A Catalogue Raisonné Polly P
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University of Nebraska - Lincoln DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research: English, Department of Department of English 5-1993 Paintings and Drawings in Willa Cather's Prose: A Catalogue Raisonné Polly P. Duryea University of Nebraska-Lincoln Follow this and additional works at: http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/englishdiss Part of the American Art and Architecture Commons, American Literature Commons, Illustration Commons, Interdisciplinary Arts and Media Commons, Modern Literature Commons, Other American Studies Commons, Other History of Art, Architecture, and Archaeology Commons, and the Women's Studies Commons Duryea, Polly P., "Paintings and Drawings in Willa Cather's Prose: A Catalogue Raisonné" (1993). Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research: Department of English. 93. http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/englishdiss/93 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the English, Department of at DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. It has been accepted for inclusion in Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research: Department of English by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. PAINTINGS AND DRAWINGS IN WILLA CATHER'S PROSE A CATALOGUE RAISONNE' by Polly P. Duryea A DISSERTATION Presented to the Faculty of The Graduate College in the University of Nebraska In Partial Fulfillment of Requirements For the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Major: English Under the Supervision of Professor Susan J. Rosowski Lincoln, Nebraska May 1993 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. DISSERTATION TITLE PAINTINGS AND DRAWINGS IN WILLA CATHER'S PROSE A CATALOGUE RAISONNE BY Polly Patricia Duryea SUPERVISORY COMMITTEE: r\ APPROVED DATE Sig! nr iffa Susan J. Rosowski Typed Name iSgignnatauturere/ Stephen C . Behrendt Typed Name j b . m s Signature Paul A. Olson Typed Name 'VVtlsy— VYTWU7 Signature Peter Worth Typed Name Signature Typed Name Signature Typed Name GRADUATE COLLEGE UNIVERSITY OF NEBRASKA Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. PAINTINGS AND DRAWINGS IN WILLA CATHER'S PROSE A CATALOGUE RAISONNE' Polly Patricia Duryea, Ph.D. University of Nebraska, 1993 Advisor: Susan J. Rosowski Paintings and Drawings in Willa Cather's Prose: A Catalogue Raisonne considers the specific artists and their visual art that greatly influenced Willa Cather's textual compositions. The Catalogue draws upon the author's research of Cather-related art from both American and European libraries and art museums. This art includes painting, drawing, illustration, and tapestry. A detailed and alphabetized list of selected artists and paintings that Cather preferred is provided. The artists are cross-referenced with Cather's own statements about their work or style. Included is biographical data for each artist, the named work of art, and often the date executed, the location then and now, and the museum acquisition date. Bibliographical information is given for books and articles on a related subject and for relevant criticism by Cather scholars. In addition, the illustrators for Cather's work, and her portrait painters, Leon Bakst and Nicolai Fechin, are discussed. The author comments briefly on how a specific work of art or style may correspond to Cather's textual allusions. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Throughout her career Cather memorized details about individual artists, including their lives and paintings, and she also followed the changing movements in art. Cather's interest in visual art was extraordinary. It ranged from the Old Masters, the French Academics, Dutch and Barbizon genre painters, to the revolutionary French Realist and Symbolist artists, the English Pre-Raphaelites, and the Impressionists- -both European and American. Cather deliberately used visual art to inform her textual structure, character, mood, or theme. Many of her writings reflect techniques used by the Symbolist artists and writers, and she even put to use the Post-Impressionist "language of cubisme.11 Links between paint and prose found in Cather's textual composition are explored in this dissertation. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS INTRODUCTION PAINT AND PROSE WORKS CITED THE CATALOGUE RAISONNE': ARTISTS BY ALPHABET NOTES ON THE FORMAT BIBLIOGRAPHY Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I particularly wish to express my great appreciation to my Doctoral Committee and thank them for being exemplars for scholarly research. They are Professor Susan J. Rosowski, Professor Paul A. Olson, and Professor Stephen C. Behrendt, from the Department of English, and Professor Emeritus Peter J. Worth, from the Art and Art History Department, at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. They have been truly supportive friends. I am also indebted to many individuals and to the Staff at many Institutions. My work was aided by grants from the University of Nebraska and I greatly thank them and I am indebted to those who supported me, in receiving the 1990 Maude Hammond Fling Travel Fellowship; the Summer Regents' Award in 1988; the Maude Hammond Fling Fellowship, 1989-90; the Franklin E. and 0. M. Johnson Fellowship, 1988- 89; the Summer Regent's Award, 1990; the Hazel V. Embley Fellowship and UNL Regent's Award, 1990-91, and the M. A. Massengale Presidential Fellowship, 1991-92. These funds made it possible for me to examine first hand the Cather-related materials in museums and libraries at home and abroad. For these honors I am indeed grateful to Dean Yost, Associate Dean Merlin Lawson, the University Committee for Grants and Fellowships, and to M. Ralston dePutron, former Assistant to the Dean of Graduate Fellowships, and especially to my Doctoral Supervisor, Susan J. Rosowski. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. I extend my special thanks to Doctor Robert Haller, who directed my Master's Program; to Professor Fran Kaye; to Professor and Dean Ken Hendrickson at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln Love Library for a carrel and to those in the Circulation Department, to those in the excellent Department of Inter-Library Loan, and to Joseph Svoboda, Chief Archivist, and to Lynn Beideck-Porn, the Slote Collection, Archives, for study space; to the Staff at the Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery; to the Staff at the Nebraska State Historical Society, Lincoln; to Sue Fintel and John Lindell at the Willa Cather Historical Center, Red Cloud; to Patricia K. Phillips, Director, and Staff at the Willa Cather Pioneer Memorial and Educational Foundation, Red Cloud; and to Jane Renner Hood and the Nebraska Humanities Council [in regard to the Speaker's Bureau]. In addition, I am grateful to the following individuals and Institutions: To Jean Schwind for her idea of a Catalogue Raisonne for pictorial art in Willa Cather's work; Joan Crane and Michael Plunkett Curators of Manuscripts, University Archivist, Alderman Library, University of Virginia Library, Charlottesville VA, for excellent Cather material; Jeff Marshall, Curator of MSS, Guy Bailey Memorial Library, University of Vermont, for his kind attention by telephone; and Professor Vivien Hixon, UMI; William M. Curtin for his early Cather work in The World & Parish. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Sir Yehudi Menuhin, Yalta Menuhin Ryce, and Eya Fechin, for personal remembrances of Willa Cather; Helen Cather Southwick and the late Philip L. Southwick for allowing a viewing of Nicolai Fechin's Willa Cather. and use of Cather photograph at the Luxembourg Gardens; Jeanne Shaffer, founder of the Cather Circle in Pittsburgh, for photographs of the Carnegie Cases and untold encouragement; Kathleen Byrne for many notes concerning Cather's Pittsburgh years; Betty Mertz for her great kindness shown on my visit to Pittsburgh. John Kirkpatrick, HRHRC Curator, and Cathy Henderson, Curator of MMS, Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, The University of Texas-Austin, for allowing me to read the Cather material in the Alfred A. Knopf collection; Alfred A. Knopf, Jr., for permission to use Alfred A. Knopf's personal papers in the Harry Ranson Library. Graham W. J. Beal, Director and the Educational Staff at the Joslyn Art Museum, Omaha NE, for information on the El Greco and the Gerome; the Staff at the Omaha Public Library for providing data regarding Bakst's portrait of Willa Cather. Stephanie Turnham, Registrar, Museum of Fine Arts, Santa Fe NM, concerning Blumenschein's paintings; the Staff at the Gerald Peters Gallery for Frank Applegate's chronology. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Staff at the Kenneth and Helen Spencer Art Reference Library of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City MO, for their helpful assistance at the library; Staff at the Art & Architecture Library, Spencer Museum of Art, Kansas University, Lawrence KS. Gloria Groom, Assistant to the Curator, European Painting, The Art Institute of Chicago for viewing Monet's Red Poppies in storage; to Jack Brown, Director, and the Staff Ryerson and Burnham Library, Art Institute of Chicago; the Staff at the Newberry Library,