NYSWA FOUNDERS
The New York Society of Women Artists
Marguerite Thompson Zorach (1887-1968)
Lucile Lundquist Blanch (1895-1981)
Concetta Scaravaglione (1900-1975)
Today, the New York Society of Women Artists finds itself tasked with remaking itself. We aspire to birth new schools of art and encourage new avenues of exchange and discussion. As we embrace women who work in many diverse artistic styles from abstract to realism, we dedicate ourselves with a look to the future and a respect for our past.
Research by Rachelle Weisberger, Chair of the Keystone Committee.
The New York Society of Women Artists
While the exact date NYSWA was founded is debatable-- the consensus is the group formed in 1925. What is crystal clear, though, is that the women who banded together to form this group of 23 painters and three sculptors were passionate feminists and talented artists. From its inception, NYSWA was devoted to promoting avant-garde women artists by arranging shows of their work and raising the status of female artists.
The first officers of NYSWA included Marguerite Zorach, president; Anne Goldthwaite, vice-president, Ethel Meyers, treasurer; Ellen Ravenscroft, corresponding secretary and Ethel Paddock, recording secretary; Its membership included Theresa Bernstein, Lucile Blanch, Sonia Gordon Brown, Louise Upton Brumback, E. Varian Cockcroft, Gladys Roosevelt Dick, Elizabeth Grandin, Minna Harkavy, Margaret Huntington, Adelaide Lawson, Blanche Lazell, Lucy L’engle, Katherine Liddell, Marjorie Organ, Doris Rosenthal, Concetta Scaravaglione, Flora Schofield, Henrietta Shore, Mary Tannahill, Harriet Titlow, and Agnes Weinrich.
Amazingly, 10 of the 26 women traveled to Europe, especially to Paris to further their artistic training. They studied with renowned masters of sculpture and painting at highly regarded academic schools.
Four members--Goldwaithe, Myers, Organ, and Zorach participated in the 1913 Armory Show, while others exhibited their work at the Whitney Studio Club, The Salons of America, and the Society of Independent Artists. Two members, Blanch and Rosenthal were awarded Guggenheim fellowships, and Saravaglione received the Prix de Rome.
Many others participated in the Federal Art project established during the New Deal. Noteworthy are seven members who were married to artists. At times these women had to put their own pursuits on the back burner to support their husband’s career. Yet even those who opted for the single life, they still had to find a successful way to integrate their careers as artists into their personal lives.
In November, 1931, The New York Society of Women Artists was recognized as an innovative modern group in an exhibit sponsored by the Brooklyn Museum. The exhibit highlighted the contrast between two groups of female artists--the progressive NYSWA members and the conservative Society of Swedish Women Artists. Noteworthy, was the participation of the entire NYSWA membership. Also included in this event was a special memorial exhibition of the drawings of Marjorie Organ, the wife of Robert Henri, the painter, teacher, and pioneer of the Ashcan school of American Art who believed, “Art cannot be separated from life.”
As NYSWA’s extraordinary story unfolds, the courage and perseverance of the founding members is best appreciated through the cultural and historical context of the roaring 1920’s. These female artists aligned themselves with the spirit of modernity that defined the Jazz Age decade.
Only a few years earlier, the world population finished mourning the losses of World War 1. Soon after came the Pandemic of 1918 that killed more people than the Great War before or since.
And who can forget the impact the suffragettes had during this era? For decades these women waged tireless and relentless campaigns to secure the vote. One such event, recorded in 1915, attracted thousands as they marched up Fifth Avenue from Washington Square to Fifty-ninth Street to plead their cause.
Surprisingly, women artists were slow to participate in the movement. They felt they would help the cause more by working in their studios.. However, by 1915 they did an about face. Six female artists mounted an exhibition of painters and sculptors for the benefit of the suffrage campaign. One of the organizers was Anne Goldthwaite, who exhibited her modernist painting in the groundbreaking 1913 Armory Show. She also designed a suffrage banner that was unfurled at a 1916 New York Giants baseball game. Of greater interest, Goldthwaite was also a founding member of the New York Society of Women Artists.
The times were ripe for change--and they were radical on all fronts. The economic recovery that took place after these unprecedented events can be attributed to new technologies and machines. For the first time, electricity was brought into homes and factories and became widespread. As a result, the 1920’s ushered in a decade of economic prosperity as consumer goods such as cars, radios, washing machines and vacuum cleaners were manufactured and in demand.
For women as well, the roaring twenties marked a period of dramatic cultural and social change as women rejected the accepted social mores. They discarded their corsets, bobbed their hair, shortened their hemlines, and applied makeup. These independent-minded women adopted the ”flapper” look and enjoyed their new found freedom. Some adventurous women even drove cars.
With the ratification of the 19th amendment in 1920, suffragettes experienced a turning point in history with more than 8 million women voting in the November presidential elections.
The founding members of NYSWA reflected this new spirit of modernism and feminism that became the hallmark of our organization. Like so many aspiring Artists of the day, many left their hometown for New York City and Paris to study.
In New York City, the Art Students League played a major role in fostering the “modern” artistic sensibility. From the beginning and continuing to the present there has been an intertwining between NYSWA and the Art Students League. Many NYSWA members have been League teachers and students. Most notably,
early founders Minna Harkavy and Bena Frank Mayer were long time students. Ethel Katz taught a children’s class for nearly 30 years, while Anne Goldfthwaite was a beloved teacher for 23 years.
Who were these women? We know they all displayed a fierce tenacity and overcame challenges as they forged the path for future female artists. Art News described the group as a battalion of Amazons that is surely unbeatable.
In 1889, in order to gain greater recognition for their work, female artists banded together and formed the Woman’s Art Club. In 1913, the name was changed to The
Association of Women Painters and Sculptors. Two NYSWA founding members, Theresa Bernstein and Anne Goldthwaite were members of that group. A final change to the name of the organization happened in 1941, and it is now known as The National Association of Women Artists (NAWA).