"Genre Scene" Lot no. 3687
By Violet Oakley (1874-1961)
13.00" x 18.00"
Oil on Canvas
Signed Lower Left
SOLD
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An oil on canvas en grisaille genre interior scene depicting a woman reading a letter with child and gentleman looking on
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ABOUT THE ARTIST
Violet Oakley came from a family of artists: two grandfathers were members of the National Academy, and she was always encouraged in her own artistic efforts. She attended classes at the Art Students League and spent several months in England and France where she was a pupil of Edmund Aman-Jean. She returned to the States to enroll in the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, studying under Cecilia Beaux, then switched to Drexel to study with Howard Pyle. While Pyle helped her to gain illustration assignments, she preferred to work in stained glass and at a larger, decorative scale.
Pyle’s encouragement was the beginning of her long career as a designer of stained glass windows and murals. Her largest commission was for the murals in the Governor’s Reception Room in the new Capitol building in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Edwin Austin Abbey, who was painting another, larger portion of the mural decorations, died in 1911, and Oakley completed his commission as well, taking another nineteen years to finish.
When the League of Nations was being formed in 1927, Oakley spent several months in Geneva, Switzerland, recording the sessions and making portraits of the participants. Her work won her many awards and an honorary degree of Doctor of Laws from the Drexel Institute in 1948.