Object Record
Images
Metadata
Artist |
Wiley, Catherine |
Title |
Untitled (Woman and Child in a Meadow) |
Medium |
oil on canvas |
Date |
1913 |
Description |
Catherine Wiley (Coal Creek [now Rocky Top], Tennessee 1879-1958 Norristown, Pennsylvania) Untitled (Woman and Child in a Meadow), 1913 Oil on canvas 29 x 33 1/8 inches Knoxville Museum of Art, 2012 purchase with funds provided by Ann and Steve Bailey, KMA Collectors Circle, Martha and Jim Begalla, Betsey Bush, Joan and Victor Ashe, Lane Hays, Lindsay and Jim McDonough, Dorothy and Caesar Stair, Nancy and Charlie Wagner, Sylvia and Jan Peters, Patricia and Alan Rutenberg, Barbara and Steve Apking, Mary Ellen and Steve Brewington, Jayne and Myron Ely, Cathy and Mark Hill, Donna Kerr, Melissa and Tom McAdams, Townes Osborn, Alexandra Rosen and Donald Cooney, John Z. C. Thomas, Stuart Worden, Marie and Bob Alcorn, Jennifer Banner and James Schaad, Barbara and Bernie Bernstein, Arlene Goldstine, Stevens and Greg Hall, Kitsy and Lou Hartley, Ebbie and Ronald Sandberg, and Joseph Trahern, Jr. Conserved by Cynthia Stow, Cumberland Conservation Center 2012.01.01 Wiley was one of the most active, accomplished, and influential artists in Knoxville during the early twentieth century. She taught art at the University of Tennessee, helped organize area art exhibitions, and was a driving force in the Nicholson Art League, an important local art association. Wiley studied with Frank DuMond at the Art Students League in New York and spent summers in New England working with Impressionist Robert Reid. She returned to Knoxville following her studies and brought with her a mastery of Impressionism. Wiley specialized in scenes of women amid their daily lives rendered in thick, brightly colored paint. Untitled (Woman and Child in Meadow) represents Wiley at the height of her career. She won the gold medal for regional painting at the 1910 Appalachian Exposition in Knoxville, and evidence suggests the artist selected this canvas for inclusion in Knoxville's 1913 National Conservation Exposition. In a review of the 1913 exposition, one Knoxville Journal & Tribune critic wrote that "Miss Catherine Wiley's work has attracted general comment and praise. She has three pictures on exhibition, two of which are new examples of her art. The most pleasing of the three is a study of a woman and child out-of-doors. The figures are sitting in strong sunlight, while a dark wooded hillside forms the background. The piece is strongly handled, and shows originality and force." Wiley's work is represented in museum collections around the country, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Wiley's career ended in 1926 when she was confined to a mental institution and stopped painting. |
Catalog Number |
2012.01.01 |
Search Terms |
Nicholson Art League Oil paintings Women Children Mothers Portrait paintings Women Artists Portraits Paintings Canvas |
Credit line |
Purchase with funds provided by Ann and Steve Bailey, KMA Collectors Circle, Martha and Jim Begalla, Betsey Bush, Joan and Victor Ashe, Lane Hays, Lindsay and Jim McDonough, Dorothy and Caesar Stair, Nancy and Charlie Wagner, Sylvia and Jan Peters, Patricia and Alan Rutenberg, Barbara and Steve Apking, Mary Ellen and Steve Brewington, Jayne and Myron Ely, Cathy and Mark Hill, Donna Kerr, Melissa and Tom McAdams, Townes Osborn, Alexandra Rosen and Donald Cooney, John Z. C. Thomas, Stuart Worden, Marie and Bob Alcorn, Jennifer Banner and James Schaad, Barbara and Bernie Bernstein, Arlene Goldstine, Stevens and Greg Hall, Kitsy and Lou Hartley, Ebbie and Ronald Sandberg, and Joseph Trahern, Jr. Conserved by Cynthia Stow, Cumberland Conservation Center |