Evelina "Nina" Mount (1837–1920) was a 19th-century American female artist. Born in

Stony Brook, New York Stony Brook is a political subdivisions of New York#Hamlet, hamlet and census-designated place (CDP) in the Administrative divisions of New York#Town, Town of Brookhaven, New York, Brookhaven in Suffolk County, New York, United States, on the No ...

in 1837, as a daughter of an artist, Evelina was introduced to art at an early age by her father, Henry Mount, and her paternal uncles,

Shepard Alonzo Mount Shepard Alonzo Mount (1804-1868) was a National Academy of Design-trained American artist during the mid-nineteenth century that painted favorable genres of realism (arts), realism during the time such as still-life and landscapes. He found inspir ...

and

William Sidney Mount William Sidney Mount (November 26, 1807 – November 19, 1868) was a 19th-century American genre painter. Born in Setauket, New York in 1807, Mount spent much of his life in his hometown and the adjacent village of Stony Brook, New York, Stony Br ...

, with the latter being her mentor for the first three decades of her life. She is best known for her floral

still-lifes A still life (: still lifes) is a work of art depicting mostly inanimate subject matter, typically commonplace objects which are either natural (food, flowers, dead animals, plants, rocks, shells, etc.) or human-made (drinking glasses, books, ...

and

landscapes A landscape is the visible features of an area of land, its landforms, and how they integrate with natural or human-made features, often considered in terms of their aesthetic appeal.''New Oxford American Dictionary''. A landscape includes the ...

Early life

Evelina Mount, nicknamed "Nina," was born on July 31, 1837, to parents Henry Smith Mount (1802-1841) and Mary Bates Ford (1805-1887); she had five siblings: Julia Hawkins (1827-1855), Elizabeth Reeves (1829-1911), Henry John (1832-1894), Thomas Sheppard "Judge" (1834-1900), and Malcolm (1839-1887). Evelina's father, known for his artistic skills in painting

and signs, died in 1841 from

tuberculosis Tuberculosis (TB), also known colloquially as the "white death", or historically as consumption, is a contagious disease usually caused by ''Mycobacterium tuberculosis'' (MTB) bacteria. Tuberculosis generally affects the lungs, but it can al ...

when Evelina was just four years old."Is Art Hereditary? The Mounts, a Family of Painters: June 23 through September 9, 2001"
Traditional Fine Arts Organization website, May 28, 2011. Reprinted from ''Resource Library Magazine''. She was raised in Stony Brook, New York, residing in the Hawkins-Mount House where she lived for most of her life except for brief, periodic stays in

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

.Berkow, Ita G. ''Evelina Mount, 1837-1920'', American Art Review, vol. IX, no. 2 Detroit, Michigan, 1997, p. 86-93. During the 1840s, the Hawkins-Mount House was co-occupied by the family of

and

, Evelina's artistic uncles who encouraged her interest in art.

Education and training

Growing up in the mid-nineteenth century, Evelina was one of the few women on Long Island who surpassed the constraints of her time to become a successful artist. One of the main reasons Evelina was able to work around the propriety and social standards for young women was her familial connection to her artistic paternal uncles, especially

. William was a mentor to Evelina and encouraged her to practice her artistic skill through informal training and observation with him. He provided instruction regarding perspective and choice of paint colors, freely offered commentary on Evelina's work, and when asked, he added finishing touches to her paintings. Several of Evelina's paintings are copies of William's paintings with small changes or additions of a feminine quality. For example, Evelina's oil on canvas ''Mount House from Road'' is a meticulous replica of William's oil ''The Mount House'' (1854) except for her addition of a bonneted figure of a woman in the background who stands next to the original male figure.Szabo, Julia ''All-American Paintings, 2 Women Depict Life on 19th-century LI'', Newsday, April 18, 1997, pg. B21

started encouraging Evelina to pursue formal artistic training in

in the 1850s and in 1867-1868 Evelina undertook a course of study with

Hudson River School The Hudson River School was a mid-19th-century American art movement embodied by a group of landscape painters whose aesthetic vision was influenced by Romanticism. Early on, the paintings typically depicted the Hudson River Valley and the sur ...

artist James McDougal Hart.Naylor, Natalie A. ''Women in Long Island's Past: A History of Eminent Ladies and Everyday Lives''. Charleston, S.C.: The History Press, 2012. Between 1871 and 1878, Evelina exhibited a total of seven paintings at the annual exhibitions of 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, Frederick Styles Agate, Martin E. Thompson, Charles Cushing Wright, Ithiel Town, an ...

, six of which were identified as still-life florals. Besides exhibiting at the

, Evelina only exhibited publicly one other time at the Academy of Design in Chicago where she showed her painting, ''Vase of Flowers''. Although she is considered Long Island's first professional woman artist, Evelina rarely sold her works; instead she chose to gift them to family and friends.

Style and technique

Still-lifes

Evelina is best known for her paintings of floral

. As a young artist in her twenties, Evelina strived to depict her florals in a conventional manner, which typified one popular style of art in the late 1850s. Her early representations of wildflowers, for example, her oil on canvas titled ''Daisies'', clearly reflects conventional representation of nature in an outdoor setting. She also took interest in flower arrangements strewn haphazardly together which are also examples of the popular style of this time (see example ''Roses and Fuchsia'', 1867, oil on canvas). The placement of these flowers on a tabletop with minimal background reflect Nina's desire to keep the arrangements within a contained, logical space. After her training with James McDougal Hart in the late 1860s, Evelina's floral still-life style underwent a change. She departed from her conventional settings and explored more unique views. Her oil painting ''Floral Wreath'', depicts a wreath attached to a branch suspended in space. Although Evelina very rarely dated her artworks, when she painted her still-lifes can be approximated by comparing them to those that were dated as well as the style in which they are painted.

Landscapes

While Evelina is known for her floral

, her artistic skills with

landscape A landscape is the visible features of an area of land, its landforms, and how they integrate with natural or human-made features, often considered in terms of their aesthetic appeal.''New Oxford American Dictionary''. A landscape includes th ...

paintings are also noteworthy. Like her uncle and mentor

, Nina preferred to paint the area which she was most familiar, her hometown of

Stony Brook, Long Island Stony Brook is a hamlet and census-designated place (CDP) in the Town of Brookhaven in Suffolk County, New York, United States, on the North Shore of Long Island. Begun in the colonial era as an agricultural enclave, the hamlet experienced gro ...

. Many of her landscapes feature the Hawkins-Mount House and grounds where she resided most of her life. These paintings reflect her love of the area as well as the endless painterly possibilities of the old farmhouse and surrounding property. Other local structures she depicted, such as the Setauket Mill and the Longbotham Farm provide some of the only visual evidence of their existence today. Evelina also participated in

plein-air painting ''En plein air'' (; French for 'outdoors'), or plein-air painting, is the act of painting outdoors. This method contrasts with studio painting or academic rules that might create a predetermined look. The theory of 'En plein air' painting is cr ...

, a popular artistic movement of her time. For example, her oil on canvas ''The Dock House, Stony Brook'', which was painted outdoors, reflects the spontaneity and freshness associated with works completed in the open air. Unlike her florals, the style of her landscapes did not drastically change, making it difficult to date these works.

Later days

Evelina Mount ceased painting by the 1890s. Her reasons for abandoning her art is unclear, but may be due, in part to the death of her uncle and mentor,

in 1868 and her loss of connection to he

art scene. Evelina Mount suffered a stroke in 1910 and was confined to a wheelchair until her death, at age eighty-three, on July 24, 1920. Evelina was buried alongside her sister Elizabeth in the Presbyterian Churchyard in

Setauket, New York Setauket is a hamlet and census-designated place (CDP) in the Town of Brookhaven, Suffolk County, New York, United States, on the North Shore of Long Island. As of the 2010 United States census, the CDP population, which at the time included ...

where her uncle,

is also buried.

Notable collections

* The

Long Island Museum of American Art, History, and Carriages The Long Island Museum of American Art, History, and Carriages, known as the Long Island Museum (LIM), is a nine-acre museum located in Stony Brook, New York. The LIM serves the Long Island community by preserving and displaying its collection ...

- owns 96 works by Evelina Mount - the majority of her known surviving drawings and paintings.

References

External links

William Sidney Mount and Mount family papers, 1830-1947
{{DEFAULTSORT:Mount, Evelina 1837 births 1920 deaths Hudson River School painters 19th-century American women painters 19th-century American painters People from Stony Brook, New York