Maria Richards Oakey Dewing

Background

Maria Richards Oakey Dewing was born on October 27, 1845 in New York City, New York, United States. She was the daughter of William Francis and Sally (Sullivan) Oakey.

Education

After a period of study at the National Academy of Design and under John La Farge and Dr. Rimmer, in 1876 she went to London, Italy, and France, while in Paris being a pupil of Thomas Couture.

Career

For some years Mrs. Dewing devoted her efforts chiefly to painting flowers out-of-doors, in the garden of her summer home in Cornish, New Hampshire. In later years she painted both figures and portraits in her New York studio. Because of her long residence in New York, she had a wide circle of friends and in her professional contacts met practically all the foremost artists of her time. Her work was delicate and refined, yet vigorous. In referring appreciatively to the salient features of her art, Royal Cortissoz has emphasized her deep feeling for beauty and intensely individual touch.

Her life-size “Mother and Child” exhibited at the 1927 Winter Academy Exhibit, is full of delicacy, charm and sentiment, strengthened by a fine harmony of color. It represents another phase of her versatility and evoked warm tribute as showing an art of profound distinction.

Notable flower pictures painted out-of-doors were: “Poppies and Italian Mignonette, ” “Rose Garden, Roses with Border of White Carnations, ” “In the Springtime, Persian Lilacs, Narcissus Poeticus, Flowering Almond, ” “White Mountain Roses, ” “Iris at Dawn, ” “Marigold and Ribbon Grass. ” Among her flower pictures painted in the studio were “The Cabbage Rose, ” also called “Provence and Centifolia, ” “Carnations in Japanese Vase, ” “Carnations in a Satsuma Vase, ” “Souvenir de Mai Maison Roses, ” painted in extreme youth, “Roses Against Antique Brocade, ” “An Oak Wreath, ” “Marigolds in a Glass, ” “The Peacock Fan with Roses, ” “Heliotrope and Daphne Odorata, ” “Annual Phlox. ” Figure pictures were “The Mother, ” “The Prelude, ” “The Rose, ” “In Italy, ” “Child with Doll, ” “Elizabeth Dewing at the Age of Six Months, ” “Sketch for Portrait of My Father, William Francis Oakey. ”

Taken together, these pictures enumerated are representative of the work of Maria Dewing in its various phases. She died in her New York studio, survived by her husband and a daughter.

Achievements

• Dewing had a rare ability to interpret the soul, the genius of a flower, with marked originality of vision. She was a founding member of the Art Students League of New York. She will be gratefully remembered for her inspiring contribution to the dignity of flower painting in which she was rivaled only by La Farge in America and Fantin La tour in France. Dewing was awarded a bronze medal at the Columbian Exposition, Chicago, 1893, and also at the Pan-American Exposition, Buffalo, 1901.

Works

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  • Beauty in the Household

    ( This work has been selected by scholars as being cultur...)

Connections

On April 18, 1881 Dewing married Thomas Wilmer Dewing, an American painter who during the previous year had opened a studio in New York City.

Father:

William Francis Oakey

Mother:

Sally (Sullivan) Oakey

husband:

Thomas Wilmer Dewing

painter