Virginia Keane Bryce
Virginia Keane Bryce | |
|---|---|
| Born | July 6, 1861  Richmond |
| Died | September 13, 1935 (aged 74) Richmond |
| Occupation | Artist |
| Spouse(s) | Clarence Archibald Bryce |
| Parent(s) |
|
Virginia Keane Bryce (July 6, 1861 – September 13, 1935) was an American portrait painter.
Life and career
[edit]Virginia Keane Bryce was born on July 6, 1861 in Richmond, Virginia, during the American Civil War. She was the daughter of Hugh Payne Keane, the son of a sugar planter and slave owner on St. Vincent, and Jeannette Gradé, a French woman he met in New York.[1]
In 1874, she began studying at the Ecolé Balleroy, a finishing school in Paris. She studied art under the painter Jean-Léon Gérôme until she returned to Richmond in 1878. In Richmond, she taught art students and painted portraits.[1]
In 1881, her portrait of President James Monroe, a copy of James Bogle's copy of the portrait by Gilbert Stuart, was hung in the Virginia State Capitol.[1]
In 1885, she married Dr. Clarence Archibald Bryce, whom she met when he set her mother's broken arm. They had four daughters and one son, who was killed in World War I.[1] She painted a portrait of her husband, now owned by the Virginia Historical Society, called Charity Patient, in which he tends to an elderly African-American female patient. Carrie Meitzner Akard writes that the painting embodies the "paternalistic devotion towards former slaves that many whites like to glorify" following the Civil War.[2]
Virginia Keane Bryce died on 13 September 1935 in Richmond.[3]
References
[edit]- ^ a b c d James, G. Watson Jr. (January 1955). "The Story Behind Virginia's Official Portrait of James Monroe". Virginia and the Virginia Record: 18–19, 60.
- ^ Akard, Carrie Meitzner (December 1997). Southern Genre Painting and Illustration from 1830 to 1890. University of North Texas.
- ^ "Mrs. C. A. Bryce, Noted Artist, Is Buried Here". Richmond Times-Dispatch. 15 Sep 1935. p. 6.