Marguerite Stuber Pearson Figurative Paintings

Marguerite Stuber Pearson (Massachusetts, 1898-1978) The Music Room - Oil Study, circa 1925 Oil on canvasboard 8 x 10 inches Carved gilt wood and composition frame Provenance: Louise and Alan Sellars (Noted below) Private Collection, New York Exhibited: St. Petersburg, Florida, Museum of Fine Arts, Art by American Women, March - June, 1993. Marietta, Georgia, Marietta/Cobb Museum, The Sellars Collection: Art by American Women, September - December 1997. The Sellars Collection of Art by American Women was a landmark gathering of over 400 paintings, drawings and sculptures that heralded the achievements of more than 250 American women artists primarily active between 1850 and 1940. While the names of many may now be unfamiliar, in their time these artists exhibited alongside their male counterparts, received accolades and awards, and pioneered the way for those who would follow. Today, art historians are rediscovering their contributions and reestablishing their rightful place in the expanding narrative of American art history. Collectors Alan and Louise Sellars of Marietta, Georgia, were perceptive when they chose to collect the work of these overlooked artists, and particularly insightful in deliberately not limiting their efforts to highlight one particular style or locale. While the Collection emphasizes the strong American preference for realism, works range from early efforts in the naïve tradition through sophisticated accomplishments reflecting the various influences of modernism— from impressionism through early abstraction. Equally varied in terms of subject matter, the Collection encompasses accomplished florals and still-lifes, elegant portraits, engaging genre scenes, and landscapes both intimate and panoramic, reflecting many different regions of the country and world. A small sub-collection of bronzes rounds out this unique gathering of art, which the Huntsville Museum of Art now has the great privilege of preserving and exhibiting for all to discover and enjoy. Marguerite Stuber Pearson was a firm proponent of the Boston School tradition, characterized by her mastery of academic technique and the selection of traditional subjects of portraiture, figures in interiors and still lifes. In her debut exhibition at the Guild of Boston Artists in 1931, one reviewer happily reported that her paintings were “executed in the best Boston School tradition.” Upon seeing the show, Edmund Tarbell (1862-1938) wrote to Pearson, “We are glad that you stick to the Boston tradition, and we look to you to uphold it, which you have more than done and are still doing.” Pearson grew up wanting to become a concert pianist, but in 1915 she contracted polio during a summer vacation in Maine. During her recovery she took drawing lessons from Boston illustrators Charles Chase Emerson (1871-1921) and Harold N. Anderson (1894-1973). In 1919, Pearson embarked on the rigorous seven-year painting course at the Museum School, where she received criticisms from Frederick Bosley...