Pauline Powell Burns (1872–1912) was an American painter and pianist. She was the first African-American artist to exhibit paintings in California, in 1890. Powell was also a pianist who gave recitals around the

San Francisco Bay Area The San Francisco Bay Area, commonly known as the Bay Area, is a List of regions of California, region of California surrounding and including San Francisco Bay, and anchored by the cities of Oakland, San Francisco, and San Jose, California, S ...

Family history

Pauline Powell was born in 1872 in

Oakland, California Oakland is a city in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area in the U.S. state of California. It is the county seat and most populous city in Alameda County, California, Alameda County, with a population of 440,646 in 2020. A major We ...

, to Josephine Turner and her husband, train porter William W. Powell. Her great-grandfather was blacksmith Joseph Fossett, one of

Thomas Jefferson Thomas Jefferson (, 1743July 4, 1826) was an American Founding Fathers of the United States, Founding Father and the third president of the United States from 1801 to 1809. He was the primary author of the United States Declaration of Indepe ...

's slaves who was freed by the terms of his will in 1826. Her grandmother Isabella Fossett was also a slave and as a child was sold away from

Monticello Monticello ( ) was the primary residence and plantation of Thomas Jefferson, a Founding Father, author of the Declaration of Independence, and the third president of the United States. Jefferson began designing Monticello after inheriting l ...

in 1827 as part of a settlement of estate debts, later escaping to Boston. Powell's parents moved to Oakland, where their daughter Pauline was born in 1872, the year her grandmother Isabella died. On October 11, 1893, she married Edward E. Burns; they had no children.

Career

Powell showed early musical and artistic talent and studied both piano and painting. Although African-Americans were by then being admitted to the California School of Design, she appears to have been largely self-taught. She gave public piano recitals locally and at least once sang in a quartet in Los Angeles; she was praised by a Bay Area writer as “the bright musical star of her state.” Powell is believed to have been the first African-American artist to exhibit anywhere in California. She apparently began showing her paintings at the age of 14, but her first known public exhibition was at the

Mechanics' Institute Mechanics' institutes, also known as mechanics' institutions, sometimes simply known as institutes, and also called schools of arts (especially in the Australian colonies), were educational establishments originally formed to provide adult edu ...

Fair in San Francisco in 1890. Although her paintings at the fair received "great praise," she was then better recognized as a pianist and is listed in a 1919 history of African-Americans in California solely as a piano teacher. Powell's artwork is scarce, partly because of when she lived but also because she died at a young age. She died at the age of 40 in 1912, of

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 ...

. She is known to have painted landscapes and still lifes; surviving works include ''Champagne and Oysters'' (ca. 1890), Bulldogs, Still Life With Fruit (1890), ''Violets'' (oil on card, 1890), and a pair of watercolors, one of nasturtiums and the other of tulips, both of which are in the collection of

Dunsmuir House The Dunsmuir House and Gardens (also known by the name The Dunsmuir-Hellman Historic Estate and previously known as Oakvale Park) is located in Oakland, California on a site. The Dunsmuir House has a neoclassical-revival architectural style a ...

in Oakland, California. ''Violets'' is in the collection of the Smithsonian Institution's

National Museum of African American History and Culture The National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC), colloquially known as the Blacksonian, is a Smithsonian Institution museum located on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., in the United States. It was established in 2003 an ...

. Some documents relating to Powell's life are held in the Archives of California Art.

Public collections

, Washington DC

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Burns, Pauline Powell 1872 births 1912 deaths 19th-century American painters 20th-century American painters 19th-century American women painters 20th-century American women painters 19th-century American women pianists 19th-century American pianists 20th-century American women pianists 20th-century American pianists African-American pianists African-American women artists Painters from California Pianists from San Francisco Artists from Oakland, California African-American painters Hemings family African-American women musicians 20th-century deaths from tuberculosis Tuberculosis deaths in California

Family history

Career

Public collections

See also

References