E. Charlton Fortune

E. Charlton Fortune

Monterey Bay, 1916, 30 x 40 inches, Oakland Museum of California
Born Euphemia Charlton Fortune
(1885-01-15)January 15, 1885
Sausalito, California
Died May 15, 1969(1969-05-15)
Carmel, California
Nationality American
Known for oil painting
Movement American Impressionism

Euphemia Charlton Fortune (1885–1969) was an American Impressionist artist from California. She was trained in Europe, New York and San Francisco. She painted many portraits as well as landscape views of California and European sites. In midlife she turned to liturgical design. She signed her paintings "E. Charlton Fortune," which helped conceal her gender.

Early life and education

Fortune was born in Sausalito, Marin County, California, on January 15, 1885. Her father was a Scot, William Ranken Fortune, and her mother was a native of San Francisco, Helen Hersberg. She eschewed her given name Euphemia, and was known to friends as Effie. Having a cleft palate, as did her father, Effie resolved to never marry, lest the trait be passed on. She came from a wealthy family and was able to travel widely throughout her life.[1]

Her father developed lung disease by 1890, prompting the family to move to Southern California in 1891. The father died in 1894. In 1898 an aunt visited from Scotland and took Effie back with her, where she enrolled in St. Margaret's Convent in Edinburgh. She graduated in 1904 and went to London, where she studied at St John's Wood School of Art.[2][3]

In 1905, she returned to San Francisco, where she studied at the Mark Hopkins Institute of Art, then directed by Arthur Frank Mathews.

The 1906 San Francisco earthquake destroyed the Fortune family's home, virtually all of Effie's paintings, and the Mark Hopkins Institute of Art. The following year the family relocated to New York City, where she studied at the Art Students League until 1910. Frank Vincent DuMond was a favorite teacher from whom she learned the importance of expressing her own individuality and the importance of light effects. From the South American F. Luis Mora she learned the skills of an illustrator. Fortune often painted at Lake George with DuMond. As she sought out further outdoor venues, she was invited by Spencer Trask to paint at Woodstock in the Catskill Mountains. She was elected women's vice president of the Art Student's League and contributed some illustrations to Harpers Magazine. She also studied with William Merritt Chase in her last year at the Art Students League.[2]

During 1910, she traveled to Scotland, England and France. Upon visiting her alma mater in Edinburgh, she was commissioned to paint three panels of the life of Christ for St. Margaret's Convent.[4] She also received her first professional exhibition at the Royal Scottish Academy in Edinburgh, exhibiting 27 paintings there in 1911.[2]

Early career in California

In 1910, after a trip to Paris where she was exposed to modern French art, Fortune re-emerged in San Francisco. Through the help of Luis Mora, she gained a position as an illustrator for Sunset Magazine. From 1913 through 1920, she and her mother spent summers in Monterey. In 1914 William Merritt Chase taught a summer painting class in nearby Carmel; Fortune took credit for having invited him. Between 1916 and 1920 she taught private art lessons and organized outdoor painting workshops.[1] She was also active in the San Francisco art community: She exhibited ten portraits at Vickery, Atkins and Torrey in 1913[5] and had solo shows at Schussler Gallerie in 1914 and Helgesen Galleries in 1918. In 1915 she received silver medals at both the Panama Pacific International Exposition and the Panama–California Exposition. In 1920 she was nominated to the National Academy of Design, sponsored by Luis Mora and William Ritschel, and she was elected to the Academy as an Associate in 1921.[2]

Europe and then back to Monterey

Fortune, continuing to travel with her mother, visited Europe from 1921 to 1927. They lived in St Ives, Cornwall from 1922 to 1923, then spent time in St. Tropez and Italy. She exhibited in various European and American museums and galleries during these years, and in 1924 one of her paintings of Saint Ives Harbor received a Silver Medal at the Paris Salon. She was elected a member of the Society of Scottish Artists in 1922.

Upon returning to California in 1927 she settled in Monterey. She had a solo exhibition at the Galerie Beaux Arts in San Francisco in 1927, which was well reviewed, but when the works were shown at the Oakland Art Gallery they were called too beautiful. She returned to Monterey and joined the newly formed Carmel Art Association.[3][6]

Religious art

At about this time Fortune decided to focus on religious art, and in 1928 she founded the Monterey Guild, which created liturgical art for Catholic churches across the country. She served as artist-in-residence at Portsmouth Priory (now Portsmouth Abbey School) in Portsmouth, Rhode Island, in 1947–48 and designed the tabernacle that now resides in the Abbey's Church of St. Gregory the Great. In 1955, she received the papal award Pro ecclesia et Pontiface for outstanding achievement in the field of liturgical art.[2]

Legacy

A play about Fortune, "Fortune's Way, or Notes on Art for Catholics (and Others)", by Steve Hauk, premiered in California in staged readings in 2010 at the Carmel Mission. The play featured Teresa Del Piero in the title role and John Brady as the Bishop. {Performances followed at the Carl Cherry Center for the Arts, Carmel; the Monterey Museum of Art, the Pacific Grove Public Library and in the summer of 2011 it was performed at The Carmel Art Association. This performance is thought to be a first in the association's 84-year history.[7] The play is set after the artist has turned to liturgical work and as she looks back at her life while giving a lecture. The full text of the play with photographs is on the Traditional Fine Arts Organization, Inc. website.[8] Steve Hauk speaks about the life and art of artist E. Charlton Fortune. on a video for the Museum of Monterey's 100 Story Project.[9]

A Fortune painting sold at auction in April 2014 for $365,000.[10]

Permanent collections

See also

References

  1. 1 2 "E. Charlton Fortune biography on AskART".
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 Carmel Art Association (2001). E. Charlton Fortune, 1885-1969. ISBN 9781885666109.
  3. 1 2 Westphal, ed., Ruth Lilly (1986). Plein Air Painters of California: the North. ISBN 0961052015.
  4. ↑ San Francisco Chronicle, 9 October 1910, p. 26.
  5. ↑ San Francisco Chronicle, 9 March 1913, p. 27
  6. ↑ Morseburg, Jeffrey. "E. Charlton Fortune—Monterey's Impressionist".
  7. ↑ Monterey Herald, 2 September 2011.
  8. ↑ Fortune's Way, or Notes on Art for Catholics (and Others); play by Steve Hauk
  9. ↑ 100 Story Project - Steve Hauk: E. Charlton Fortune on YouTube
  10. ↑ "Hall of Flowers Makes a Fortune," Bonhams press release, 8 April 2014

External links

Gallery

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