Rosina Cox Boardman (1878–1970) was an American painter of

portrait miniature A portrait miniature is a miniature portrait painting, usually executed in gouache, Watercolor painting, watercolor, or Vitreous enamel, enamel. Portrait miniatures developed out of the techniques of the miniatures in illuminated manuscripts, an ...

s and botanical illustrations.

Early life

Born in New York City in 1878, Boardman was a descendant of several of the oldest families in the state, including the Livingstons and Schuylers. She studied at the

Art Students League of New York The Art Students League of New York is an art school at 215 West 57th Street in Manhattan, New York City, New York. The League has historically been known for its broad appeal to both amateurs and professional artists. Although artists may stud ...

, the New York School of Applied Design, and the Chase School of Art; among her instructors were George Bridgman, Frank Vincent DuMond, and Alice Beckington.

Career

She often showed her work and won prizes, including, in 1930 and 1938, the Levantia White Boardman Memorial Medal of the

American Society of Miniature Painters The American Society of Miniature Painters (ASMP) was an association of miniature painters, organized in March 1899. The ten founding members of the ASMP included Virginia Richmond Reynolds, Isaac A. Josephi, William Jacob Baer, Alice Beckingto ...

, which she had endowed in honor of her mother. In 1933, she was called by ''

Time Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, t ...

'' Magazine one of the best miniaturists in the country due to her application of contemporary techniques, such as those learned from

Virginia Richmond Reynolds Virginia Richmond Reynolds (1866 – 1903) was an American artist particularly known for her portrait miniatures. She was also an influential teacher of the genre. Early life and education Reynolds was born in Chicago, and studied first at the ...

. She was described as a rebel. When the American Society of Miniature Painters disbanded in 1965 it was Boardman who, along with Alexandrina Robertson Harris, negotiated the gift of twenty-two miniatures from its members to the

Smithsonian Institution The Smithsonian Institution ( ), or simply the Smithsonian, is a group of museums and education and research centers, the largest such complex in the world, created by the U.S. government "for the increase and diffusion of knowledge". Founded ...

. Boardman died in Huntington, New York.

Prominent collections

Two works by Boardman, including a self-portrait, are in the collection of the

Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 100 ...

. Others are found in the collections of

Worcester Art Museum The Worcester Art Museum, also known by its acronym WAM, houses over 38,000 works of art dating from antiquity to the present day and representing cultures from all over the world. WAM opened in 1898 in Worcester, Massachusetts, and ranks among th ...

, the

Yale University Art Gallery The Yale University Art Gallery (YUAG) is the oldest university art museum in the Western Hemisphere. It houses a major encyclopedic collection of art in several interconnected buildings on the campus of Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. ...

, and the

Brooklyn Museum of Art The Brooklyn Museum is an art museum located in the New York City borough of Brooklyn. At , the museum is New York City's second largest and contains an art collection with around 1.5 million objects. Located near the Prospect Heights, Crown H ...

. A portrait of Boardman by her teacher Alice Beckington is owned by the

Smithsonian American Art Museum The Smithsonian American Art Museum (commonly known as SAAM, and formerly the National Museum of American Art) is a museum in Washington, D.C., part of the Smithsonian Institution. Together with its branch museum, the Renwick Gallery, SAAM holds ...

, which also owns portraits of her by

Lydia Longacre Lydia Eastwick Longacre (September 1, 1870 – June 19, 1951) was an American painter known especially for her portrait miniatures. Born in New York City, Longacre was the granddaughter of James Barton Longacre and the daughter of Reverend An ...

and Mabel Rose Welch. It also owns a single work by Boardman herself, ''The Green Ring'' of 1935.

References

1878 births 1970 deaths American portrait painters American women painters 20th-century American painters 20th-century American women artists Painters from New York City Portrait miniaturists Art Students League of New York alumni New York School of Applied Design for Women alumni Parsons School of Design alumni {{US-painter-1870s-stub