Edith Loring Getchell

{{Infobox artist

| honorific_prefix =

| name = Edith Loring Getchell

| honorific_suffix =

| image = Edith Loring Getchell, "A Windswept Road," Smithsonian American Art Museum CC0 - SAAM-1935.13.106 1.jpg

| alt =

| caption = "A Windswept Road," n.d., etching on paper, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Chicago Society of Etchers, 1935

| native_name =

| native_name_lang =

| birth_name = Edith "Ella" Loring Peirce (Getchell after 1885)

| birth_date = {{Birth date|1855|01|25}}{{cite web |title=Getchell, Edith Loring Peirce (1855-1940), painter and etcher |url=https://www.anb.org/view/10.1093/anb/9780198606697.001.0001/anb-9780198606697-e-1701483 |website=American National Biography |year=2000 |language=en |doi=10.1093/anb/9780198606697.article.1701483|last1=Peet |first1=Phyllis |isbn=978-0-19-860669-7 }}

| birth_place = Bristol, Pennsylvania, US

| death_date = {{Death date and age|1940|09|18|1855|01|25|mf=yes}}

| death_place = Worcester, Massachusetts, US

| resting_place =

| resting_place_coordinates =

| education = Philadelphia School of Design for Women, Philadelphia Academy of Fine Arts

| alma_mater =

| known_for = Landscape etchings

| notable_works =

| style =

| movement =

| awards =

| website =

| spouse = Dr. Alfred Colby Getchell

| children = Ruth Peirce Getchell and Margaret Colby Getchell Parsons

}}

Edith Loring Getchell (1855 – 1940) was an American landscape painter and etcher, highly regarded for the "exquisite" tonalism of her etchings, drypoints and watercolors."{{Cite book|last1=Heller|first1=Jules|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ReZkAgAAQBAJ&dq=Edith+Loring+Pierce+Getchell&pg=PT697|title=North American Women Artists of the Twentieth Century: A Biographical Dictionary|last2=Heller|first2=Nancy G.|date=2013-12-19|publisher=Routledge|isbn=978-1-135-63889-4|language=en}} Working during the "American Etching Revival," a period that lent legitimacy to an art form that had once been scorned as commercial, Getchell made use of the opportunities the vogue for etching gave her, despite a crowded field and the gender discrimination of her era. Considered one of America's leading etchers in her lifetime, Getchell's work is notable for its skill, its aesthetic values and its approach to depicting American landscape.

Career

Getchell was one of only two women included in a book on America's 25 leading American etchers in 1886. The following year she was invited to exhibit in "'Women Etchers of America,' the earliest comprehensive exposure of the work of women artists by an American institution" — and an historic first.{{Cite news|last=Welzenbach|first=Michael|date=1989-03-23|title=ART|language=en-US|newspaper=Washington Post|url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/1989/03/23/art/45597b9d-a85b-44ae-b1ed-5a7710e5e83a/|access-date=2021-11-27|issn=0190-8286}} That year, she was also accepted into the nearly all-male New York Etching Club, which her teacher Robert Swain Gifford had helped found. "One of the preeminent groups for the nineteenth-century etching revival," it helped her create key connections for building a viable career.{{Cite web|last=Weyl|first=Christina Moisant|date=2015|title=Abstract Impressions: Women Printmakers and the New York Atelier 17, 1940-1955|url=https://rucore.libraries.rutgers.edu/rutgers-lib/47610/PDF/1/play/|website=Rutgers Library}}

Over the next several years, Getchell's work was frequently reproduced in print, widely acquired by American art museums and exhibited in London, Paris and across the United States. In 1908, the Worcester Art Museum curated a two-week solo exhibition of her etchings.{{Cite web|title=Edith Loring Peirce GETCHELL (1855-1940) - Biography, life, background and work by Artprice|url=https://www.artprice.com/artist/139638/edith-loring-peirce-getchell/biography?section=personaldata|access-date=2021-11-27|website=Artprice.com|language=en-EN}}{{Cite book|last1=Worcester Art Museum|url=http://archive.org/details/exhibitionofetch00worc|title=Exhibition of etchings by Edith Loring Getchell: December 5 to December 14, nineteen hundred and eight.|last2=Getchell|first2=Edith Loring|date=1908|publisher=Worcester Art Museum|others=Worcester Art Museum Library}}

Atlanta's High Museum of Art organized an exhibition revisiting the "American Women of the Etching Revival" in 1988.{{Cite book|last1=Peet|first1=Phyllis|url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/19220858|title=American women of the etching revival: February 9-May 9, 1988, High Museum of Art, Atlanta, Georgia|last2=High Museum of Art|date=1988|publisher=The Museum|isbn=978-0-939802-45-6|location=Atlanta, Ga.|language=English|oclc=19220858}} Curator Phyllis Peet cited a 1902 review to describe her:

[T]he work of Edith Loring Getchell is vigorous, original and effective without affectation. . . . Her hand is particularly sympathetic to all that is beautiful in foliation and growth of trees, atmospheric or climatic conditions of light, and those subtleties of nature best adapted to expression with the point. ’ — Will Jenkins, Modern Etching and Engraving in America.

Education

Getchell studied painting, printmaking and textile design at the Philadelphia School of Design for Women, one of the "art schools [that] conferred professional status in a cultural field once dominated by men... to counter the accusation of amateurism.{{Cite book|last=Walls|first=Nina de Angeli|url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/43561903|title=Art, industry, and women's education in Philadelphia|date=2001|publisher=Bergin & Garvey|isbn=978-0-89789-745-7|location=Westport, Conn.|language=English|oclc=43561903}}{{Cite book|last=Eisenmann|first=Linda|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=nFt6csjzc48C|title=Historical Dictionary of Women's Education in the United States|date=1998|publisher=Greenwood Publishing Group|isbn=978-0-313-29323-8|language=en}} One of her teachers there was tonalist William Sartain.{{Cite book|last=Ackerman|first=Gerald M.|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=onraQlj_C7wC&dq=William+Sartain&pg=PA184|title=American Orientalists|date=1994|publisher=www.acr-edition.com|isbn=978-2-86770-078-1|language=en}}{{Cite news|last=Raynor|first=Vivien|date=1982-06-27|title=ART; MOODY SCENES FROM TONALISTS|language=en-US|work=The New York Times|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1982/06/27/nyregion/art-moody-scenes-from-tonalists.html|access-date=2021-11-28|issn=0362-4331}} Another was Peter Moran, best known for his etchings of animal subjects, and for brothers Thomas and Edward who were also professional artists.{{Cite web|title=Peter Moran {{!}} Smithsonian American Art Museum|url=https://americanart.si.edu/artist/peter-moran-3405|access-date=2021-11-27|website=americanart.si.edu|language=en-US}}

At the Philadelphia Academy of Fine Arts (PAFA), Getchell studied with landscape painter Robert Swain Gifford who was influenced by the more realist, and less romantic, approach to painting of the Barbizon school.{{Cite web|title=Robert Swain Gifford {{!}} Smithsonian American Art Museum|url=https://americanart.si.edu/artist/robert-swain-gifford-1799|access-date=2021-11-28|website=americanart.si.edu|language=en-US}} At PAFA, she also studied with realist Thomas Eakins, who would later paint a well-received portrait of Getchell's husband {{Cite web|title=Edith Loring Getchell - Biography|url=https://www.askart.com/artist/Edith_Loring_Getchell/100756/Edith_Loring_Getchell.aspx|access-date=2021-11-27|website=www.askart.com}} As a private student, Getchell also studied with landscape painter and etcher Stephen Parrish, with whom she later exhibited alongside artist Mary Cassatt.

Memberships

Collections

Library of Congress
New York Public Library
Boston Museum of Fine Arts
Five Colleges of Ohio{{cite web |title=Gardiner, Eliza Draper |url=https://museums.fivecolleges.edu/detail.php?museum=all&t=objects&type=ext&f=&s=&record=742&credit_line=%25The+Gladys+Engel+Lang+and+Kurt+Lang+Collection%25&op-earliest_year=%3E%3D&op-latest_year=%3C%3D |website=museums.fivecolleges.edu}}
National Gallery of Art, Washington{{cite web |title=Artist Info |url=https://www.nga.gov/collection/artist-info.33876.html |website=www.nga.gov}}
Princeton University Art Museum{{cite web |title=Edith Loring Getchell {{!}} Princeton University Art Museum |url=https://artmuseum.princeton.edu/es/collections/maker/6105 |website=artmuseum.princeton.edu}}
Smithsonian American Art Museum{{cite web |title=Edith Loring Getchell {{!}} Smithsonian American Art Museum |url=https://americanart.si.edu/artist/edith-loring-getchell-1788 |website=americanart.si.edu}}
University of Arizona Museum of Art{{cite web |title=Object Record |url=https://uarizona.pastperfectonline.com/webobject/87DD9BFD-0309-445F-92A5-532254729720 |website=uarizona.pastperfectonline.com}}
Wentworth Military Academy Museum
Worcester Art Museum{{cite web |title=Edith Loring Peirce Getchell – People – Worcester Art Museum |url=https://worcester.emuseum.com/people/5449/edith-loring-peirce-getchell;jsessionid=37FA9C97350A77856B973BE645776774 |website=worcester.emuseum.com |language=en}}
University Art Collection, Georgetown
The Walters Art Museum, Baltimore
Wellin Museum of Art, Hamilton College
Museum of Art, University of New Hampshire

Publications

American etchings: A collection of twenty original etchings by Moran, Parrish, Ferris, Smillie, and others ; with descriptive text and biographical matter. Boston: Estes and Lauriat: January 1, 1885 ASIN : B00086AUHE
Gems of American Etchers. New York: Cassell, c1885. (Sirsi) ACO-0770 62653
Union League Club, Exhibition Catalogue of the Work of Women Etchers of America. New York: Frederick Keppel & Company{{Cite web|title=OpenStax CNX|url=https://cnx.org/contents/gcTpHq3r@1.6:IuPsm4_L@5/1888-Minutes-of-the-New-York-Etching-Club|access-date=2021-11-27|website=cnx.org}}
Philadelphia Art Union. New York: Frederick Keppel & Company.