Kasuga Taisha Shrine, Nara

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Elizabeth Eaton Burton
Kasuga Taisha Shrine, Nara
1933

About the Item

Elizabeth Eaton Burton’s “Kasuga Taisha Shrine, Nara” is a color woodblock print on Japanese wove paper, signed “Elizabeth E. Burton” in the lower right margin. The sheet size is 15 x 10.25 inches, and the image size is 14 x 9.5 inches. It has been framed using archival materials, and the frame dimensions are 20 x 15.25 inches. Another example of this print is illustrated in the recent four-volume series by Maurine St. Gaudens, "Emerging from the Shadows: A Survey of Women Artists Working in California, 1860-1960" (Atglen, PA: Schiffer Publishing, Ltd., 2015). While Elizabeth Eaton Burton is well known for her work in the Arts and Crafts movement in California, producing lamps of hammered copper and sea shells, her 1933 "Kasuga Taisha Shrine, Nara" color woodblock print reveals the artist's breadth of talent. Burton had traveled to the Orient, including Japan, studying printmaking in 1933-1934. Her Japanese inspired watercolors and prints toured internationally through 1936. Though Burton proved herself to be an accomplished artist, designer and craftsperson, who traveled extensively and continued to create work throughout her life in the Santa Barbara-Los Angeles area, it was her pioneering work in arts and crafts that propelled her to national prominence in the early 1900s and has remained her enduring legacy. Her striking designs, especially her table lamps, are ranked with those of Van Erp and Stickley, and are still sought after among collectors. Elizabeth Eaton was born in Paris in 1869, the child of two expatriate Americans who were studying at the Sorbonne. Her family moved to Santa Barbara, California in 1886, where she studied photography and painting. In 1893, she married William Waples Burton, and was thereafter known as Elizabeth Eaton Burton. Drawn to the arts and crafts world by her father, artist and landscape architect Charles Frederick Eaton, Burton opened a burnt leather studio at the end of 1896, and soon her leatherwork techniques and use of native woods and shells in lamps, screens, and chests garnered acclaim. She exhibited her “artistic leathers, hand wrought metals and electric lamps” in New York in 1908. Burton exhibited her work in various galleries in New York and other major cities in the United States, including the 1904 Louisiana Purchase Exposition in St. Louis, Missouri, and at the 1908 Alaska-Yukon Pacific Exposition in Seattle, Washington, where she earned a gold medal. In 1910 Burton moved to Los Angeles, where she opened a studio in the Blanchard Building and offered her services as both an artist and an interior decorator, and also lectured on art appreciation in the city’s clubs, including the Seven Arts Workshop. That same year she published a catalog of her electric lamps and exhibited in many eastern states. After the death of her husband in 1920, Burton eventually returned to her childhood haunts in France, and also to painting. On visits back to California, she exhibited her paintings and sketches and lectured on Paris, publishing her book “Paris Vignettes” in 1928, which included her pen-and-ink illustrations. She also served as the president of the Alliance Française of Hollywood in 1929, and in 1930 Burton was awarded the Palme Académique from the French government for promoting French culture and art. In 1932 Burton exhibited her leatherwork in the form of screens, cushions and decorated panels in her Paris studio. Burton’s subsequent travels in the Orient, and in particular her art studies in Japan, are reflected in her exquisitely detailed rendering of "Kasuga Taisha Shrine, Nara.” This rare print is a fine example of Burton’s highly-sought-after work. Elizabeth Eaton Burton passed away in Los Angeles in 1937, but her work continues to be appreciated. A lamp created by Burton in 1905, of hammered copper and abalone shells, was included in an exhibition entitled “The Arts and Crafts Movement in California: Living the Good Life.” Organized by the Oakland Museum of California, the show traveled to the Renwick Gallery at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC in 1993. The lamp was also exhibited in the show “The Ideal Home: 1900-1920” at the American Craft Museum in New York that same year; and a Christie’s auction in 2000 included a Burton table lamp that had graced the girlhood home of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis in Newport, Rhode Island. Near the end of her life, Burton dictated her memoirs to her daughter, Helen, and in 2011 “My Santa Barbara Scrapbook: A Portrait of the Artist Elizabeth Eaton Burton” was published by the Santa Barbara Historical Museum. In addition to Burton’s discussions of her life and art, the memoir recounts many happy hours spent with artist friends Frederic Remington, Jules Tavernier, Charles Rollo Peters, and Julian Rix, among others.

Creator:
Elizabeth Eaton Burton (1869 - 1937, American)
Creation Year:
1933
Dimensions:
Height: 20 in (50.8 cm)Width: 15.25 in (38.74 cm)
Medium:
Paper,Woodcut
Movement & Style:
American Modern
Period:
20th Century
Condition:
The print has some fading. Also, an approximately 3/8 x 3/8 inch small piece of the margin in the upper right corner became detached during framing. That small piece was preserved and included with the framed print and is not visible.
Gallery Location:
Beverly Hills, CA
Reference Number:
1stDibs: LU43733481021