Cecilia Beaux, American painter and academic (b. 1855)
Cecilia Beaux (May 1, 1855 – September 17, 1942) was an American society portraitist, whose subjects included First Lady Edith Roosevelt, Admiral Sir David Beatty and Georges Clemenceau.
Trained in Philadelphia, she went on to study in Paris, strongly influenced by two classical painters Tony Robert-Fleury and William-Adolphe Bouguereau, who avoided avant-garde movements. In turn, she resisted impressionism and cubism, remaining a strongly individual figurative artist. Her style, however, invited comparisons with John Singer Sargent; at one exhibition, Bernard Berenson joked that her paintings were the best Sargents in the room. She could flatter her subjects without artifice, and showed great insight into character. Like her instructor William Sartain, she believed there was a connection between physical characteristics and behavioral traits.
Beaux became the first woman teacher at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. She was awarded a gold medal for lifetime achievement by the National Institute of Arts and Letters, and honoured by Eleanor Roosevelt as "the American woman who had made the greatest contribution to the culture of the world".
1942Sep, 7
Cecilia Beaux
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Events on 1942
- 25Jan
Thailand
World War II: Thailand declares war on the United States and United Kingdom. - 8Mar
Myanmar
World War II: Imperial Japanese Army forces captured Rangoon, Burma from British. - 10Jul
Soviet Union
Diplomatic relations between the Netherlands and the Soviet Union are established. - 13Aug
Manhattan Project
Major General Eugene Reybold of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers authorizes the construction of facilities that would house the "Development of Substitute Materials" project, better known as the Manhattan Project. - 25Sep
Holocaust
World War II: Swiss Police instruction dictates that "Under current practice ... refugees on the grounds of race alone are not political refugees", effectively denying entry to Jews trying to flee occupied Europe during the Holocaust.