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The Fine Art Of Sarah Choate Sears

Magazine Antiques, Sept, 2001 by Erica E. Hirshler

When asked to provide biographical information for an exhibition of her photographs in 1900, Sarah Choate Sears (Pl. 1) of Boston wrote simply, "I am interested in artistic things." [1] Sears was too humble about her talents. She became an award-winning painter in watercolor and pastel, an important pictorialist photographer, a supporter of aspiring artists, and a remarkable collector of contemporary art. She was also part of a significant community of gifted women artists that emerged in Boston at the end of the nineteenth century.

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Sarah Choate grew up in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the daughter of a distinguished lawyer, Charles Francis Choate (1828-1911), and his wife Elizabeth Carlile (1834-1898). Like many prominent Bostonians, Charles Choate developed an interest in railroads and served as president of the Old Colony line that linked Boston to its southern suburbs. Sarah Choate was educated at home, and no doubt acquired the usual skills expected of a young lady at the time. These included watercolor painting, which was generally considered an appropriate pastime for a woman of leisure, particularly if she favored floral motifs and refrained from marketing her work. [2] On the occasion of her engagement to Joshua Montgomery Sears (1854-1905), one journal related that the nineteen-year-old Choate was "not a society belle in the strict sense of the term, but is reported to be a lady of fine literary taste, and possessed of no ordinary degree of culture and intelligence." [3]

While praising Sarah Choate's accomplishments, the journal and many others were considerably more effusive about the young lady's engagement gift from Sears-a diamond necklace reported to have cost fifty thousand dollars. Sears was a twenty-three-year-old graduate of Yale College "of medium height with brown eyes, hari, and mustache, rosy cheeks, and geometrical proportions." [4] He had inherited significant assets upon reaching his majority and his wife thus enjoyed a financial freedom unmatched by her Boston peers. It enabled her to pursue many of her artistic interests, but Sarah Sears was rarely mentioned in the press without reference to her fortune, and some critics refused to credit her with genuine creative talent independent of her wealth.

Some years after her marriage in 1877, Sarah Sears began to study watercolor painting with the Boston impressionist Ross Sterling Turner (1847-1915). She first displayed her work to "great admiration" in an 1884 show held in Turner's studio. [5] Sears then studied at the Cowles Art School in Boston with the young French-trained artist Dennis Miller Bunker (1861-1890), whose paintings she greatly admired. Bunker knew J. Montgomery Sears with whom he shared a love of music and membership in Boston's Tavern Club. Perhaps through Bunker, Sarah Sears met many of the painters who provided her with instruction and inspiration over the next several years, among them Abbott Handerson Thayer (1849-192 1), Edmund Charles Tarbell (1862-1938), and John Singer Sargent (see Fig. 3).

By 1890 Sarah Sears had begun to earn serious recognition for her watercolors. She won the William T. Evans Prize at the New York Water Color Club exhibition in 1893 for Romola, a likeness of Bunker's young widow, Eleanor Hardy Bunker (1870-1953). Like most of her early watercolors, its current location is unknown. The portrait was highly praised, especially after Sears donated her prize money to a young teacher. Nevertheless, one critic felt obliged to note that "when a rich woman paints, it ought to be, in 99 cases out of 100, a subject of prayer among her friends," adding only reluctantly that "this favorite of fortune had really earned her success." [6] Sears continued to win significant prizes for her figural work throughout the decade, but she also began to turn her attention toward another mode of artistic expression-photography.

ike pastel and watercolor, photography was considered an appropriate medium for women, and it was actively marketed to them by film and camera manufacturers, whose advertisements often featured women photographers.

The cumbersome technology of earlier years had been eliminated by the 1880s and cameras became much easier to use. George Eastman's (1854-1932) "Kodak Girl" soon became his company's new symbol; her carefree presence implied not only the spirit of the wholesome, optimistic, typically American "girl" that was the emblem of a new age but also the simplicity of the camera itself- everyone could use it. Women's magazines promoted photography, offering articles and helpful hints, and soon the journal American Amateur Photographer prod aimed that "photography is becoming more and more recognized as a field of endeavor particularly suited to women." The author reminded his readers of women's "inborn artistic feeling," and suggested that the feminine traits of "cleanliness and patience" as well as a "delicate touch" made women "peculiarly fitted to succeed in this work." [7]

The Fine Art Of Sarah Choate Sears

Magazine Antiques, Sept, 2001 by Erica E. Hirshler

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