Artist and club woman Pauline Lennards Palmer garnered exceptional favor within the Chicago arts community over a career lasting more than four decades. Modernist critic C. J. Bulliet said after reviewing her memorial exhibition:

“Pauline Palmer will go down in the art history of Chicago as one of the city’s ‘significant.’”[1]

A versatile artist who excelled in portraiture, landscape painting and, to a lesser extent, still life and genre, she won virtually every honor offered by the Chicago arts community and through her active participation in a broad spectrum of women’s and arts organizations worked to solidify the vitality of the arts within Chicago’s cultural milieu.[2]

Palmer was born in 1865 in McHenry County, Illinois, to Nicholas and Franciska (Spangemacher) Lennards.[3] Shortly after birth her family moved to Harvard, in McHenry County.[4] Her father, a tailor and merchant, and her mother were Prussian immigrants who counted among their ancestors several artists and musicians.[5] Pauline’s parents encouraged their daughter’s artistic abilities with early art training locally, followed by studies at St. Mary’s Institute, a convent school, in Milwaukee.[6] After graduating from St. Mary’s,[7] Pauline settled permanently in Chicago, the city that would be her home for the remainder of her life.

In Chicago, Pauline Palmer became a supervisor of art in the public schools, a position she held until her marriage, on May 21, 1891, to Dr. Albert Elwood Palmer, an Englishman from Toronto.[8] Dr. Palmer, a professor of medicine at the Jenner Medical College in Chicago, encouraged his wife’s artistic pursuits, making it possible for her to return to school to complete her art education.[9] While Palmer’s formal stint as an art educator was, short lived, her commitment to advancing the cause of artists and their art certainly was not.

In 1893, the year Palmer enrolled in the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, the school’s female population outnumbered males at a ratio of seven to one.[10] Her work on the human figure was particularly strong, earning several honorable mentions before her graduation in 1896.[11] During the summers of 1896 and 1897, Palmer pursued additional studies with John Vanderpoel, the School’s principal instructor in figure drawing, in the bucolic setting of Delavan, Wisconsin, where he taught a summer art program.[12] In 1897, Palmer returned to the School of the Art Institute to study with the flamboyant and respected New York painter, William Merritt Chase (1849-1916), who held one of the first visiting professorships. The following year she studied with another of the visiting professors, the Munich-trained, Frank Duveneck (1848-1919), and in 1902 returned for more instruction under Gari Melchers (1860-1932).[13] On instruction at the Art Institute, which she was particularly fond of, she commented:

“For the first five years’ study of art give me the Art Institute school. What happens to the beginner who goes abroad? …some great painter comes in and our young beginner is all aflutter. The great man makes his rounds, pauses beside two or three brilliant students, but has he time for our beginner? Never! The poor little newcomer has to struggle along without anyone to help him over the hard places. I tell you he’d be better off right here getting the kind of careful, solid training that Mr. Vanderpoel used to give so well, the fundamental work that every artist must have about five years of sooner or later.”[14]

The rising swell of enthusiasm for Impressionism had a formative influence on her work as well as on that of many of her contemporaries during her years at the Art Institute. Chicago audiences were first introduced to Impressionist paintings at the Interstate Industrial Exposition in 1890. Three years later the World’s Columbian Exposition included a small but impressive showing of the work of a broad range of international Impressionists, including several Americans.[15] With its loose brushwork, bright palette and focus on common, everyday events, Impressionism seemed refreshingly modern to an audience steeped in what novelist Hamlin Garland dubbed the “‘cooked up’” pictures of the traditionalists. Garland praised the Impressionists for their “fresh, vital themes,” “virile color” and local subject matter. In their unwavering commitment to the local and the present day, he advised, they offered valuable lessons for American artists.[16]

In 1899, a critic in Arts for America likened Palmer’s work to that of William Merritt Chase, noting their shared concern for convivial subjects which “expressed so much happiness and pleasure.” “Among the younger artists,” the critic enthused, “there is no one with a more promising future.”[17] Two years before, Palmer had been awarded third prize at the Art Students’ League of Chicago annual exhibition. In 1899, she received both the Klio Association Purchase Prize[18] and the prestigious Niké Club Purchase Prize for works included in the annual Exhibition of Works by Artists of Chicago and Vicinity at the Art Institute. The Niké Club Prize in particular, was a tremendous honor, especially for an artist just three years out of art school.[19] Palmer would continue to exhibit regularly at the Art Institute and found modest success in exhibitions outside Chicago as well.[20]

During the first decade of the twentieth century Palmer traveled extensively abroad, spending a portion of almost every year in Europe. Like many young artists, she was particularly drawn to Paris, widely considered at the time the center of the international art world. Beginning in 1899 and continuing for the next several years she studied with Gustave-Claude-Étienne Courtois at the Académie Colarossi and with Lucien Simon at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière. She also studied under René Prinet at the government-run École des Beaux Arts and with Raphael Collin.[21] Her achievements were rewarded in 1903 when she won a coveted bronze medal in portraiture (after placing first in the trial) at the annual concours at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière. The realistic rendering of a woman’s fur coat in her winning entry prompted praise from a fellow artist, who declared her painting “the gem of the whole collection! I have never seen fur so real.”[22] Guillaumina Agnew, the Parisian correspondent for The Sketch Book, hailed Palmer as “…the favorite among all the American artists here.”[23] That same year Palmer’s work was accorded a place of honor in the Parisian exhibition of the American Woman’s Art Association, and she later carried away a silver medal at Colarossi’s.[24] Similar honors accrued during exhibitions in America, beginning with her receipt of a bronze medal for her painting, The Silver Ball (location unknown), at the 1904 Louisiana Purchase Exposition in St. Louis.[25] Three years later, Palmer accumulated an astonishing three prizes at the Art Institute of Chicago exhibitions: the Municipal Art League Purchase Prize, the Young Fortnightly Club Prize[26] and the Arché Club Purchase Prize. In addition, she won the Marshall Field Prize at an exhibition of Chicago artists held in the galleries of Marshall Field & Company’s department store.[27] In 1910 she was the guest of honor at the annual meeting of the Art League of Decatur, Illinois.[28] In 1912, the Muncie Indiana Art Association awarded her a purchase prize.[29]

By far the most important influence on Palmer’s work came from her repeated encounters with the American artist, Richard Miller (1875-1943). A native of St. Louis, Miller was an established expatriate artist and the chief instructor at the Académie Colarossi between 1905 and 1914. Palmer seems to have studied with Miller at the Académie Colarossi and perhaps also privately during her years in Paris.[30] Miller was a competent and respected artist who excelled in decorative representations of women, usually in gardens or interiors. In the summer of 1910, Palmer again sought Miller’s guidance, this time at the artists’ colony at Giverny, the small village outside Paris where Monet spent the last three decades of his life.[31] Chicago critic Harriet Monroe, who visited Giverny in August 1910, remarked on the sizeable contingent of Chicago artists among those who came for the express purpose of “freshening up their color.” Monroe reported that Palmer herself claimed to be “learning lessons of inestimable value” while ridding her art “of faults which sic had hardened her work for years.”[32] Although her work was far from radical, her absorption of the Impressionist ideals of plein-air subject matter and bright colors  proved too extreme for the conservative jury charged with selecting that year’s entries for the Art Institute’s American art annual. In informing Palmer that the jury had rejected her work, the museum’s director, William M. R. French, remarked that the jury “had no patience at all with things which sic they considered in any way tricky or superficial.”[33]

While in Europe Palmer did not limit her explorations exclusively to France but traveled widely. After visiting the Paris Exposition marking the turn of the century in 1899 she traveled to Auvers in the French countryside and then on to the German village of Dorster to paint and visit relatives.[34] In 1902 she spent time in London, Spain and Germany where she visited her mother’s home in Düsseldorf.[35] While there she completed an homage of sorts to her mother, a painting entitled Mother Love, which included a cousin of the artist and mementos of her mother and grandmother.[36] In the years following she traveled and painted in Italy (1903 and 1904), the Austrian Tyrol (summer of 1904), Brittany and England (1906).[37] Following the conclusion of her studies at Giverny she and fellow Chicago artist, Jessie Benton Evans (1866-1954) spent October in Venice. Palmer would return the following year to paint in Verona and Portofino, and in 1912, traveled to Austria.[38] Her Italian ppaintings, light-filled picturesque “streetscapes,” found immediate favor in exhibitions geographically dispersed as far as Paris, Naples and Chicago. Critic Lena M. McCauley hailed them for being “as spontaneous as the painter herself.”[39]

If Palmer’s landscapes drew praise from the press, she was also known for her skills as a portraitist. A large pastel of her husband, Dr. Albert Palmer, was given a place of honor in the Art Institute’s annual showing of American watercolorists in 1901.[40] The following year Palmer was commissioned to do a life-size portrait in pastel of the son of Thomas E. Dougherty from the wealthy Chicago neighborhood of Edgewater.[41] A commission in 1912 to paint the children of singer Mme. Schumann-Heinke resulted in one of Palmer’s most memorable achievements.[42] Earlier that year she had gone so far as to publicly announce he choices for the most beautiful women of Chicago, as seen by the eyes of an artist. She stated her views on portraiture by saying:

“Of course I women as an artist. Coloring plays an important part as well as beauty of outline and regularity of feature. But all women who are called beautiful are not paintable. And some women who appeal to the artist as good subjects are not beautiful.”[43]

Not all of Palmer’s portraits, however, were privately commissioned. She also delighted in painting individuals of her own choosing, some of whom she knew only through casual encounters on the street.[44]

Throughout her career, Palmer’s strongest institutional affiliation was with the Art Institute.[45] Following her graduation from the School of the Art Institute, she exhibited regularly in the museum’s principal annual exhibitions: the American Annual, the Chicago and Vicinity exhibition and the American Watercolor exhibition.[46] Her work regularly won awards and she was in demand as a juror as well.[47] It comes as no surprise, therefore, that in 1913 the institution would honor her with her first solo exhibition.

Palmer’s exhibition, which opened March 24, 1913, followed by three years a major showing of the work of the Giverny Group at New York’s newly opened Madison Gallery. The Madison Gallery exhibition, which included the work of Palmer’s teacher in France, Richard Miller, impressed critics for its bright colors and optimistic themes.[48] If Palmer’s art demonstrated a close affinity with the light-filled canvases of her Giverny colleagues, it stood in sharp contrast to the modernist paintings of the Armory Show which opened at the Art Institute the same day as Palmer’s show. In Chicago as in New York and later Boston, where it opened next, the Armory Show took the city by storm. Critics had a field day, and with few exceptions decried the artists’ willful deviations from accepted, academic standards. Irate instructors from the School of the Art Institute, too, denounced the show and encouraged their students to do likewise.[49] Several days after the opening, members of the Chicago Artists’ Club staged a “Futurist Party” to mock what they could not comprehend. Attendees wore cubist costumes and listened to short speeches that attacked the works in the gallery “in mildly sarcastic terms.” Pauline Palmer was one of the speakers.[50]

William M. R. French, director of the Art Institute and a strong supporter of Palmer’s art, was concerned about the proximity of such a massive display of modernist art and that it might detract from the quiet integrity of her work. He offered to let her select alternative dates for her show, noting, “I doubt whether the company will be very good for you.”[51] As it turned out, he need not have worried. Several critics, including George Breed Zug, art critic for newspaper The Daily Inter Ocean and one of the speakers at the “Futurist Party,” considered her work a positive respite from the visual disjuncture fueling the Armory Show. He wrote, “instead of eclipsing the delicate art of Mrs. Pauline Palmer…it has indirectly aided in giving her a veritable triumph.” For those “dazed by the garishness of the revolutionaries,” he continued, Palmer’s art offered welcome “rest and serenity.”[52] Even Arthur Jerome Eddy, the Chicago lawyer and avid convert to visual modernism who delivered a lecture on Cubism during the Armory Show, encouraged museum patrons not to Miss Palmer’s exhibition.[53]

The exhibition of her work consisted of sixty-eight oils and pastels covering roughly a period of ten years. (She also showed two watercolors in the concurrent watercolor show).[54] Among the works on display were recent studies from Italy, including a series of “late afternoon” paintings objectifying the Impressionist concern with changing temporal modalities and plein-air aesthetics.[55] Palmer also exhibited several portraits and decorative works reminiscent of Miller’s representations of women who were clad in elegant attire within interiors. Poet and critic Harriet Monroe lauded the “vitality and variety” of Palmer’s work, which she judged a significant advance over the artist’s earlier efforts. “This exhibition gives Mrs. Palmer a strong push forward to a high place among American painters,”[56] Monroe advised. Critic Maude I. G. Oliver, aware of Palmer’s extensive foreign studies, assured her readers that she was “still quite decidedly a local product.”[57]

Palmer’s career received a substantial boost because of the massive public attention focused on the Armory Show. Many of the museum’s 180,000 visitors no doubt saw her exhibition, perhaps with the same sense of relief expressed by the critics. She received substantially greater press coverage than she could have expected otherwise, and for the first time her work was reviewed in a national publication. The International Studio, one of the leading art journals in the country, praised her work for its color, “luminosity” and “technical skill,” which it judged “on the best lines of impressionism.” At least as impressive were the three illustrations of her work that accompanied the article.[58] The year following the exhibition, Palmer’s work was featured in three additional solo exhibitions. It was common practice for the Art Institute to circulate shows to other Midwestern venues, and in January 1914, a slightly smaller exhibition of Palmer’s work opened at the Toledo Museum of Art.[59] Later that year fifty-two works were exhibited at the Springfield Illinois Art Club and from there traveled to the Withers Library in Bloomington, Illinois. Both exhibitions were part of an effort, backed principally by women’s organizations, to advance art in central Illinois.[60] That same year Palmer also garnered the Mrs. William Ormond Thompson Portraiture Prize at the Art Institute for An English Rose (location unknown) and was one of five recipients of the Fine Arts Building Prize, given by the Society of Western Artists. The following year brought additional honors. After the Society of Western Artists disbanded and the Chapin family moved their prize to the Art Institute Chicago and Vicinity show, Palmer received the Fine Arts Building Prize again, this time for a group of four landscape paintings.[61] She also won Honorable Mention for her painting, Sketching Out of Doors (location unknown), at the Artists’ Guild of Chicago.[62]

The advent of the First World War brought an end to Palmer’s frequent trips to Europe, as well as all American artists.[63] In the summer of 1915 she began painting in Provincetown, Massachusetts, a popular artists’ colony which attracted many of the same artists who had previously summered at Giverny. By 1916 the picturesque fishing village at the tip of Cape Cod had five summer art schools and several hundred painters. Charles Hawthorne (1872-1930), an innovative teacher and former Chase student, headed the largest of the art schools. Hawthorne was known both for his open-air teaching strategies and for encouraging liberal use of the putty knife.[64] Palmer was enthusiastic about her studies with Hawthorne, who shared her Impressionist sensibilities. In a letter to Chicago critic Lena M. McCauley, Palmer expressed complete satisfaction with Hawthorne’s “wonderful teaching system.”[65] In 1916 Palmer’s Parisian teacher Richard Miller joined the faculty of Hawthorne’s school, and in 1922, Palmer purchased a home and studio which she called “The Lanterns.”[66] She remained a regular fixture in Provincetown for the rest of her life and exhibited regularly with the Provincetown Art Association while also serving as a juror for the organization’s annual exhibition.[67]

Palmer’s art bore striking witness to her Provincetown summers. The Sketch Class (private collection), the 1916 recipient of the Mrs. Julius Rosenwald prize at the Art Institute Chicago and Vicinity exhibition, celebrated Hawthorne’s custom of holding his sketch classes outdoors on the Provincetown wharf.[68] Other scenes, noteworthy for their use of the palette knife, focused on the community’s picturesque narrow streets and small cottages, while decorative scenes of women in interiors revealed Palmer’s affinity for Miller’s celebration of light-drenched, leisure-class women.[69]

While Palmer summered in Provincetown, she continued to maintain an active presence in Midwestern art circles. In 1916 at the Art Institute, she received both the Municipal Art League Portrait Prize (Chicago and Vicinity exhibit) and Honorable Mention in the American Annual for her New England landscape, Pumpkin Hollow (location unknown).[70] In 1917, the Milwaukee Art Museum mounted a solo exhibition of her work, which included scenes of Italy and America,[71] and in 1918, she won the Clyde M. Carr Landscape Prize at the Art Institute for her painting, After the Blizzard (R. H. Love Galleries).[72] Palmer was also increasingly in demand as a lecturer on art. The Municipal Art League, the Art Institute Alumni Association and various Chicago women’s clubs eagerly sought out her services as did the Springfield Art Club, which sponsored a lecture during that city’s solo showing of her work.[73] H. Effa Webster of the Chicago Examiner judged her an entertaining and “eloquent lecturer.”[74]

At a time when women’s clubs were virtually alone in their support for young artists in the Chicago area,[75] Palmer lent both her considerable organizational skills and her fierce determination to advancing the cause of both women and the arts. She was a charter member of several women’s and arts’ organizations, including the Chicago Woman’s Art Salon, the Cordon Club, and the Arts Club of Chicago. She served in a variety of capacities in the Municipal Art League of Chicago, the Chicago Watercolor Club, the Chicago Art Students League (president 1896-97), the Chicago Galleries Association, the Chicago Drama League (director) and the Literature Department of the Chicago Woman’s Club.

By1919 she was so highly regarded within the city’s expanding art community that the Chicago Society of Artists, the city’s premier artists’ organization, unanimously elected her president. She was the first woman ever to hold this position, which she retained for three years.[76] In 1920, the organization awarded her the silver medal for a group of five of her paintings included in the Chicago and Vicinity show at the Art Institute.[77] Later that year she lectured and was “feted” on art day in Des Moines, Iowa.[78]

Following a trip to the mountains of North Carolina and Georgia in the fall of 1919,[79] Palmer expanded her repertoire to include Southern scenes. One of these, The Sunny South (last location, Chicago Public School system), was accorded the Edward Burgess Butler Purchase Prize at the Chicago and Vicinity show in 1920.[80] Later that year Palmer’s husband of nearly thirty years died. Shortly thereafter she spent time in a private studio on Cape Cod painting scenes of the sea and the dunes.[81] Within a few years, perhaps to supplement her income, she began teaching students in her studio in the Tree Studio building.[82] She also devoted increasing time to the lucrative business of portraiture.[83] She was particularly in demand for her portraits of young children, although critics came increasingly to regard her efforts in this genre as significantly weaker than her non-commissioned work.[84]

Throughout the decade of the 1920s Palmer continued to gain honors for her art. In 1921 she won the Silver Medal at the Peoria Society of Allied Arts, in 1924 her third Fine Arts Building Prize,[85] in 1925 Honorable Mention at the National Association of Women Painters & Sculptors,[86] and in 1926 the Morris S. Rosenwald prize for Morning Sun (Rockford Art Museum), a work which Lena McCauley termed a “masterly painting.”[87] As president of the Chicago Society of Artists, Palmer strove to maintain an open mind toward the more modern tendencies in art, which were gaining an increasing foothold within Chicago art circles.[88] To this end, she took instruction from an unknown eastern artist in hopes of enlightening herself as to its “mysteries,” but to no avail.[89] In 1923 she broke with the Chicago Society of Artists over its decision to exhibit several abstract paintings by Flora Schofield (1871-1960).[90] In protest, Palmer and the more conservative members of the organization founded the Association of Chicago Painters & Sculptors and in 1936 garnered the Gold Medal awarded at the annual show.[91] Between 1929-1931 Palmer served as that organization’s president. Palmer was also active with the Art Institute of Chicago Alumni Association (president 1927-1928), the MacDowell Society (director), the Grand Central Art Galleries Association, the Illinois Academy of Fine Art, and the National League of Mineral Painters.

Forever committed to advancing the cause of women artists, Palmer was often one of the few women to serve on exhibition juries that were still largely dominated by male artists. From 1925 through1928, she exercised a formative role in selecting the work of women painters for four Woman’s World’s Fair exhibitions.[92] She served as well on several juries for the Art Institute, including one for the1928 exhibition of American Paintings and Sculpture.[93] Her service culminated in 1933 when she was chosen to chair the contemporary American painting gallery at the Century of Progress Exposition.[94] The one hundred seventy-eight paintings in this collection formed part of a larger survey of American and European art covering the last hundred years. This ambitious undertaking provided Chicagoans with a broad overview of recent developments in the arts on two continents.[95]

Palmer gained additional stature as an artist through a series of solo and small group exhibitions at several prominent Chicago art galleries. The Carson Pirie Scott & Company Galleries mounted two solo exhibitions of her work in the 1920s, followed by three more in the 1930s.[96] The first, in 1921, focused principally on scenes of village life.[97] The second, in 1927, included a full range of landscapes, portraits and still life, nearly sixty paintings in all. Critic Lena McCauley praised the ensemble, finding “first-rate pictures” on every wall.[98] In 1923 the Art Institute selected Palmer as one of six area artists to share gallery space during the summer exhibition season.[99] The Evanston News-Index reported that Palmer’s seventeen paintings were “the kind that make such fine home pictures of the sort one likes to ‘live with.’”[100] The Chicago Galleries Association, which accorded her a number of purchase prizes in the later 1920s and early 1930s, mounted its own exhibition of her work in 1928.[101]

In 1930, 1933 and 1935 the Carson Pirie Scott & Company Galleries again celebrated Palmer’s art in a series of solo exhibitions. Conservative critic Eleanor Jewett of the Chicago Tribune judged the 1930 display, which included many portraits of children, “one of the most brilliant and diversified to be found at the moment in Chicago.”[102] Tom Vickerman of the Chicago Evening Post concurred.[103] Only C. J. Bulliet, in reviewing the 1935 exhibition, expressed concern with the growing conservatism of Palmer’s art. While acknowledging Palmer’s rebellious spirit, he lamented “the dead level” of much of her commissioned work.[104] Only a year earlier Bulliet had praised Palmer’s Old Stove (location unknown) from the 1934 annual exhibition of Chicago artists as “one of the twenty genuinely sincere pieces of ‘modernism’ the ‘modern movement’ in Chicago has produced.”[105] Palmer may indeed have thought of herself as “modern,” but not radical. As the forces of contemporary art and the Great Depression were beginning to pull apart the Chicago art scene Palmer noted:

“The radical trend in modern art has confused buyers to an extent that the great majority of brush wielders have been forced to abandon their palettes in favor of picks and shovels.”[106]

Palmer’s inclusion in the inaugural exhibition of the reactionary Society for Sanity in Art only reinforced Bulliet’s concerns about her solidifying conservative approach. Spearheaded by Josephine Hancock Logan, the “Sanity in Art” movement attracted a national audience to its vehement opposition to modernist practices.[107] Still, Palmer continued to win honors -- the Bronze Medal at the 1935 first annual summer salon at Chicago’s Findlay Galleries[108] and the Mr. & Mrs. Jule F. Brower Prize at the 1937 Chicago and Vicinity exhibition at the Art Institute. That Palmer’s art continued to win prizes well into the late 1930s is as much a commentary on the entrenched conservatism of the Chicago arts community as it is a statement on the quality of Palmer’s late artistic production.

During the 1920s and 1930s Palmer traveled only minimally outside her homes in Chicago and Provincetown. In the spring of 1922, at the invitation of former Chicago artist Jessie Benton Evans, with whom she had traveled earlier, she visited several Western states.[109] Five years later she returned to the West, spending four months touring art colonies in Taos and Santa Fe as well as those scattered along the California coast between San Francisco and San Diego. In Los Angeles she was the guest of newspaperman and former Chicagoan, Sam T. Clover.[110] It wasn’t until 1938 she returned again to, this time as part of an artists’ tour of Scandinavian countries headed by Art Institute lecturer Dudley Crafts Watson, who regularly organized such trips. It was on this tour that she caught pneumonia and died in Trondheim, Norway, August 15, 1938.

Palmer’s death was felt throughout the Chicago arts community. The following year, in a remarkable outpouring of support for her personal and professional contributions to the arts, no fewer than four prominent institutions and arts organizations, led by the Art Institute, held memorial exhibitions in her honor. Included in this group were the Chicago Galleries Association, the Union League Club of Chicago and the Woman’s Club of Evanston, where Palmer was often an invited speaker.[111] The Chicago Galleries Association mounted two additional memorial exhibitions in 1950 and 1951, and in 1984 the Lakeview Museum of Arts and Sciences in Peoria gave her a solo exhibition, accompanied by a small, illustrated catalogue.[112]

Palmer’s commitment to the arts and to the professional advancement of young artists did not cease with her death. Prompted by a desire to return a measure of the support that had been granted her over the years, Palmer left the Art Institute a generous endowment in her will. The money, which amounted to $1,800 annually, provided a series of prizes in her name at the annual Chicago and Vicinity exhibition -- two at $750 and two at $150. The first awards were made in 1950.[113] Palmer also let the Art Institute select one of her paintings for its permanent collection.[114]

Ralph Elmer Clarkson once characterized Palmer as an artist whose “effervescent personality pervades and enlivens all wherever she appears.”[115] C. J. Bulliet paid her an even greater compliment when he singled her out as “the woman artist of Chicago you think of in the same breath with Lorado Taft and Oliver Dennett Grover.”[116] Like her better-known male counterparts, Palmer gained the lasting respect of her profession as much for the quality of her artistic production as for her engaging personality and extraordinary service to a broad range of arts organizations. As an artist she clung to the conservative art practices of her youth long after they had been supplanted by the international push toward modernism. By the time of her death, her art was clearly anachronistic, although her technical skills remained high and her art was still prized by Chicago’s art-buying public. In her unswerving commitment to the arts across more than four decades and particularly through her lifelong participation in women’s organizations, Palmer made a substantial contribution to the democratization of the arts within Chicago’s extended metropolitan community. Both as an artist and as an avid arts supporter, Palmer deserves to be rescued from the artistic obscurity that has clouded the memory of her many substantial achievements.

[1]C. J. Bulliet, “Around the Galleries: Pauline Palmer, Krafft, Schwartz,” Chicago Daily News, 8/19/1939, Art and Music Section, p.25.

[2]A rather complete and lucid memorial commentary upon her death was provided by modernist art critic Clarence J. Bulliet, printed in bold typeface, in “Pauline Palmer,” Chicago Daily News, 8/27/1938, Art and Music Section, p.13. “Pauline Palmer was so alive in every fiber of her body and her mind. Impulsive, warm-hearted, full of fun, with a ready wit and an irrepressible humor, she was not only the life of the party in every circle where she found herself, but the soothing as well as the provocative influence. Generous, she was an easy mark for any petty art swindler who had a plausible story of pathos to tell. Conservative as a painter, both nominally and actually, she had yet an impishness that led her to experiment with ‘modernism’ with her brush and in conversation. It was a part of the universality of her interests. She prided herself on being a ‘fan’ in everything – painting, music, the theater, movies, the radio. She shocked high-brow friends by tuning in for Charlie McCarthy. A framed color print of a Cezanne had its place on her piano. If the world were fuller of people like Pauline Palmer, art controversies could be carried on with less rancor and with less slinging of insulting epithets.”

[3]There has been some confusion as to the exact date and city of Pauline Palmer’s birth. Her birth has variously been given as 1865, 1867 and 1869 with McHenry, Illinois, and Harvard, Illinois, both located in McHenry County, listed as the place of birth. The 1870 Federal Census, roll 257, page 237, which gives the family’s name as Lennard, rather than Lennards, lists the family’s address as Harvard, Illinois. Pauline is identified as Lena E, born 1865. She had two siblings: Mary (b.1867) and Frank J. (b. 1869). McHenry County birth records only go back to 1877. An obituary locates her birth at McHenry, “Pauline Palmer, Native Of McHenry, Dies In Norway,” McHenry Plain Dealer, 8/18/1938. Her ancestors are recounted with clarity and accomplishments in the obituary.

[4]Op. cit., McHenry Plain Dealer, 8/18/1938.

[5]A great-grandfather was knighted for his abilities at printing on textiles, while a distant uncle, a monk, gained acclaim throughout Germany as a painter of ecclesiastical portraits. C. J. Bulliet, “Artists of Chicago Past and Present,” Chicago Daily News, Art and Antiques Section, 2/8/1936, p.1. German was spoken in the family home until Pauline was twelve.

[6]Op. cit., McHenry Plain Dealer, 8/18/1938.

[7]M.M., “Pauline Palmer,” Arts for America, Vol. 8, No. 4, January 1899, p.217.

[8]Op. cit., Bulliet, Chicago Daily News, 2/8/1936, p.1. See also Harriet Monroe, “Mrs. Pauline Palmer: Her Work and Success,” Chicago American, Literary and Art Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 200, 1/19/1901, p.1.

[9]Jane Eads, “Artist Chief Tells Women How to Win,” unknown source, no date, IHAP Library, c.1920.

[10]Roger Gilmore, ed., A History of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago 1866-1981, (Chicago: School of the Art Institute of Chicago, 1982), pp.74-75. This ratio was soon to change with the expansion of the school’s evening and Saturday classes that attracted more men.

[11]Student Records, School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

[12]Louise Riedel, “Student Life at Delavan,” Brush and Pencil, Vol. 2, No. 3, June 1898, pp.115-119. For Vanderpoel’s importance to the artistic life of the School of the Art Institute, see, Charlotte Moser, “‘In the Highest Efficiency’: Art Training at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago,” The Old Guard and the Avant-Garde: Modernism in Chicago, 1910-1940, ed. Sue Ann Prince (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1990), pp.196-97; and see the essay on Vanderpoel in this publication.

[13]William Vernon, title unknown, Chicago American, 2/19/1902, Chicago Art Institute Scrapbooks, vol. 15, p. 92 efforts to locate this article in the Chicago American were unsuccessful, and op. cit., student record.

[14]Harriet Monroe, “Introducing George Bellows to the Chicago Art Lovers,” Chicago Tribune, 10/22/1911, p.B6.

[15]No French Impressionists were included in the official showing of French art at the Fair, which tended to be highly conventional. Rather, the French Impressionists were included in an exhibition entitled, “Loan Collection of Foreign Works from Private Galleries in the United States.” Several of these works came from the collection of the “other” Mrs. Palmer, the acclaimed Chicago arts patron, Bertha Honoré Palmer. William H. Gerdts, American Impressionism, (New York: Abbeville Press, 1984), p.142, termed the display “something of a vindication, even a triumph, of Impressionism in America.” See also Revisiting the White City: American Art at the 1893 World’s Fair, (Washington, DC: National Museum of American Art and National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, 1993), and Jeanne Madeline Weimann, The Fair Women, (Chicago: Academy Chicago, 1981), p.190.

[16]Hamlin Garland, Crumbling Idols, (1894, reprint: Cambridge: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1960), pp.100, 105.

[17]Op. cit., M.M., Arts For America, January 1899, pp.217-218.

[18]The association purchased her From the Conservatory, illustrated in “The Exhibition Of Chicago Artists,” Brush and Pencil, Vol. 4, No. 1, April 1899, p.50.

[19]On the Niké Club Prize, see “Nike Club at Art Institute,” Chicago American, 12/31/1901, p.2.

[20]In 1896, she exhibited with the National League of Mineral Painters at the Cincinnati Art Museum; in 1898, she showed at the Trans-Mississippi and International Exposition in Omaha; in 1901, she exhibited in the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo; and in 1899 she was included in the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts annual. She would exhibit often with the Pennsylvania Academy over the next thirty years (in 1908, 1912, 1916-1919, 1922, 1924, 1926, 1928, 1930 and 1932) and served also as a frequent juror (in 1910, 1919, 1922, 1926, 1928,1930 and 1932).

[21]American Art Annual, Vol. 5, (New York: R. R. Bowker, 1906-7), p. 401; Vol. 6, 1907-8, p. 395; and Vol. 14, 1917, p. 572, all identify Palmer’s Parisian teachers but provide no dates of her enrollment. The École Colarossi was particularly attractive to American women students due to its affordable costs and flexible teaching arrangement. For a six-franc entrance fee and a monthly fee of thirty francs students could participate in the half-day painting class which had biweekly visits by the masters. Marie Louise Kane, A Bright Oasis: The Paintings of Richard E. Miller, (New York: The Jordon-Volpe Gallery, 1997), p.74.  

[22]Guillaumina Agnew, “My Dear Sketch Book,” The Sketch Book, Vol. 2, No. 6, July 1903, p. 41. A concours was a contest that required students to complete two paintings in a short period of time.

[23]Op. cit., Agnew, The Sketch Book, July 1903, p.40. Such accolades prompted the Chicago Inter-Ocean to declare Palmer “among the best artists of Chicago.” “Mrs. Pauline Palmer,” Chicago Inter-Ocean, 7/25/1903, p.7.

[24]Op. cit., Agnew, The Sketch Book, July 1903, p.40; Maude I. G. Oliver, “Of Art and Artists,” Chicago Record Herald, 3/23/1913, Section 5, p.9. Palmer also had works accepted in several additional Parisian exhibitions: at the Société des Artistes Français in 1903 (“Rogiero” #1363), in 1905 (“Le globe d’argent” #1443), and in 1906 (“La robe de marièe de la grand’mère,” #1273), and at the 1911 Old Salon at the Grand Palais, all unlocated. Copies of the Salon catalogues may be found at the Ryerson Library, Art Institute of Chicago. See also, Lena M. McCauley, “Art and Artists,” Chicago Evening Post, 5/27/1911, p.6.

[25]In 1902 she had exhibited in the American Art Annual at the Saint Louis Art Museum, something she would repeat in 1917. Official Catalogue of Exhibitors, Department of Art, (St. Louis: Universal Exposition, revised edition, 1904).

[26]The prize was awarded to her painting, The Old Mill, Pon Aven, Brittany (location unknown). A. G. Randolph, “Exhibition Of The Artists Of Chicago,” Brush and Pencil, Vol. 19, No. 2, February 1907, p.46. All eight of her exhibited works were sold as noted in Lena M. McCauley, “Art and Artists,” Chicago Evening Post, 4/6/1907, p.6.

[27]Op. cit., American Art Annual, Vol. 6, 1907-08, p.154. A jury of Lawton S. Parker (1868-1954) and Walter MacEwen (1860-1943) awarded the Marshall Field Prize.

[28] “Gossip of the Artists,” Chicago Evening Post, 2/13/1910, Chicago Art Institute Scrapbooks, vol. 26, p.29. This Sunday addition was not located in the microfilm files of the Chicago Public Library

[29]Lena M. McCauley, “Art and Artists,” Chicago Evening Post, 2/22/1912, p.6. The decision to purchase the work was based on popular vote.

[30]Op. cit., Kane, A Bright Oasis, 1997, pp.22, 74. The exact dates of Palmer’s studies with Miller are difficult to determine since school records for Parisian academies are not available.

[31]William H. Gerdts, Monet’s Giverny, An Impressionist Colony, (New York: Abbeville Press, 1993), p. 186. American artists began to arrive in Giverny as early as 1885, two years after Monet moved there from Vétheuil. Palmer was among the second generation of artists to study at Giverny, few, if any, of whom ever met or worked directly with Monet. On the artists’ colony, see, op. cit., Gerdts, American Impressionism, 1984, pp.57-89, 261-73, and H. Barbara Weinberg, Doreen Bolger and David Park Curry, American Impressionism and Realism: The Painting of Modern Life, 1885-1915, (New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1994), p.96.

[32]Harriet Monroe, “”Do We Really Underestimate the American Artists?” Chicago Tribune, 5/28/1911, part 2, p.5. Other artists resident in Chicago at the time who were at Giverny included Henry Salem Hubbell (1870-1949), Karl Anderson (1874-1956), Karl Buehr (1866-1952), Lawton Parker (1868-1954), Clara Kretzinger (1883-?), Mrs. Richard Harding (Cecil Clark) Davis (1877-1955), Guy Rose (1867-1925) and Frederick Carl Frieseke (1874-1939).

[33]Letter from William M. R. French to Pauline Palmer, 10/21/1910, French Letters, Ryerson Library, Art Institute of Chicago.

[34]Op. cit., Monroe, Chicago American, 1/19/1901, p.1.

[35]Lena M. McCauley, “Art and Artists,” Chicago Evening Post, 7/26/1902, p.8.

[36]“Notes on Current Art,” Chicago Chronicle, 2/24/1902, p.5. William Vernon reported that a “well-known Eastern painter” judged her painting “the most serious effort in the direction of picture making in the gallery.” Op. cit., Vernon, Chicago American, c. 2/19/1902. The work was purchased by the West End Woman’s Club but its location is unknown, as the club no longer exists.

[37]Lena M. McCauley, “Art and Artists,” Chicago Evening Post, 10/31/1903, p.10; 6/11/1904, part 2, p.10; 2/3/1906, p.6; 11/3/1906, p.7.

[38]Unknown newspaper, 11/12/1910, Art Institute of Chicago Scrapbooks, vol. 27, col. 3, p.48.  Lena M. McCauley, “Art and Artists,” Chicago Evening Post, 5/30/1911, p.6; 11/25/1911, p.6. Evans was active in Chicago until 1915 when health forced her to move with her husband to Arizona where she became a nationally recognized artist for her depiction of the desert land.

[39]“Mrs. Palmer has done many clever things through the years,” McCauley remarked, “but these bear the truest marks of having been given con amore.” Op. cit., McCauley, Chicago Evening Post, 11/25/1911, p.6. Palmer exhibited two paintings of Verona in the Old Salon at the Paris Grand Palais in 1911, two Italian landscapes in the Expositione de Belle Arti in Naples in 1911, and additional Italian scenes in both the Chicago and Vicinity and the American Annual exhibitions at the Art Institute. Lena M. McCauley, “Art and Artists,” Chicago Evening Post, 5/20/1911, p.6, and 5/27/1911, p.6; Peter Hastings Falk, ed., The Annual Exhibition Record of the Art Institute of Chicago 1888-1950, (Chicago: Sound View Press, 1990), p.677.

[40]“Art Display is Worthy,” Chicago Record-Herald, 4/26/1901, p.7. Palmer exhibited often in the annual American Watercolor exhibition at the Art Institute: 1898-1902, 1904, 1905, 1908-1910, 1912, 1913, and 1923.

[41]Op. cit., Chicago Record-Herald, 4/26/1901, p.7; Isabel M. McDougall, “Art and Artists,” Chicago Evening Post, 5/17/1902, p.14.

[42]The portrait along with a photograph of Palmer is illustrated in “News of the Society World: Chicago Woman Artist's Latest Commission,” Chicago Tribune, 10/6/1912, p.G3. See also, “Gossip of the Artists,” Chicago Record-Herald, 6/9/1912, Sect. 2, p.7 and op. cit., Bulliet, Chicago Daily News, 2/8/1936, p.1. Palmer had met Mme. Schumann-Heinke at a music festival in Wisconsin a short time before commencing the portrait of her children, Marie and George Washington. The portrait, painted in Mme. Schumann-Heinke’s home in Caldwell, New Jersey, was later owned by the San Diego Museum of Art.

[43]“Artist Picks Ten Beauties,” and “Ten Most Beautiful Women in Chicago,” Chicago Tribune, 1/28/1912, p.3.

[44]Frederick O. Benim, “‘In the Open,’” Chicago Daily News, 2/14/1920, p.10;  Minnie Bacon Stevenson, “Woman Heads Artists’ Society of Chicago,” Fort Dearborn Magazine, 4/7/1920, no page.

[45]In 1907 Palmer glowingly declared the School of the Art Institute the “very best art school in the whole world.” While recognizing the value of foreign study and travel for the young artist, she remained firmly convinced that “the first years of one’s study should be here at home.” Title unknown, Chicago Journal, 5/1/1907, Chicago Art Institute Scrapbooks, vol. 23, p.5.

[46]She exhibited in the American Annual in 1896-1900, 1903-1906, 1908-1909, 1911-1923, 1925-1928, and 1936; in the Chicago and Vicinity exhibition in 1898-1902, 1904-1905, 1907-1933, 1935-1938; and in the American Watercolor exhibition in 1898-1902, 1904-1905, 1908-1910, 1912-1913, and 1923. Op. cit., Falk, The Annual Exhibition Record…, 1990, pp.676-679.

[47]She was a juror for the American Watercolors exhibition in 1902 and 1904; for the American Annual in 1908, 1913, 1918 and 1928; and for the Chicago & Vicinity exhibition from 1916-1923 and again in 1933.

[48]Besides Miller, the Giverny Group included Frederick Frieseke, Lawton Parker and Guy Rose. Op. cit., Kane, A Bright Oasis, pp.31-37. See also, Bruce Weber, The Giverny Luminists — Frieseke, Miller and their Circle, (New York: Berry-Hill Galleries, 1995). A Frieseke exhibition followed Palmer’s at the Art Institute in April 1913.

[49]On the Chicago response to the Armory Show, see Andrew Martinez, “A Mixed Reception for Modernism: The 1913 Armory Show at The Art Institute of Chicago,” Museum Studies, Vol. 19, No. 1, 1993, pp. 31-57, 102-5; Milton W. Brown, American Painting From the Armory Show to the Depression, (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1955), p.50, and The Story of the Armory Show, (New York: Abbeville Press, 1988), pp.187-214; and Sue Ann Prince, “‘Of the Which and the Why of Daub and Smear’: Chicago Critics Take on Modernism,” The Old Guard and the Avant-Garde: Modernism in Chicago, 1910-1940, pp.95-102.

[50]“Artists Give Cubist Play,” Chicago Tribune, 3/27/1913, part 2, p.1. A Chicago Artist’s Club, per se, did not exist; the article probably refers to the Chicago Society of Artists.

[51]Letter to Pauline Palmer from William M. R. French, 3/31/1913, French Letters, Ryerson Library, Art Institute of Chicago.

[52]George B. Zug, “Among the Art Galleries,” Chicago Inter-Ocean, Magazine, 4/6/1913, p.5. McCauley agreed, terming Palmer’s exhibition a “triumph” and a welcome relief from the “nerve strain of excitement” brought on by the Armory Show. Lena M. McCauley, “Art and Artists,” Chicago Evening Post, 3/29/1913, p.10. See, also George B. Zug, “Among the Art Galleries,” Chicago Inter-Ocean, Magazine, 3/23/1913, p.5 and “What Some People Are Doing in Society,” Chicago Inter-Ocean, 4/2/1913, p.4.

[53]Op. cit., McCauley, Chicago Evening Post, 3/29/1913, p.10. Eddy purchased eighteen paintings and seven lithographs from the Armory Show and in 1914 published Cubists and Post Impressionism, one of the first books in defense of the new art published in America. See op. cit., Brown, American Painting from the Armory Show to the Depression, p.95. Some twenty years later art critic Clarence J. Bulliet, who had a career of modern tendencies and almost reviled the conservative painters in Chicago said of the juxtaposition of the two shows, “By a mischievous irony, a ‘one-man’ show of paintings by Pauline Palmer – a conservative of conservatives, then and now – was hung in the Institute galleries simultaneously with the Armory Show.” “How Modern Art Came to Town: The Armory Show and the Matisse Rebellion,” The Chicagoan, Vol. 12, August 1931, p36.

[54]Palmer’s exhibition ran from March 24 through April 9, 1913. Eight of the sixty-eight works sold for a total of $1,975. American Art Annual, Vol. 11, 1914, p.90.

[55]These were Late Afternoon, San Lorenzo; Late Afternoon, Porto Fino; Late Afternoon, Giverny; and Late Afternoon, Montechio, all unlocated. Op. cit., Oliver, Chicago Record-Herald, 3/23/1913, p.9.

[56]Harriet Monroe, “A Live Exhibit at the Art Institute; Visitors’ Opinions Strong,” Chicago Tribune, 3/30/1913, Part 2, p.5. Monroe was considerably less enthusiastic about the paintings of the better-known Frederick Frieseke, another Art Institute graduate, whose work followed Palmer’s in the same gallery. Monroe judged Frieseke’s work excessively decorative, concerned with “surfaces and nothing else. Women and flowers are mere spots of color . . . they have no souls, they have nothing to say, they do not invite the imagination.” Harriet Monroe, “Record Breaking Crowds See the Cubist Exhibit,” Chicago Tribune, 4/13/1913, Part 2, p.8.

[57]Op. cit., Oliver, Chicago Record-Herald, 3/23/1913, p.9.

[58]“In the Galleries,” The International Studio, Vol. 51, November 1913, p.cxi. The illustrated works were The Winter Girl, Late Afternoon in Giverny, France (location unknown), and Under the Arches in Sunny Italy (location unknown). The Winter Girl was shown at her one-person show at the Art Institute in 1913 and purchased by artist and Art Institute trustee Edward Burgess Butler. H. Effa Webster, “Pauline Palmer Paintings Shown At Art Institute,” Chicago Examiner, 4/2/1913, p.8. When the family of Butler sought to sell some of his works they had inhereted in the 1990s, Caldwell Gallery in New York handled several of those transactions including the sale of Winter Girl, which is now in a private collection.

[59]Paintings by Pauline Palmer, (Toledo: Toledo Museum of Art, 1914). The exhibit included 66 works of art. 

[60]“Gossip of the Artists,” Chicago Record-Herald, 11/22/1914, Part 2, p.3; Bloomington Bulletin, 12/9/1914, and “Serve Tea at Art Exhibit,” Bloomington Pantagraph, 12/ 19/1914, Art Institute of Chicago Scrapbooks, vol. 32, pp.84 and 95. See also: “The Fine Arts,” Chicago Record-Herald, 12/7/1914, p.10.

[61]Op. cit., American Art Annual, Vol. 11, 1914, p.91; Evelyn Marie Stuart, “Annual Exhibition of Local Artists,” Fine Arts Journal, Vol. 32, April 1915, pp.173-174, judged the landscapes “exquisite in color and full of atmosphere.”

[62]Lena McCauley praised Palmer’s “forceful brush strokes” which “conveyed the ideal of the invigorating sea breeze, the rain-washed air, and the activity on and about the shore.” McCauley went on to say, “The frocks and veils of the women create delightful flashes of color, and the inspiration of the scene remains after one has left the gallery.” Lena M. McCauley, “Art & Artists,” Chicago Evening Post, 10/14/1915, p.8.

[63]In July 1913 she made her last trip to Europe before her fateful trip of 1938. Lena M. McCauley, “Art and Artists,” Chicago Evening Post, 7/5/1913, p.10.

[64]Dorothy Gees Seckler, Provincetown Painters 1890's-1970's, (Syracuse, New York: Everson Museum of Art, 1977), pp.19-25. See also Mary Heaton Vorse, Time and the Town: A Provincetown Chronicle, (New York: The Dial Press, 1942), pp.204-212.

[65]Lena McCauley, “Art & Artists,” Chicago Evening Post, 7/31/1915, p.8. Hawthorne was invited to teach at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago a few years later as a visiting professor in 1917.

[66]“Here and There,” Chicago Evening Post, 7/25/1922, p.7; Lillas Bill, “An Interview with Pauline Palmer,” The Poster, April 1923, p.22, New York Public Library Artists’ File P46/C6 - P47/D4.

[67]Palmer exhibited with the Provincetown Art Association in 1923-1926, 1928-1932 and 1935-1937. She served as a juror between 1921-1924.

[68]The work is illustrated in Bulletin of the Art Institute of Chicago, Vol. 10, No. 3, March 1916, p.160.

[69]The model in Palmer’s “Old Fashioned Gown” wears a tiered gown virtually identical to those favored by Miller. The painting is illustrated in “Exhibition by Chicago Portrait Painters,” Fine Arts Journal, Vol. 36, November 1918, p.37. Never a modernist supporter, Miller became increasingly virulent in his opposition to modernism during the 1920s, Writer Mary Heaton Vorse recalled his “colorful and expressive language . . . hurling to destruction the whole modern school.” Op. cit., Vorse, Time and the Town, 1942, pp.204-205; see also, Op. cit., Kane, A Bright Oasis, 1997, pp.60-61.

[70]Maude I. G. Oliver, “Chicago in Art,” The International Studio, Vol. 60, No. 238, December 1916, p.xlviii. Oliver remarked on the work’s “free use of the palette knife, fresh, joyous pigments, and a sincerity of delineation.”

[71] “Artists and Studios,” Chicago Evening Post, 4/24/1917, p.9.

[72]The painting was illustrated in Lena M. McCauley, “News of the Art World,” Chicago Evening Post, supplement, 2/19/1918.

[73]“Gossip of the Artists,” Chicago Record-Herald, 11/22/1914, Part 2, p. 3; Pauline Palmer, “Mrs. Pauline Palmer Discusses New Millet,” Chicago Examiner, 2/6/1915, Art Institute of Chicago Scrapbooks, vol. 32, p.130; Lena M. McCauley, “Art and Artists,” Chicago Evening Post, 5/6/1916, p.8, and 6/8/1916, p.10; Hazel Whitaker, “Art and Travel Ends Its Tenth Successful Year,” Chicago Tribune, 3/4/1917, Sect. 7, p.3; “Terre Haute Exhibit,” Chicago Evening Post, 3/13/1923, p.6. She was even asked to judge a beauty contest. “Ask Artists to Judge Beauty Contestants,” Chicago Evening Post, 12/8/1916, p.6.

[74]H. Effa Webster, “Art Tour Conducted by Pauline Palmer,” Chicago Examiner, 11/15/1912, Art Institute of Chicago Scrapbooks, vol. 29, p.111; see also, Paul Schulze, “Chicago’s ‘Painter Lady,’” Men and Events: Bulletin of the Union League Club of Chicago, September 1939.

[75]James Spencer Dickerson, “The Art Movement in Chicago,” The World Today, Vol. 14, April 1908, pp.374-76.

[76]Op. cit., Eads, unknown source, c. 1920. She had earlier served as a trustee (1907-1908 and 1913-1916) and as vice president (1918-1919).

[77]Among the five honored paintings was In the Open (Union League Club of Chicago), a work which critic Frederick Benim praised for being “a good portrait of the sane, old-fashioned-type.” Op. cit., Benim, Chicago Daily News, 2/14/1920, p.10.

[78]“Just by the Way,” Chicago Evening Post, 6/15/1920, p.12.

[79]“Our Artist Friends,” Chicago Evening Post, 9/2/1919, p.11.

[80]Op. cit., Stevenson, 1920, Fort Dearborn Magazine, 4/1920, n.p.

[81]Fred W. Soady, “A Brief History of the Artist,” Pauline Palmer: American Impressionist, 1867 sic – 1938, (Peoria: Lakeview Museum of Arts and Sciences, 1984), n.p.

[82]Margaret B. Williams, “Here and There in the Art World,” Chicago Daily News, 4/21/1926, p.20. “Artists and Galleries,” Chicago Daily News, 5/16/1928, p.15.

[83]In 1927 Lena M. McCauley observed that in “recent years all her leisure has been spent painting presentments of well-known men, women in society and children.” Op. cit., McCauley, Chicago Evening Post, 3/15/1927, p.2. See also, “Commissions Keep Pauline Palmer Busy,” Chicago Evening Post, Magazine of the Art World, 7/27/1926, p.5 and Eleanor Jewett, “Canvases of Teachers Praised,” Chicago Tribune, 6/30/1929, Part 7, p.5.

[84]In 1929 alone, Palmer completed seventeen children’s portraits. Tom Vickerman, “Pauline Palmer’s Paintings on View,” Chicago Evening Post, Magazine of the Art World, 3/18/1930, p.2. Marguerite B. Williams dismissed many of Palmer’s children’s portraits as little more than “sugared bromides made to please.” Marguerite B. Williams, “Here and There in the Art World,” Chicago Daily News, 3/1926, 3/23/1927, p.16. See also C. J. Bulliet, “Around the Galleries: Painting ‘Off the Record’,” Chicago Daily News, 4/13/1935, Art, Antiques and The Artists section, p.9.

[85]The award was for Just Us (location unknown), at the Chicago and Vicinity exhibit.

[86]“Has Honorable Mention,” The Chicago Evening Post Magazine of the Art World, 3/31/1925, p.5.

[87]Lena M. McCauley, “Versatile Exhibition by Pauline Palmer,” Chicago Evening Post, Magazine of the Art World, 3/15/1927, p.2.

[88]Op. cit., Eads, unknown source, c. 1920.

[89]Op. cit., Schulze, Men and Events: Bulletin of the Union League Club of Chicago, September 1939.

[90]Op. cit., Bulliet, Chicago Daily News, 6/3/1939, p.1. For a detailed discussion of the break see the section on Art Organizations in this publication.

[91]The prize was awarded to her painting, The Precious Jewel (location unknown). C. J. Bulliet, “Around the Galleries: Mrs. Palmer Voted Medal,” Chicago Daily News, Art, Antiques and The Artists section, p.4R.

[92]Marguerite B. Williams, “Here and There in the Art World,” Chicago Daily News, 4/21/1926, p.20; “Artists and Galleries,” Chicago Daily News, 5/16/1928, p.15.

[93]Who’s Who in America, (Chicago: A. N. Marquis Company, 1938), Vol. 20, p.1926.

[94]New York Public Library artist file P46/C6-P47/D4.

[95]The display included her painting Against the Light, 1928 (#613).

[96]She first exhibited in their 1918 exhibition, “Works by Chicago Portrait Painters.” Her work was subsequently included in additional group exhibitions: two in 1920 and 1921, one in 1927, 1932 and 1934. She also lectured at gallery-sponsored exhibitions in South Bend and Terre Haute. See “South Bend Art Festival,” Chicago Evening Post, 10/17/1922, p.11, and “Terre Haute Exhibit,” Chicago Evening Post, 3/13/1923, p.6.

[97]One critic praised the works’ “cheerful subject matter,” noting the “quaint houses” and shady paths leading to “interesting places, where the sun ever shines, and life is a holiday.” “The Art Dealers,” Chicago Evening Post, Magazine of the Art World, 3/22/1921, p.9.

[98]Op. cit., McCauley, Chicago Evening Post, 3/15/1927, p.2. See also, “‘Against the Light’--Pauline Palmer,” Chicago Evening Post, Magazine of the Art World, 3/22/1927, p.6 and “‘When the Leaves Begin to Fall’--Pauline Palmer,” Chicago Evening Post, Magazine of the Art World, 3/29/1927, p.4.

[99]The other artists were Charles W. Dahlgreen (1864-1955), Carl R. Krafft (1884-1938), E. Martin Hennings (1886-1956), Albert H. Krehbiel (1875-1945) and Anthony Angarola (1893-1929).

[100]“Summer Exhibits,” Evanston News-Index, 7/23/1923. See also, “News of the Art World,” supplement, Chicago Evening Post, 7/17/1923 and Eleanor Jewett, “Art and Artists,” Chicago Tribune, 9/9/1923.

[101]Palmer was awarded purchase prizes by the Chicago Galleries Association in 1926 (2), 1927, 1928 (2), 1929, 1930 and 1931. On her exhibition, see R. A. Lennon, “Local and Western Artists Show Work,” Chicago Evening Post, Magazine of the Art World, 4/3/1928, p.2; and Marguerite B. Williams, “Here and There in the Art World,” Chicago Daily News, 4/4/1928.

[102]Eleanor Jewett, “Modernism is Often Matter of Expediency,” Chicago Tribune, 3/23/1930, Part 9, p.5.

[103]Op. cit., Vickerman, Chicago Evening Post, 3/18/1930, p.2.

[104]Op. cit., Bulliet, Chicago Daily News, 4/13/1935, p.9.

[105]C. J. Bulliet, “Artless Comment: Pauline Palmer’s ‘Old Stove’,” Chicago Daily News, 2/10/1934, Art Section, p.24.

[106]As quoted by Bulliet in op. cit., Chicago Daily News, 2/10/1934, Art Section, p.24.

[107]See Op. cit., Prince, The Old Guard and the Avant Garde, 1990, pp.112-115. Eleanor Jewett served on the organization’s Board of Trustees. Following Palmer’s death, Josephine Hancock Logan donated one of her paintings, The White Shawl (Union League Club of Chicago), to the Municipal Art League. Op. cit., Schulze, Men and Events: Bulletin of the Union League Club of Chicago, September 1939.

[108]C. J. Bulliet, “Around the Galleries: Findlay Medals Awarded,” Chicago Daily News, 7/20/1935, Art, Antiques and The Artists section, p.9.

[109]She visited Scottsdale, Taos and California. “Of Timely Interest,” Chicago Evening Post, 12/20/1921, p.10.

[110]In California Palmer stopped in Berkeley, San Francisco, Pasadena, Santa Barbara, Laguna Beach, Carmel-by-the-Sea, Pasadena, Los Angeles and San Diego. She also visited Yosemite and the Grand Canyon. “Pauline Palmer Back from Trip to Coast,” Chicago Evening Post, Magazine of the Art World, 12/6/1927, p.12. Before moving to California, Glover had been managing editor of the Chicago Evening Post.

[111]“Woman’s Club Opens Art Exhibit,” Evanston Daily News Index, 11/4/1939; “City Views Memorial Exhibit of Pauline Palmer’s Works,” Evanston Review, 11/9/1939.

[112]C. J. Bulliet, “Art in Chicago--Palmer Memorial,” Art Digest, 7/1/1950, p.23; Frank Holland, “Palmer Memorial Exhibit Shows Her Best Works,” Chicago Sun-Times, 6/11/1950, Second Section, p.19 and Eleanor Jewett, “Works Being Accepted for No-Jury Show,” Chicago Tribune, 6/18/1950, Part 7, p.4; Eleanor Jewett, “Ingerle-Palmer Show to Open Exhibit Season,” Chicago Tribune, 9/2/1951, Part 7, p.2, and Frank Holland, “Memorial Show For 2 Conservatives,” Chicago Sun-Times, 9/16/1951, Section 2, p.12. Pauline Palmer: American Impressionist 1867 sic – 1938, (Peoria, Lakeview Museum of Arts and Sciences, 1984). The exhibition traveled to the Illinois State Museum in Springfield and the Rockford Art Association at Burpee Art Museum in Rockford, Illinois.

[113]Eleanor Jewett, “Notable Show of Palmer Art Now on Exhibit,” Chicago Tribune, 6/11/1950, Part 7, p.6, speculated the prize money was probably the largest amount ever distributed by the Art Institute from a single individual for one exhibit. Bulliet termed it “a small fortune.” Op. cit., Bulliet, Art Digest, 7/1/1950, p.23.

[114]“Reveal Artist’s Fear of Fatal Journey Abroad,” Chicago Tribune, 9/11/1938, Part I, p. 22. The Art Institute owns two Palmer paintings, After the Rain, 1910, and Provincetown, 1926.

[115]Ralph Elmer Clarkson, “Chicago Painters, Past and Present,” Art and Archeology, Vol. 12, Sep.-Oct. 1921, p.139.

[116] Op. cit., Bulliet, Chicago Daily News, 2/8/1936, p.1. Taft is Chicago’s best-known sculptor who taught at the Art Institute for decades and Grover is today, one of the best known of all Chicago artists.