Christine Herter Kendall (August 25, 1890 – June 22, 1981) was an American painter.

Biography

The daughter of physician Christian Archibald Herter and Susan Dows Herter, she was born in Irvington-on-Hudson, New York. She had an older and a younger sister, and they grew up in a musical and artistic family in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

. Her grandfather and great uncle had founded the interior design firm

Herter Brothers Herter is a German occupational surname for a herdsman. Notable people with the surname include: * Albert Herter (1871–1950), American painter; son of Christian, the furniture maker * Christian Herter (1895–1966), American politician; son o ...

, and her uncle was the noted painter

Albert Herter Albert Herter (March 2, 1871 – February 15, 1950) was an American painter, illustrator, muralist, and interior designer. He was born in New York City, studied at the Art Students League with James Carroll Beckwith, then in Paris with Jean ...

. Her first cousin was the politician and diplomat

Christian Herter Christian Archibald Herter (March 28, 1895December 30, 1966) was an American diplomat and Republican politician who was the 59th Governor of Massachusetts from 1953 to 1957 and United States Secretary of State from 1959 to 1961. His moderate ...

. Christine Herter studied art in New York and in

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), ma ...

before enrolling at

Yale University Yale University is a Private university, private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the List of Colonial Colleges, third-oldest institution of higher education in the United Sta ...

, from which she earned a BA in 1915. Among her Yale instructors was painter William Sergeant Kendall, with whom she began a romantic relationship. In 1921, Kendall divorced his wife, painter Margaret Weston Stickney, and left his three daughters. He resigned his position at Yale, and married Herter in 1922. In 1923, the couple purchased a 114-acre mountainside property in Bath County,

Virginia Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States, between the Atlantic Coast and the Appalachian Mountains. The geography and climate of the Commonwealth ar ...

. There they built a large house (completed 1924), with an artist's studio at each end, and named it Garth Newel ("New Hearth"). They raised Arabian horses on the farm, and hosted concerts and art events.Garth Newel
from National Park Service. Her husband died in 1938, and she remained active in the local community, cofounding the Bath County Regional Art Show in 1964. With members of the Rowe String Quartet she established the Garth Newel Music Center in 1973. She bequeathed the house to the music center upon her death. Christine Herter Kendall won a number of awards during her career. These included the popular vote prize from the Newport Art Association in 1915; the Second

Hallgarten Prize The Julius Hallgarten Prizes (defunct) were a trio of prestigious art prizes awarded by the National Academy of Design The National Academy of Design is an honorary association of American artists, founded in New York City in 1825 by Samue ...

from the

National Academy of Design The National Academy of Design is an honorary association of American artists, founded in New York City in 1825 by Samuel Morse, Asher Durand, Thomas Cole, Martin E. Thompson, Charles Cushing Wright, Ithiel Town, and others "to promote the f ...

in 1916; and a prize from the

National Association of Women Painters and Sculptors The National Association of Women Artists, Inc. (NAWA) is a United States organization, founded in 1889 to gain recognition for professional women fine artists in an era when that field was strongly male-oriented. It sponsors exhibitions, awards ...

in 1922. She belonged to the latter association and the Newport Art Association, as well as to the

New York Watercolor Club The American Watercolor Society, founded in 1866, is a nonprofit membership organization devoted to the advancement of watercolor painting in the United States. Qualifications AWS judges the work of a painter before granting admission to the soc ...

, and the

American Federation of Arts The American Federation of Arts (AFA) is a nonprofit organization that creates art exhibitions for presentation in museums around the world, publishes exhibition catalogues, and develops education programs. The organization’s founding in 1909 w ...

. She was named one of the

Virginia Women in History Virginia Women in History was an annual program sponsored by the Library of Virginia that honored Virginia women, living and dead, for their contributions to their community, region, state, and nation. The program began in 2000 under the aegis of th ...

for 2014. Garth Newel was added to the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic ...

in 2013.

Biography

References

Further reading