Artist Birthday: Anna Claypoole Peale (1791-1878 US)

Peale honed her painting skills assisting him in his miniature painting, and painting backgrounds for his still life works. She developed a lively style of miniature portrait in which she emphasized skin tones. This was further emphasized by the usually dark background against which she set these portraits. Her miniature skills were so esteemed by her venerable Uncle Charles, that he took her to Washington and shared a studio with her. He was surprised when she attracted more commissions than he did. Dr Staughton (1800-1838) was a prominent physician, surgeon, and college educator.

Background

In the early 1800s the academy system was introduced in America to regulate artistic patronage and production. It was based on the English academy and as such established standards for training artists, although women were not allowed. However, between 1800 and 1860, many women bucked society’s restrictions on their gender and became successful, professional artists.
The period between 1800 and 1876 is considered a golden age for the first flowering of art by American women artists. Despite the difficulty for women to get a rigorous art education, a surprising number of women became professional artists.

The National Academy of Design in New York (1870s) and the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts (1860) only grudgingly opened  to women, at first with limited instructional benefits. Until the end of the 1800s, many women artists still had to train with a male relative. By the end of that century, however, women were represented in all of the major artistic academies in the US.

Anna Claypoole Peale, as a member of the first American artistic dynasty,  played an important role in the cultural development of Philadelphia in the early 1800s. She was the daughter of James (1749-1831), brother of the dynasty's "leader" Charles Willson (1741-1827) . Trained by her father, Anna sold her first two paintings – copies of French landscapes – at the age of 14.

Peale was born and spent most of her life in Philadelphia, although she also made trips to Washington, DC, Boston, Baltimore and New York to fulfill portrait commissions.  Although after 1823 she relied primarily on commissions for portrait miniatures, she also continued to paint full-scale portraits, landscapes and still life.

In 1824, Peale and her sister Sarah Miriam were the first two women to be elected associate members of the prestigious Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. Between 1824 and 1842 Anna’s reputation was such that she had more commissions than she could comfortably handle. She retired from painting in 1841 after her second marriage.

Correlation to Davis program: The Visual Experience 4E, Chapter 8 Drawing, Painting, and Printmaking, lesson 8.1