of Industrial Art (now the University of the Arts) along with the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (PAFA) in the early 1900s where she studied with Daniel Garber. Price also studied independently with painter William Langson Lathrop. In 1917, Price moved to New York City where she painted, exhibited and taught. She established several innovative teaching programs, including her“ Baby Art School” sponsored by Mrs. Harry Payne Whitney. (continued) The idea was so successful that the Carnegie Institute of Technology in Pittsburgh, PA asked her to stage an exhibition of the children's work in the winter of 1919-1920, in conjunction with an art education campaign for teachers and supervisors in art.

In 1914, Price exhibited at the Corcoran Biennial in Washington, D.C., for the first of seven times. That same year also marked her first exhibition at PAFA, where she showed again in 1917, 1918, 1923, 1926, and from then on every year until 1943. She exhibited her work at the National Academy of Design, New York, a total of sixteen times between 1921 and 1943. She received the Carnegie Prize for best oil painting by an American artist in 1927. Image Credit: M. Elizabeth Price painting in the "Glen", In the late 1920s Price returned permanently to Bucks County, PA purchasing 1940, photo courtesy of the cottage that she and her brother, F. Newlin Price, had been renting for a Joseph Barrett. Michener Art Museum Archives. number of years. She named it Pumpkin Seed, and spent the rest of her life there. She stated, "When I first saw the original cottage it was painted such a vivid yellow that I instinctively thought of a pumpkin; and it was so small that I named it 'Pumpkin Seed' more in derision than anything else. But the quaintness of the name grew on us so that we've learned to love it.” The garden at Pumpkin Seed inspired her paintings. The lilies, delphiniums, hollyhocks, mallows, irises, peonies, gladioli, and poppies that she grew in her cottage garden became frequent subjects. Price died on February 19, 1965, at Mercer Hospital in Trenton, New Jersey at the age of 87.

As an Art Promoter M. Elizabeth Price distinguished herself for cultivating women's and children's involvement in the arts and fostering art appreciation for the general public. Price lectured widely and organized several exhibitions across America. In attempt to boost women's confidence in their appreciation of art, Price lectured to women's groups, delighting them with canvases by her illustrious friends.

In an attempt to encourage creativity and an eye for beauty in children, Price founded the Neighborhood Art School in New York City in 1917. As an art educator, Price must have drawn upon the childhood experience that shaped not only her own, but also her siblings' extraordinary devotion to the arts.

Dedicated to advancing the careers of female artists, Price chaired national associations of women artists. From 1920 to 1927, Price was chairman of exhibits for the National Association of Women Painters and Sculptors. In this capacity, she arranged exhibits of women artists across the United States, in South America, and in Hawaii. This was followed by the chairmanship of the Art Committee of the American Women’s Association where she arranged exhibits for its members. Price's tireless efforts on behalf of the arts earned her a place of honor even in an artistic family as distinguished as her own.

The Philadelphia Ten The group known as “Ten Philadelphia Painters”, “The Philadelphia Ten” and, later, simply “The Ten”, was an alliance of female painters formed for exhibition purposes. It was comprised primarily of students from the Philadelphia School of Design for Women (now Moore College of Art & Design). Having been blocked from exhibiting at a number of public institutions, The Philadelphia ’Ten s primary objective was to expose their work to the world. The group exhibited annually in Philadelphia and sent exhibitions to women’s clubs across Pennsylvania, as well as to museums and galleries on the East coast and the Midwest. Each member of the group was a financially independent artist. (continued) Price’s first exhibition in 1921 with The Philadelphia Ten was the group’s second exhibit. She contributed 15 paintings which were the result of a trip taken the previous spring with Lucile Howard and Eleanor Abrams to Brittany, the Riviera and the Lake Region of Italy. Price remained an active and a prolific participant of The Philadelphia Ten through their final exhibition in 1945.

About The Painting Although best known for her lush floral still lifes, M. Elizabeth Price also created scenes of village and farm life like The Wine Shop, Quimperle, Brittany.During her artistic career, Price had taken a trip to France and Italy with Eleanor Abrams and Edith Lucille Howard, fellow members of The Philadelphia Ten. In 1921, Price and her studio mates Howard and Abrams shared a three-person exhibition, Little Paintings of Italy and France, at her brother’s Ferargil Art Gallery. This painting was featured in this group exhibition.

Quimperle, a town in Northern France, is a small town close to Image credit; Paul Gauguin, Vision of the Sermon Quimper known for the faience pottery it has produced since (Jacob Wrestling with the Angel), 1888, 72.20 x 91.00 the 17th century. Quimperle is also close to Pont-Aven—the cm (framed: 96.00 x 116.70 x 8.30 cm), oil on canvas, Scottish National Gallery, purchased 1925. Image village made famous by Paul Gauguin and fellow Symbolist Source: https://www.nationalgalleries.org/art-and- painters in the late 19th century. Like Gauguin’s work, Vision artists/4940/vision-sermon-jacob-wrestling-angel of the Sermon (Jacob Wrestling with the Angel), Price has included Breton women wearing the distinctive regional costume, including wooden sabots and white bonnets in her composition. Price focused on a simple street scene along with delighting in the patterns and colors she found in the village architecture – walls of warm creamy ochre, roof tiles in blues and greens accented by orange-red and ramshackle shutters of pale green. The application of the paint is loose and broken in an impressionist style, unlike the floral compositions she is well-known for. Small indications of her canvas peek through the bright, colorful brushstrokes. The figures look out at the viewer as if to welcome you in to their village.

Looking Questions Use the following questions below to help guide discussion and closer looking at the work by M. Elizabeth Price.

• Describe what you see in this painting. Create a list of all the details you can find. • Is there a focal point in this artwork? If so, what draws your eye to this location? • What colors do you see? How would you describe Price’s use of color? • How would you describe the use of texture in this painting? What effect does it create? • As the viewer, where are you standing in this painting? If you viewed this scene from a different perspective, what would change or stay the same? Explain. • Pick one of the people in this scene. Describe what it would feel like to be this individual. What would they say to you? Explain your answer. • What is the mood of this work? What elements of the work create this mood? • If you could give this painting a different title, what would you call it? Explain. • If you could tell a story about this work, what would it be?

Key Vocabulary

Abstract Foreground Mood Scale Background Impressionism Palette Secondary color Contrast Intersecting lines Parallel lines Shade Composition Landscape Perspective Still life En Plein Air Method Point of View Texture Focal point Medium Primary color Tint

Interdisciplinary Connections Interdisciplinary connections can be made betweenThe Wine Shop, Quimperle, Brittany and a variety of subjects. The lesson ideas listed below for elementary through high school students are provided as a way to enrich curricula and make meaningful connections with the work by M. Elizabeth Price.

Visual Arts • Yellow dominates the color palette of The Wine Shop, Quimperle, Brittany. Create a work of art based on a natural subject using different shades and tints of one color. • Experiment with different methods (cross-hatching, sponge-painting, blending, etc.) and mediums (paint, pastel, colored pencil, etc.) to create texture in a two-dimensional work of art. • Create a composition of a street scene either from your imagination or from your own neighborhood. Using the medium of your choice, include details of your neighborhood and create a story with your image. Incorporate depth in your work using the technique of linear perspective. • Look at examples of M. Elizabeth Price’s floral still lifes. Create a composition of flowers you have selected using the technique of collage. Create layers of colors using a variety of materials (tissue paper, colored paper, etc.) including gold or silver foil (or markers) to imitate Price’s use of gold and silver leaf.

Pennsylvania Academic Standards for the Arts and Humanities: 9.1.5 Production, Performance, and Exhibition of Visual Arts;2.5 9. , Historical and Cultural Contexts, 9.3.5 Critical Response, 9.4.5 Aesthetic Response;

Art History • Research the work of other artists from The Philadelphia Ten. Select one of the artists and compare her work with the work of Price’s. How are they similar? Different? Write a short essay explaining your findings. • Price was influenced by Renaissance artists from the Italian towns of Florence and Siena. Examine the Renaissance movement in depth and its contributions to art history. Select an artist from this time period and compare them to the work of Price. What aspects of this artist can be seen in Price’s work? How are they similar? Different? Create a PowerPoint to display your discoveries. • Examine other Pennsylvania Impressionist artists that lived and worked in Price’s community near Pumpkin Seed, such as Edward Redfield, William Lathrop, or Fern I. Coppedge. Identify one or two artists and discuss how their techniques and approaches were similar or different to the work of Price’s. In your findings, explain the significance of the Pennsylvania Impressionists in context with the larger 19th century movement of French Impressionism. • Research another woman artist outside of the United States practicing during the time of M. Elizabeth Price. How does this artist’s work compare or contrast with the work of Price? Create a visual display of your findings.

Pennsylvania Academic Standards for the Arts and Humanities: Historical and Cultural Contexts, 9.3.5 Critical Response; Pennsylva- nia Core Standards in English Language Arts: 1.2.5, Reading Informational Text, 1.4.5 Writing, 1.5.5 Speaking and Listening Language Arts • Use your observations of the painting by Price to write an Ekphrastic poem, a type of poem about visual art. The goal of this literary form was to make the reader or listener envision a work of art as if it were physically present. Use descriptive words and adjectives to paint an image of this work in the mind of the reader. • Look at the two women sitting together on a bench in the painting. What do you think they are talking about? Imagine their conversation and write a short story about them. Include other characters in the painting as part of your story. • Observe the painting and think about what emotions and mood it evokes. Write a poem about the way the image makes you feel or about the emotions of one of the figures shown in the painting. Use the poetry format of your choice. • Create a collaborative poem with a classmate or friend. Individually write down ten words or phrases about the work. After you have each completed your list on your own, recite your words or phrases taking turns reading them out loud. What is the result?

Pennsylvania Academic Standards in Arts and Humanities: 9.3.5 Critical Response, 9.4.5 Aesthetic Response; Pennsylvania CoreSta ndards in English Language Arts: 1.2.5, Reading Informational Text, 1.4.5 Writing, 1.5.5 Speaking and Listening

Social Studies/History • Discover the origins behind the history, traditions, language and culture of the Breton people who live in the region of Brittany. Create a report on your findings and how it distinguishes itself from the rest of the country of France. In your report, include another artist who depicted the Bretons in their work. • What were some historical events in France during the time this painting was created? Create a timeline of your findings that includes events from 1915-1925. In contrast, what was going on in the United States during the same decade? Create a visual timeline with your findings. • Explore the political history of the region of Brittany. Research its population growth, economy, administrative structure within France, and its major communities. How has this changed today? • As a woman artist, Price likely encountered prejudices during her career in a male-dominated profession. Create a timeline of women’s rights from the turn of the 20th century until today. How have the rights of women improved? What work still needs to be done? • Price most likely captured this image “en plein air”, a term in French meaning “in the open air”, a technique used by impressionist painters. The invention of the paint tube in the middle of the 1800s allowed for artists to be able to take their paints outdoors and work in this technique. Explore this simple invention and how it impacted the art world. What other types of inventions can you find that have improved the way artists worked?

Pennsylvania Academic Standards in Arts and Humanities: 9.2.5 Historical and Cultural Contexts; 9.3.5 Critical Response; 9.4.5 Aesthetic Response; Pennsylvania Core Standards in English Language Arts: 1.2.5, Reading Informational Text, 1.4.5 Writing, 1.5.5 Speaking and Listening; Pennsylvania Academic Standards in Social Studies: 7.1.5 Basic Geography Literacy, 7.2.5 Physical Characteristicsof Places and Regions, 7.3.5 Human Characteristics of Places and Regions, 7.4.5 Interactions Between People and the Environment, 8.1.5 Historical Analysis and Skills Development, 8.3.5 U.S. World History, 8.4.5 World History;

Math and Science • Create a frame for this painting. Draw a sketch of your design, describe the materials you will use, and calculate its size along with the entire final size of the work with the frame. What is your result? • Pretend you are a builder/architect living at the turn of the 20th century that is tasked to build another home in this village. What materials will you use? How large with the house be? Create a sketch of your design, the materials you will use, and its dimensions. (see other side...) • (continued) Since it is a building set in the early 1900s, think about the types of tools that would be used and the kinds of materials that would be available to you during that time period. Now design a building that you would create today in this town using today’s tools and materials. How will this affect your work compared to your other design? How will your new building have more “green” or environmentally-conscious components? • This painting features a wine shop. Explore the process of creating wine at the turn of the 20th century. Look up the terrain in Brittany, France, and see how it impacts the type of wine produced in the region. Then, explore the advances in technology in wine production today compared to the early 20th century. How has this changed and/or advanced wine production? Diagram your findings. • Imagine you are opening a wine store of your own in France. Create a proposal of this store with the specifics of your products. If you were to sell 100 bottles per week at a given cost, what would your totals look like at the end of the month? What kind of overhead costs would you incur? Create a sales plan for the first six months since the grand opening with income and expenses.

Pennsylvania Academic Standards in Science, Technology and Engineering: 3.4.5.A The Scope of Technology, 3.4.5.B Technology and Society, 3.4.5.C Technology and Engineering Design, 3.4.5.D. Abilities for a Technological World, 3.4.5.E The Designed World; Pennsylvania Academic Standards in Social Studies: 7.1.5 Basic Geography Literacy, 7.2.5 Physical Characteristics of Places and Regions; Pennsylvania Academic Standards in Mathematics: CC.2.1.5 Numbers and Operations, CC.2.3.5 Geometry, CC.2.4.5 Measurement, Data and Probability; Pennsylvania Academic Standards in Arts and Humanities: 9.1.5 Production, Performance, and Exhibition of Visual Arts, 9.2.5 Historicald an Cultural Contexts; 9.3.5 Critical Response; Pennsylvania Core Standards in English Language Arts: 1.2.5, Reading Informational Text,.4. 1 5 Writing, 1.5.5 Speaking and Listening;

More Michener Connections Discover these additional works and/or artists at your next visit to the Michener, on the Museum’s Bucks County Artists’ Database, or at the Michener’s page on the Google Cultural Institute’s website. Compare and contrast them with the work of M. Elizabeth Price. • https://artsandculture.google.com/partner/james-a-michener-art-museum • https://bucksco.michenerartmuseum.org/

Search for the works: • Fern Coppedge, The Road to Lumberville (also known as The Edge of the Village), 1938 • Rae Sloan Bredin, After the Rain, 1913 • William Langson Lathrop, Untitled (Landscape with Figure), ca. 1897 • Henry B. Snell, The Barber Shop, 1940

Selected Resources • Patricia Tanis Sydney (Author), Page Talbott (Author) The Philadelphia Ten: A Women's Artist Group 1917-1945, Galleries at Moore / AAR, 1998. • Peterson, Brian (Ed.), Pennsylvania Impressionism, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2002. • Bush, George. The Genius Belt: The Story of the Arts in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania State University Press, 1996. • Jaeger-Smith, Erika. Roy Nuse: Figures and Landscapes. James A. Michener Art Museum, 2002. • Tinker, Barbara. A New Hope Childhood, 1915-1930. Barbara Tinker, n.d.

Download a copy of this activity packet on Learn with the Michener: www.LearnMichener.org