Beatrice Fenton
{{short description|American sculptor (1887–1983)}}
{{Infobox person
| honorific_prefix =
| name = Beatrice Fenton
| honorific_suffix =
| image = Beatrice Fenton 1910.jpg
| alt =
| caption = Beatrice Fenton, {{circa}}1910
| birth_name =
| birth_date = July 12, 1887
| birth_place = Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S.
| death_date = {{Death date and age|1983|02|11|1887|07|12}}
| death_place = Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S.
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| education = School of Industrial Art
Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts
| alma_mater =
| employer = Moore Institute of Art
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| spouse =
| partner = Marjorie D'Orsi Martinet
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Beatrice Fenton (July 12, 1887{{spaced ndash}}February 11, 1983) was an American sculptor and educator, active in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.{{cite web|title=Beatrice Fenton papers, 1836-1984|url=http://www.aaa.si.edu/collections/beatrice-fenton-papers-9637/more|website=Archives of American Art|publisher=Smithsonian Institution|accessdate=11 May 2016|ref=SIaaa}} She is best known for her whimsical fountains. Her work was also part of the sculpture event in the art competition at the 1932 Summer Olympics.{{cite web|url=https://www.olympedia.org/athletes/921499 |title=Beatrice Fenton |work=Olympedia |accessdate=8 August 2020}} She taught at Moore College of Art and Design in Philadelphia for many years.
Early life and education
Beatrice Fenton was born on July 12, 1887, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to parents Lizzie Spear (née Remak) and Thomas Hanover. Inspired by the painter Rosa Bonheur, she decided to become an animalier and began drawing animals at the Philadelphia Zoo. Her father, Dr. Thomas Hanover Fenton, an art patron and head of the Art Club of Philadelphia, was impressed with the drawings and showed them to a family friend, Thomas Eakins. Eakins found the drawings “too flat” and suggested that she “get some clay and mold it.” Fenton enrolled in a sculpture class taught by Alexander Stirling Calder in 1903, and her future direction was set.{{cite book|title=American sculpture in the Museum of American Art of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts|last2=Cunningham|first2=Mary Mullen|date=1997|publisher=University of Washington Press|isbn=978-0295976921|location=Seattle|page=225|last1=James-Gadzinski|first1=Susan}} She began her studies in 1904 at the School of Industrial Art (now High School of Art and Design) in New York City, where she was taught by Alexander Stirling Calder.
From 1904 to 1912, she attended the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia, and studied with Charles Grafly.{{cite book |title=American women sculptors : a history of women working in three dimensions |date=1990 |publisher=G.K. Hall |isbn=9780816187324 |edition=1st |location=Boston, MA |page=[https://archive.org/details/americanwomenscu0000rubi/page/159 159] |last1=Rubinstein |first1=Charlotte Streifer |url-access=registration |url=https://archive.org/details/americanwomenscu0000rubi/page/159}}
Career
Fenton succeeded Samuel Murray as instructor in sculpture at the Moore College of Art and Design (formerly the Philadelphia School of Art for Women) in Philadelphia, teaching there from 1942 to 1953.{{cite book|editor-last1=Opitz|editor-first1=Glenn B.|title=Mantle Fielding's dictionary of American painters, sculptors & engravers|date=1986|publisher=Apollo|location=Poughkeepsie, NY|isbn=978-0938290049|edition=2nd|url-access=registration|url=https://archive.org/details/mantlefieldingsd0000fiel}}
Works by Fenton were shown at PAFA's annual exhibition most years from 1911 to 1964,The Annual Exhibition Record of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Peter Hastings Falk, ed. (Sound View Press, 1989), vol. II, p. 194; vol. III, p. 181. and she was awarded the George D. Widener Memorial Gold Medal in 1922 for Seaweed Fountain.[http://www.crsculpture.com/garden/ In the Garden], from Conner- Rosenkranz She was a member of the National Sculpture Society, and her Nereid Fountain was featured in the NSS exhibition of 1929.{{cite book|last1=National Sculpture Society (U.S.)|last2=California Palace of the Legion of Honor|title=Contemporary American sculpture : the California Palace of the Legion of Honor, Lincoln Park, San Francisco, April to October 1929|date=1929|publisher=National Sculpture Society, New York : Press of the Kalkhoff Company|location=New York, New York}} A cast of Seaweed Fountain has been in the Brookgreen Gardens collection since 1934.{{cite book|last1=Proske|first1=Beatrice Gilman|title=Brookgreen Gardens Sculpture|date=1968|publisher=Brookgreen Gardens|page=244}}
She died in Philadelphia in 1983.
Personal life
While studying at PAFA, Fenton met fellow artists Marjorie Martinet and Emily Clayton Bishop. Her relationship with Martinet lasted more than fifty years, and included the exchange of passionate letters.{{cite web|url=https://www.georgeglazer.com/prints/art20c/martinetinv/martinetinv.html|title=Photographs of the Marjorie Martinet School of Art|website=George Glazer Gallery}}{{cite web|url=http://www.aaa.si.edu/collections/beatrice-fenton-papers-9637/more|title=A Finding Aid to the Beatrice Fenton Papers, 1836-1984, bulk 1890-1978, in the Archives of American Art by Jean Fitzgerald|last=Fitzgerald|first=Jean|website=Archives of American Art}}
File:The Coral Necklace.jpg|The Coral Necklace: Portrait of Beatrice Fenton (1904), by Thomas Eakins, Butler Institute of American Art, Youngstown, Ohio.
File:Brookgreen Gardens Sculpture25.jpg|Seaweed Fountain (1920–22), Brookgreen Gardens, Murrell's Inlet, South Carolina.
File:Sunflower dial Rittenhs Sq.jpg|Evelyn Taylor Price Memorial Sundial (1947), Rittenhouse Square, Philadelphia
References
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External links
- [https://www.georgeglazer.com/prints/art20c/martinetinv/martinetinv.html Photographs of the Marjorie Martinet School of Art], George Glazer Gallery, New York City
- [http://www.aaa.si.edu/collections/beatrice-fenton-papers-9637/more A Finding Aid to the Beatrice Fenton Papers, 1836-1984, bulk 1890-1978, in the Archives of American Art, by Jean Fitzgerald]
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Category:20th-century American sculptors
Category:20th-century American women sculptors
Category:American women academics
Category:American modern sculptors
Category:Artists from Philadelphia
Category:Moore College of Art and Design faculty
Category:National Sculpture Society members
Category:Olympic competitors in art competitions