Mary Elizabeth Hallock-Greenewalt (Sept. 8, 1871 – Nov. 27, 1950)Ancestry.com. Pennsylvania, Death Certificates, 1906-1963 atabase on-line Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2014. Original data: Pennsylvania (State). Death certificates, 1906–1963. Series 11.90 (1,905 cartons). Records of the Pennsylvania Department of Health, Record Group 11. Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. was an inventor and pianist who performed with the

Philadelphia Philadelphia ( ), colloquially referred to as Philly, is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania, most populous city in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania and the List of United States cities by population, sixth-most populous city in the Unit ...

and

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symphonies as a soloist. She is best known for her invention of a type of

visual music Visual music, sometimes called color music, refers to the creation of a visual analogue to musical form by adapting musical structures for visual composition, which can also include silent films or silent Lumia work. It also refers to methods ...

she called Nourathar.

Thomas Eakins Thomas Cowperthwait Eakins (; July 25, 1844 – June 25, 1916) was an American Realism (visual arts), realist painter, photographer, sculptor, and fine arts educator. He is widely acknowledged to be one of the most important American artist ...

painted her portrait in 1903, currently in the Roland P. Murdock Collection of the Wichita Museum of Art.

Biography

Mary Hallock was born in 1871 in

Beirut Beirut ( ; ) is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Lebanon. , Greater Beirut has a population of 2.5 million, just under half of Lebanon's population, which makes it the List of largest cities in the Levant region by populatio ...

, then in Syria Vilayet,

Ottoman Empire The Ottoman Empire (), also called the Turkish Empire, was an empire, imperial realm that controlled much of Southeast Europe, West Asia, and North Africa from the 14th to early 20th centuries; it also controlled parts of southeastern Centr ...

, to Samuel Hallock and Sara Tabet. After her mother began exhibiting symptoms of mental illness, eleven-year-old Mary Hallock and her siblings were sent to live with friends and relatives in the US, where she spent the remainder of her youth in the Philadelphia area. As a young adult she studied piano at the

Philadelphia Conservatory of Music Philadelphia ( ), colloquially referred to as Philly, is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania, most populous city in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania and the List of United States cities by population, sixth-most populous city in the Unit ...

and then with

Theodor Leschetizky Theodor Leschetizky (sometimes spelled Leschetitzky; ; 22 June 1830 – 14 November 1915) was a Polish pianist, professor, and composer active in Austria-Hungary. He was born in Landshut in the Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria, then a crown land ...

Vienna Vienna ( ; ; ) is the capital city, capital, List of largest cities in Austria, most populous city, and one of Federal states of Austria, nine federal states of Austria. It is Austria's primate city, with just over two million inhabitants. ...

. After her return to Philadelphia Mary Hallock married Frank L. Greenewalt, a physician. The couple had one son, Crawford Hallock Greenewalt, a chemical engineer who eventually served as president of the

DuPont Company Dupont, DuPont, Du Pont, duPont, or du Pont may refer to: People * Dupont (surname), a surname of French origin * Du Pont family, one of the wealthiest families in the United States Companies * DuPont, one of the world's largest chemical compan ...

. In her later years Hallock-Greenewalt resided in Wilmington, Delaware. She died in Philadelphia at the age of 79.

Recordings

Columbia Records Columbia Records is an American reco ...

released her performance of Chopin's "Preludes in E Minor, C minor, A Major" and "Nocturne in G Major" in March, 1920 (A6136).

Inventions

'Color organ'

The name for her art, ''Nourathar,'' was adapted from the Arabic words for ''light'' (nour), and ''essence of'' (athar). Unlike earlier inventors of color-music such as the painter A. Wallace Rimington, Hallock-Greenewalt did not produce a strict definition of correspondence between specific colors and particular notes, instead arguing that these relationships were inherently variable and reflected the temperament and ability of the performer. Her earliest attempts at creating this art entailed her construction of an automated machine where colored lights were synchronized to records. This produced an unsatisfactory result, leading to her development of an instrument that could actually be played live. Her color organ, which she named "Sarabet" after her mother, required her to invent a number of new technologies. She received nine patents from the US Patent office for them. Among these devices was a non-linear variety of

rheostat A potentiometer is a three-terminal (electronics), terminal resistor with a sliding or rotating contact that forms an adjustable voltage divider. If only two terminals are used, one end and the wiper, it acts as a variable resistor or rheostat. ...

, a patent that was infringed by

General Electric General Electric Company (GE) was an American Multinational corporation, multinational Conglomerate (company), conglomerate founded in 1892, incorporated in the New York (state), state of New York and headquartered in Boston. Over the year ...

and other companies. She sued them for infringement and won in 1934. The ''Sarabet'' went through a series of refinements between 1916 and 1934. In 1946 she published a book on her invented art of "light-color playing" called ''Nourathar: The Fine Art of Light-Color Playing''.

Hand-painted films

Michael Betancourt has noted Hallock-Greenewalt also produced the earliest hand-painted

film A film, also known as a movie or motion picture, is a work of visual art that simulates experiences and otherwise communicates ideas, stories, perceptions, emotions, or atmosphere through the use of moving images that are generally, sinc ...

s known to still exist. However, these were not

movie A film, also known as a movie or motion picture, is a work of visual art that simulates experiences and otherwise communicates ideas, stories, perceptions, emotions, or atmosphere through the use of moving images that are generally, sinc ...

s but films produced specifically to be performed by her earliest version of the Sarabet which was a machine for automatic accompaniment to records. Its construction, where a single viewer looked down into the machine at the film itself, resembled Edison's

kinetoscope The Kinetoscope is an early motion picture exhibition device, designed for films to be viewed by one person at a time through a peephole viewer window. The Kinetoscope was not a movie projector, but it introduced the basic approach that woul ...

. This device was an early ''music visualizer'' of the type now included with computer audio-players. Even though these films were not designed to be motion pictures, they were produced with templates and aerosol sprays, producing repeating geometric patterns in the same way as the hand painted films of

Len Lye Leonard Charles Huia Lye (; 5 July 1901 – 15 May 1980) was a New Zealand artist known primarily for his experimental films and kinetic sculpture. His films are held in archives including the New Zealand Film Archive, British Film Institute, ...

from the 1930s.

References

* Mary Hallock-Greenewalt, "Nourathar" estbrook Publishing, 1946* Michael Betancourt, "Mary Hallock-Greenewalt's Abstract Films." illennium Film Journal no 45, 2006* Michael Betancourt, "Mary Hallock-Greenewalt: The Complete Patents." ildside Press, 2005* Biography and Genealogy Master Index. Farmington Hills, Mich.: Gale, Cengage Learning. 1980- 2009.

External sources

* * * * Th
Mary Elizabeth Hallock Greenewalt papers
including correspondence, photos, drawings and artifacts, are available for research use at the

Historical Society of Pennsylvania The Historical Society of Pennsylvania is a historic research facility headquartered on Locust Street in Center City Philadelphia. It is a repository for millions of historic items ranging across rare books, scholarly monographs, family chron ...

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Hallock-Greenewalt, Mary Visual music artists 1871 births 1950 deaths 20th-century American women inventors 20th-century American inventors University of the Arts (Philadelphia) alumni Women experimental filmmakers