A number of artists were romantically involved with other artists, and often created work that depicted their partners, either representing their union, or through reciprocal acts of portraiture. Such partnerships offer a clear example of one of the defining sub-themes of this exhibition, namely how works of art, often more so than texts, can mean wildly different things to different people. To those few who knew that celebrated actress Sarah Bernhardt and artist Louise Abbéma were a devoted couple, Abbéma’s painting, Sarah Bernhardt et Louise Abbéma sur le lac au Bois de Boulogne, was a tribute to a marriage. But most would have likely focused on the image of the celebrity Bernhardt, ignoring her mannishly dressed companion, a classic example of art that can have an alternate meaning, depending on the viewer.

     Extended Labels

Unknown
China
Mirror Polishing
c. 1900
Exhibition Print
The Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender, and Reproduction, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN
LN200.154

Sex between women was dubbed “mirror polishing” in Chinese texts. It was widely acknowledged because same-sex relations in general,  and female same-sex relations in particular, were not considered a threat to the patriarchal system; it was unreproductive and thus not a  danger to the patrilineal line. The introduction of the concept of “homosexuality” into China coincided with the founding of girls’ schools  for modern-style female education in Chinese urban areas in the early 20th century. Conservatives thus blamed these new schools for being hotbeds of homosexuality.

Louise Abbéma
France, 1853-1927
Sarah Bernhardt et Louise Abbéma sur un lac
1883
Oil on canvas
Collections Comédie-Française
LN200.75

Life partners and artists, Abbéma and Bernhardt merged their domestic and artistic lives. They repeatedly painted, sculpted, and drew one  another. Bernhardt was also a famous actor. Abbéma depicts the couple on a lake in the Bois de Boulogne in Paris. She stands above the  more feminine Bernhardt, echoed in the relationship between the black swans nearby. Yet Bernhardt was the celebrity. This is an example  of a painting speaking to two audiences at once. For most viewers, it was a portrait of Bernhardt at leisure, while for a few it was a portrait of domestic intimacy.

Florence Carlyle
Canada, 1864-1923
The Guest, Venice
1913
Oil on canvas
Woodstock Art Gallery, Woodstock, Ontario
Gift of Leonora McCartney, 1986
LN200.62

Florence Carlyle and Judith Hastings left Canada in 1913 for Italy before settling down together at Yew Tree Cottage in England. They spent  time in Venice where Carlyle painted the canals, a rite of passage for foreign painters in Italy. In The Guest, Venice, Carlyle portrays  herself and Hastings together at sunset, Carlyle gazing down at Hastings, who almost invitingly pulls on her necklace. The double portrait  captures them in vibrant brushstrokes at what was clearly a moment of great joy. Tellingly, it was completed after Carlyle’s bridal portrait  of Hastings, The Threshold—it is, perhaps, the couple’s honeymoon portrait.

Florence Carlyle
Canada, 1864-1923
Self Portrait
c. 1901
Oil on canvas
Woodstock Art Gallery, Woodstock, Ontario
Gift of Florence Johnston
LN200.61

Carlyle, a prominent lesbian artist, made great contributions to the art historical cannon. From Ontario, she studied painting in Canada before going to France from 1890 to 1896. She is representative of the late 19th century’s “New Woman,” an early feminist movement. By  1900, Carlyle was a successful artist, working mostly in an Impressionist style. Her work centers on domestic, feminine spaces, focusing on  the intimate lives of contemporary women, including her lover, Judith Hastings. This portrait shows Carlyle standing tall, successful in her  career, but, as the veil over her face suggests, equally careful to observe the expected proprieties.

Violet Oakley
United States, 1874-1961
The Kingdom of Heaven
1903
Print
Collection of Patricia Likos Ricci
LN200.106

Violet Oakley was a stained-glass artist and muralist, two forms of public art. This was highly unusual for female artists at the turn of  century, especially in the U.S. The Kingdom of Heaven looks like a preparatory drawing for a stained-glass window. But it violated the  norms for religious imagery in another key regard. Look carefully and you will see that this is an all-female religious scene, abounding in  saintly couples. It was published in Century Illustrated Monthly Magazine in the December 1903 issue as one of two Christmas pictures  provided by Oakley.

Alastair Cary-Elwes
England, lived and worked in France, Scotland, and England, 1866-1946
Rupert Bunny
c. 1887
Oil on canvas
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Gift of Mr C. C. Chisolm. Esq., 1962
LN200.57

Alastair Cary-Elwes shared a Paris studio and a life with Rupert Bunny. Bunny, born in Australia, moved from London to Paris, the  epicenter of the art world, in 1890 at 26. Bunny won more international acclaim as an artist than the British Cary-Elwes. Both men were  scions of affluent, cultured families, and this Victorian portrait, showing Bunny, attentive and serious, as he plays the piano, is in notable  contrast to Bunny’s own more modernist style. They painted one another, chronicling a life together that seems unaffected by the fact that  Bunny was married to a woman, a common arrangement.

Violet Oakley
United States, 1874-1961
Portrait of Edith Emerson Lecturing
c. 1935
Oil on canvas
Courtesy of Woodmere Art Museum, Philadelphia, PA
Gift of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, 2012
LN200.105

Violet Oakley taught Edith Emerson at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art, the second female instructor in that institution’s history. Emerson won a prize for her mural designs and impressed her instructor as well. Emerson became Oakley’s assistant and subsequently, her partner. They remained together for nearly 40 years. Oakley was a leading muralist, while Emerson became Director of the Woodmere Art  Museum, when few women could claim such positions. Here they paint each other’s portraits. Emerson’s portrait of Oakley includes a  painting that Oakley had done of Emerson as a senate page in the Pennsylvania State Capital in Harrisburg.