WOMAN IN ART
Museum of Art is one of her latest and best. Mrs. Went is also an instructor in the Otis Art Institute at Los Angeles.
Bessie Potter Vonnah has contributed much to the enjoyment of thousands of people who appreciate her inimitable groups in plaster and bronze. Her subjects and handling are dainty, natural and graceful. During war times the writer chanced on a group representing Motherhood. It was small, but came in answer to a clarion call of an acute, urgent need sounding in the ears of womanhood and manhood everywhere. It was the tonic diapason of war—and the dominant note, "Help! Help!" from the Red Cross sounded continually, and continually humanity responded according to its ability. About two hundred artists flocked to a Fifth Avenue House placing their art works on the altar of mercy, and among the canvases, water colors, pastels and plastic works stood the significant group, "Motherhood." The mother, standing, holds the baby close in her left arm, her right hand on the shoulder of a winsome little maid of four or five, who clasps the hand of a younger sister as both stand in front of their mother. The ease and grace of the group is delightful, the faces of the children sweet, the face of the mother sad and thoughtful. Viewing it conjured a background of thought, of question—Where in France is the father?
At the Paris Salon, 1900, Mrs. Vonnah was given a medal for a group, "A Young Mother." At the St. Louis Exposition, 1904, she had a case of statuettes, among them a "Dancing Girl," "A Creeping Baby," "A Portrait Relief" and others. The Panama-Pacific Exhibition had a room exclusively of woman's work, wherein was seen an interesting collection of the art of Mrs. Vonnah in little. "Enthroned," "Maidenhood," and "Youth" were phases of real life attractive to old and young, while scattered through other galleries, by way of adornment, one came upon "The Intruder," "Butterflies," "Grecian Draperies," and the most dainty "Pond Lilies."
As Bessie Potter, the pupil in this dainty phase of sculpture studied at the Chicago Art Institute with Lorado Taft, and like most of his pupils, had the ambition to accomplish worthwhile things, which she has done with her innate ability.
Janet Scudder is another of those successful sculptors who has enjoyed "working" through all the processes and years from mud pies to clay birds and figures, up and on to bronze and marble things of beauty, for the rest
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