Grace Albee
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Grace Thurston Arnold Albee (July 28, 1890 – July 26, 1985) was an American printmaker and wood engraver. During her sixty-year career life, she created more than two hundred and fifty prints from linocuts, woodcuts, and wood engravings. She received over fifty awards and has her works in thirty-three museum collections. She was the first female graphic artist to receive full membership to 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 ...
.


Early life

Albee was born in Scituate, Rhode Island to Henry Cranston Arnold and Susanne Arabella Thurston. Despite her father's resistance towards her artistic creativity, Albee was awarded two Saturday Scholarships to the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) during her high school education at Providence, Rhode Island between 1906 and 1907. She entered the Rhode Island School of Design in 1910 and graduated in 1912. At RISD, Albee enrolled in the Department of Freehand Drawing and Painting, where she was recognized for her artistic achievements. Additionally, Albee learned the basics of woodcutting that would later lead to her artwork in printmaking. She married muralist Percy F. Albee on May 10, 1913, and gave birth to five sons over a period of nine years. Despite her role as a mother, Albee successfully balanced her time between her art and her domestic affairs. Albee began making relief prints in 1915 when she and Percy created a staged puppet show called ''“Percy F. Albee Marionettes.”'' Albee crafted posters made from large linoleum in order to promote the show, which toured for the next eight years around Providence before permanently setting down in their house on Benefit Street. These earlier prints depicted the show's marionettes during performance. From 1915 to 1919, Albee entered a short four-year hiatus from art to focus on motherhood.


Shift to Lithography (Linocuts)- 1920s

In 1919 Albee returned to art and created one of her earliest linocuts ''“The Bath”'' (1919) and ''“In the Studio, Percy Albee”'' (1922). Additionally, the print “A Kitchen Window” was created as well. Besides large-scale prints, Albee also used linocuts to craft Christmas cards titled “Greetings from 102 George Street” (1921.) In the 1920s, Albee's husband began focusing on arts involving linocuts, during which Albee was allowed to further experiment in her own lithography. Because of her husband's interest, Albee was able to showcase her work in block-printing without seemingly interfering with her husband's own artist career. In 1923 Albee submitted her works ''“In the Studio,” “The Bath”'', and ''“A Kitchen Window”'' to the Providence Art Club's Nineteenth Annual Exhibition of Little Pictures (All of her works were on sale for ten dollars.) Additionally, Albee and her husband experimented in printing colored linoleum blocks on silk, which gained them recognition from the Providence Journal in 1926. The collaborated works consisted of multi-colored, tapestry-like hangings that measured several feet in height and length. The technique required from Albee's husband a year of practice so the color from the ink would not flake, fade, smear, or bleed into the silk. These works included a displayed image of “Grand Turk” (the American privateer from the War of 1812), a large map depicting the battle of Rhode Island in 1778, and a tapestry titled “Perch”. All the designs were cut by Albee herself. The tapestries were exhibited at the Providence Art Club in 1927 under Grace Albee's name (not Percy Albee.). In 1927 Albee was recognized by the Providence Art Club for her twelve linocuts. She was praised for her expert technique and her handling in relief cutting. Eleven of these linocuts showcased the landscape and fishing industry of Rockport, Massachusetts. The twelfth print was a portrait of her husband Percy Albee. In March 1928 Albee left for Paris, France with her family, printing before she left ''“Old Providence”'' and ''“To Each His Own.”'' While abroad, Albee further developed her interest in depicting urban and rural landscapes in her engravings. From 1928 to 1929 Albee studied at the Institut d'Esthétique Contemporaine. During her five years in Paris Albee created and exhibited her works at several Paris Salons, where they were met with positive reviews. In 1932 Albee held her first one-woman exhibition at the American Library in Paris, exhibiting her works by themselves rather than next to her husband's as she had done in the U.S. While in France, Albee associated with fellow expatriate artists including Norman Rockwell and engraver Paul Bornet.


1930s-40s

Albee and her family returned to the United States in the 1933 and lived in New York City where she continued to produce prints. Her prints during her time in New York depicted the city's architecture. Her linocut “Contrast-Rockefeller Center” (1934) depicted one of the city's Gothic churches placed dramatically in the foreground of the city's skyscrapers. In 1937, Albee and her family moved to Doylestown, Pennsylvania and her prints switched back to rural subjects, such as stone houses and farms. In 1946 she produced the linocut “The Boyer Place” which pictured the farm scape of Pennsylvania.Seaton, Elizabeth (2006). Paths to the Press: Printmaking and American Women Artists, 1910-1960. Manhattan, Kansas: Marianna Kistler Museum of Art p. 86. In 1937 Albee received first place for her print "Housing Problems" at the Fifteenth Annual Exhibition of American Prints at the Philadelphia Art Alliance. In 1942 Albee was elected into the National Academy of Design in New York City as an Associate member and made a full member in 1946. In 1976, eighty of Albee's works were displayed in the Brooklyn Museum. Albee was also a member of the
Society of American Graphic Artists The Society of American Graphic Artists (SAGA) is a not for profit national fine arts organization serving professional artists in the field of printmaking. SAGA provides its members with exhibition, reviews and networking opportunities in the Ne ...
.


1960s - Death

The Albee's lived in Pennsylvania until 1962, after which they lived in Kew Gardens, New York (1962–1974) and then in Barrington, Rhode Island (1974–1985). Albee continued to work on prints well into her 90s. She died in 1985 at the age 94 at Bristol, Rhode Island.


Museums Displaying Albee

Albee works are represented in a number of public collections in the United States, including the
Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art, colloquially referred to as the Met, is an Encyclopedic museum, encyclopedic art museum in New York City. By floor area, it is the List of largest museums, third-largest museum in the world and the List of larg ...
in New York. In 1976, eighty of her works were displayed in a retrospective exhibition in the
Brooklyn Museum The Brooklyn Museum is an art museum in the New York City borough (New York City), borough of Brooklyn. At , the museum is New York City's second largest and contains an art collection with around 500,000 objects. Located near the Prospect Heig ...
. The
Library of Congress The Library of Congress (LOC) is a research library in Washington, D.C., serving as the library and research service for the United States Congress and the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It also administers Copyright law o ...
has 23 of her prints in its collection. Her works are also housed the
Smithsonian Institution The Smithsonian Institution ( ), or simply the Smithsonian, is a group of museums, Education center, education and Research institute, research centers, created by the Federal government of the United States, U.S. government "for the increase a ...
, in the Rosenwald Collection in the
National Gallery of Art The National Gallery of Art is an art museum in Washington, D.C., United States, located on the National Mall, between 3rd and 9th Streets, at Constitution Avenue NW. Open to the public and free of charge, the museum was privately established in ...
in Washington, D.C., in the Permanent Collection of the
National Museum of Women in the Arts The National Museum of Women in the Arts (NMWA), located in Washington, D.C., is "the first museum in the world solely dedicated" to championing women through the arts. NMWA was incorporated in 1981 by Wallace and Wilhelmina Holladay. Since openi ...
, the
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, the
Cleveland Museum of Art The Cleveland Museum of Art (CMA) is an art museum in Cleveland, Ohio, United States. Located in the Wade Park District of University Circle, the museum is internationally renowned for its substantial holdings of Asian art, Asian and Art of anc ...
, and the
Boston Public Library The Boston Public Library is a municipal public library system in Boston, Massachusetts, founded in 1848. The Boston Public Library is also Massachusetts' Library for the Commonwealth (formerly ''library of last recourse''), meaning all adult re ...
.


References


Further reading

*National Museum of Women in the Arts
Grace Albee: An American Printmaker, 1890-1985
*Christina M. Weyl. 2005
The Professionalization of An American Woman Printmaker: The Early Career of Grace Albee, 1915 - 1934
Georgetown University Art Collection. *Spencer Museum of Art, University of Kansas. Remembering the Family Farm: 150 Years of American Prints

Wood engraving. 1946. *Grace Albee: Catalog Raisonn
Online.


External links


Grace Albee papers, 1890-1971
from the Smithsonian
Archives of American Art The Archives of American Art is the largest collection of primary resources documenting the history of the visual arts in the United States. More than 20 million items of original material are housed in the Archives' research centers in Washing ...

Grace Albee works, 1890-1985
at the
National Gallery of Art The National Gallery of Art is an art museum in Washington, D.C., United States, located on the National Mall, between 3rd and 9th Streets, at Constitution Avenue NW. Open to the public and free of charge, the museum was privately established in ...
{{DEFAULTSORT:Albee, Grace 1890 births 1985 deaths 20th-century American women artists American women printmakers Rhode Island School of Design alumni Artists from Rhode Island 20th-century American printmakers People from Kew Gardens, Queens Linocut artists