M. Evelyn McCormick

M. Evelyn McCormick

M. Evelyn McCormick (December 2, 1862 – May 6, 1948) was an American Impressionist who lived and worked around San Francisco and Monterey, California at the turn of the 20th century.[1] She studied at the California School of Design in San Francisco under Emil Carlsen, Virgil Williams, and Raymond Dabb Yelland.[2] She fell in love with a fellow art student, Guy Rose, and followed him to Paris in 1889. Both studied painting at the Académie Julian and the pair also spent time painting in the tiny village of Giverny, where Claude Monet lived and worked. Both returned to California in 1891.[1] McCormick won the top prizes at her art school before going abroad. She then became the first American woman to be accepted for the honor of exhibiting her work at the Paris Salon.[3] She was greatly influenced by Monet, Pissarro, Seurat and other French Impressionists before her return. Early in her career she committed to painting landscape and found the area around Monterey provided her with inspiration and a wealth of subjects.

McCormick was a leader within the artistic community and an active member of the San Francisco Art Association.[1] Some of her work was destroyed in the 1906 earthquake and in 1907 she helped found the Hotel Del Monte Art Gallery at the luxury Monterey resort hotel.[4] Notable works by McCormick include “Along the French Coast,” “Wheat Fields, Giverny,” and “Carmel Valley Pumpkins, c.1907” owned by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.” Her paintings are primarily found in California museums and galleries, and in private collections in the West.

The California Impressionists attempted to capture the light of a particular moment as did the French Impressionists, both groups emphasizing the transitory nature of life. But the California Impressionists expanded the goal, attempting to evoke man’s kinship with nature and the oneness of all living things.[2] McCormick was extremely successful in capturing the California light and the importance of place is evident in her work.

During the Great Depression she was commissioned by the WPA to paint the crumbling but charming old Monterey adobes for posterity.[1] These paintings hang in the offices of Monterey city officials and public buildings.

Exhibits

M. Evelyn McCormick, Sherman Rose Adobe (Casa Bonifacio)
M. Evelyn McCormick, Pear Orchard, 1894
M. Evelyn McCormick, Boats

Works held in museums

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 Hirsh, Nelda (2013). A Bohemian Life, M. Evelyn McCormick, American Impressionist (1862-1948). Boulder, CO: Green Rock Books. ISBN 978-0982965016.
  2. 1 2 Shields, Scott A. (2006). Artists at Continent’s End: The Monterey Peninsula Art Colony, 1875-1907. Sacramento, CA: University of California Press. ISBN 978-0520247390.
  3. ↑ Oakland Museum Library (May 8, 1948). "Death Notice". San Francisco Chronicle.
  4. ↑ McGlynn, Betty Hoag (1969). Del Monte Revisited. Carmel Museum of Art.

Sources

External links

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