Martha Walter
"A Day on the Beach"
c. 1918

About the Item

Jim's of Lambertville Fine Art Gallery is proud to present this piece by Martha Walter (1875-1976). Born in Philadelphia in 1875, Martha Walter attended Girls’ High School followed by the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. It was at the Academy that Walter’s artistic talent was discovered. An admiring instructor by the name of William Merritt Chase took young Martha under his wing, giving her both inspiration and direction. She additionally enrolled with Chase at his summer school in Shinnecock, Long Island and in 1903, was awarded the Cresson Traveling Scholarship by the Pennsylvania Academy. This sent Martha Walter on travels to France, Italy, Spain, and Holland, where she attended the Grand Chaumiere and the Academie Julian in Paris. Afterwards, she established a studio on the Rue De Bagneaux in France with several other American women artists. In 1909, Walter won the Mary Smith Prize from the Academy for a portrait she had painted while in Europe. At the onset of World War I, Martha returned home and began painting plein-air subjects, such as Ellis Island, the fishing village of Gloucester, scenes of cheerful children, and the quintessential American beach scenes which have brought her national acclaim. Throughout her life, Walter continued to travel with great regularity capturing in oil and watercolor a wealth of landscapes and cultures across the globe. Martha lived a charmed life, keeping addresses in New York City, suburban Philadelphia, and Gloucester, while frequently traveling abroad. In her later years she became reclusive, not wanting to be disturbed by galleries and museums. After 1945, Martha spent most of her time in Huntingdon Valley and Glenside, Pennsylvania, where she enjoyed painting flowers from her garden. She never married and lived to the age of 101. Martha Walter exhibited widely throughout her career, both nationally as well as internationally, and was the recipient of many prestigious awards. Her work is in the collections of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, the Terra Museum, the Woodmere Art Museum, the Cheekwood Museum in Tennessee, the Toledo Museum of Art, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Detroit Institute of Art, the Milwaukee Art Center, the Musée d’ Orsay and the Musée Du Luxembourg in Paris, among others.

Creator:
Martha Walter (1875-1976, American)
Creation Year:
c. 1918
Dimensions:
Height: 14 in (35.56 cm)Width: 18 in (45.72 cm)
Medium:
Board,Oil
Period:
1810-1819
Condition:
Gallery Location:
Lambertville, NJ
Reference Number:
Seller: JOL1119220151stDibs: LU37412333332
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Martha Walter

Walter was born in Philadelphia in 1875. She enrolled at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, where she studied under William Merritt Chase, who became her primary mentor. At his insistence, she entered a number of Academy student competitions and eventually won a prestigious Cresson Traveling Scholarship in 1908. This award enabled her to travel throughout Europe, where she continued her art education at the Grande Julien in Paris. Soon disenchanted with the academicism of the Parisian schools, Walter set out on her own and began producing plein-air paintings in the manner of the French Impressionists. At the outbreak of World War I, she returned to the United States and took up painting at various East coast beach resorts such as Coney Island and Gloucester. In her beach scenes of this period, colorful bathing suits, gowns and umbrellas punctuate a tranquil, pastel surface. Her expertise in the treatment of light and shadow is evident in her depictions of these settings at various times of day. In 1922, she spent some months painting the thousands of immigrants kept in the detention hall at Ellis Island. The dreadful, crowded conditions inspired a group of paintings that were exhibited that year in the Galerie Georges Petit in Paris. One was selected for the permanent collection of the Musée de Luxembourg. An exhibition at the Art Club of Chicago in 1941 featured a group of watercolor paintings inspired by the artist's travels through Spain and North Africa. These works were intensely colored visions of such subjects as Algerian street scenes, mosques and Spanish fishermen. Walter worked well into her nineties, continuing to paint portraits of women and children, beach scenes, gardens and marketplaces. Before her death in 1976, she had exhibited widely, and her works are included in major national and international private and public collections. Hammer Galleries had several exhibitions of her work during her lifetime, the last taking place in 1975 when the artist was one hundred years old.