However, she was so much more than an inspiration. Born under a lucky star, she earned praise from the toughest art critics. Moreover, she fought for social and gender equality in artistic education. Her paintings and projects reflected her antiracist and feminist ideas. It is time to fix that. May Alcott was born on July 27, , in Concord, Massachusetts. From the start, her family said she was born under a lucky star.
Her father, Bronson Alcott, was a Transcendentalist. In fact, one of their houses in Concord, the Wayside, was part of the Underground Railroad She exhibited a love for art from a young age. Her parents always encouraged her. They even let her draw on the walls of Orchard House.
Regardless of their poverty, she was lucky to get an artistic education starting from childhood. There were always family friends and relatives willing to help her. For example, R. Emerson allowed her to visit his library. In the s in Boston, she attended Dr. Simultaneously, May Alcott taught female students.
Yet, she was eager to help any person with artistic ambitions. In fact she gifted her modeling tools to Daniel Chester French. Later, she published Concord Sketches, a series of drawings from her hometown.
She had a solid career in America. But May Alcott wanted more. In , her sister published Little Women. It changed their lives. And with it, the possibility of sending her to Europe. One more point to her lucky star.
May Alcott traveled three times to Europe. In , the two sisters went as companions of Alice Bartlett, another aspiring artist. They settled in Italy and visited Switzerland. During this trip, May Alcott climbed a mountain during a storm. Unfortunately, their brother-in-law passed away during this time. Louisa May Alcott had to return while her sister stayed a few more months in London.
In London, she met the art critic John Ruskin. Apparently, he admired her copies of Turner and used them as teaching instruments. Due to family responsibilities, she returned home in However, her mother knew how much Europe meant to her. Despite her illness, Abba Alcott encouraged her to go back. In , May Alcott sailed away and never returned. This was her most successful period in all senses. In , she moved to Paris with her friend Rosa Peckman. There, she received better anatomical instruction.
Krug allowed women to learn from male models. Around that time, she did a brief stay at Grez with other artists, a little town not far from Barbizon. She also befriended Mary Cassatt. Alcott had the honor of exhibiting twice at the Paris Salon. In her still life Fruits and Bottles was accepted.
To her surprise, they placed it at almost eye level. She definitely preferred to be in control even if it created her own purgatory at times and created, I think, a bit of a martyr complex in her.
She was a commanding presence in the family and it is notable that the family pretty much dropped out of site after her death which I suspect Anna might have preferred. As a further example, my dad grew up during the Depression and he was overly concerned at times with taking care of his family. But he had one heck of a time letting go when it was his time to die the hospice nurse noticed this. The timing of this post is almost eerie! I finally made it to Concord to visit Orchard house and Sleepy Hollow, and got to thinking about where May was buried.
I lived in Paris for a year in college. I think this has happened before with your blog, when you posted on a topic I had recently pondered. Thanks again! Thank you, you made my day! I knew there had to be other folks like me who wanted to know more.
Very interesting read! As someone who loves to walk through cemeteries I find this very saddening. I hate to see them disturbed or destroyed. Strange thing is someone at work was telling me they do the same thing over in Italy. That over in Italy space is needed and they see no reason to eat up valuable real estate for dead bodies.
And they are hundreds of years old. Thanks for providing this information. I had always assumed there was an actual grave to visit at Montrouge. He was her husband and next of kin. Louisa might have wanted to let some time pass before writing to him about it; and then it was too late. The book contains a interview with a very elderly Lulu by Alcott biographer Madelon Bedell. Ernest would have needed to have been consulted. You could see how May could have been forgotten.
Ernest, I believe, moved to South America at some point too. Did he not know about the rule of claiming the body within 10 years?
It does make you wonder if he married May because she was an Alcott. I mean, she was 38 to his something and even though she was vivacious and attractive, she was hardly pretty. Louisa was known around the world so it had to have crossed his mind. Lots of things we may never know!
My passion for this family started with Amos Bronson Alcott but soon came to encompass the whole family. Of course Louisa goes without saying but my interest in May soon followed.
I always thought May had a stable grave at Montrouge and hoped to visit it one day as I did with the rest of the family at Sleepy Hollow in Concord. Like yourself I have always had a passion for the Alcotts and did massive genealogical research on the Alcotts as well as the Mays.
This news has grieved me deeply, for now, not only was this lovely golden haired lady denied full motherhood but denied a personal gravesite as well. Thank God Louisa had a stone marker placed for her at Sleepy Hollow. Is there no possible way that the common grave where May lies may be located within Montrouge?
Thank you so very much and also Claire for this remarkable information. The practice of moving someone to a common grave after 10 years was very common in those days. I imagine she was aware of the practice and it must have pained her deeply. Her success as a copyist of Turner was such as to command the praise of Mr. Ruskin, and secure the adoption of some of her work for the pupils to copy at the South Kensington schools in London.
She published Concord Sketches with a preface by her sister Boston, After having studied in Europe, she had become "an accomplished artist" by the s, and her works during that time showed marked improvement compared to the earlier illustrations for Little Women and the "quirky" depiction of Walden Pond in Concord Sketches. Her works after her European studies and exposure to great works of art reflected "a surer hand, a clearer focus, and a broader vision as the world".
She created the plan and outfitted a studio in for a Concord art center to support and promote emerging artists. In , her still life was the only painting by an American woman to be exhibited in the Paris Salon, selected over the work of Mary Cassatt.
She made portraits and paintings of exterior scenes, some with an oriental flair. John Ruskin praised her copies of J. Turner, having called her "the foremost copyist of Turner of her time. Several can also be seen at the Orchard House in Concord.
She was living in London and studying landscape art when she met Ernest Nieriker. They married on March 22, , in London. The marriage was said by authors Eiselein and Phillips to have occurred despite her familys reluctance. In contrast, Louisa Alcott called the day a "happy event" and described Ernest as a handsome, cultivated and successful "tender friend".
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