Past Exhibitions

November 4, 2006 - January 14, 2007
To complement the exhibition Off the Pedestal: New Women in the Art of Homer, Chase, and Sargent, The Frick Art Museum presents a selection of Minerva Chapman's (1858-1947) portrait miniature paintings in a variety of formats and media in the Jacobean Room. Minerva Chapman: Miniature Portraits is on view November 4, 2006 through January 14, 2007. The works comprising the exhibition are from the collection of Mr. and Mrs. Morse G. Dial, Jr.

Minerva Chapman is remembered as an accomplished painter of miniature portraits on canvas and ivory. Born in 1858 in Sand Bank, New York, she was the oldest of four children born to James Lincoln Chapman and Agnes Barnes. Her father owned a successful tannery business there in the 1850s, and the family moved to Chicago shortly after her birth, eventually founding the First National Bank of Chicago. Chapman's family's wealth ensured her financial independence and allowed her to pursue her artistic education.

She studied painting at the Art Institute of Chicago and continued her studies in various European art academies in Munich and Paris, where she eventually settled. At the prestigious Académie Julian in Paris, she attended classes and studios taught by William-Adolphe Bouguereau, Jean-Paul Laurens, and Charles Lasar, her most influential teacher who was known as a promoter and "champion" of women artists at the turn of the twentieth century.

Her delicate watercolor portraits done on slices of ivory revived a technique, which was popular during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and brought her critical acclaim. In 1906, Chapman was one of only a few American women elected to membership in France's Salon of the Societé Nationale des Beaux Arts. Other women artists so honored included Mary Cassatt and Elizabeth Nourse (whose Self-Portrait from 1892 is included in Off the Pedestal). Eventually Minerva Chapman became the first woman president of the International Art Union, and she was a founding member of the miniature painting society. During her 50-year career, hundreds of her paintings were shown at exhibitions in both America and Europe, winning numerous awards and gold medals.

Although best known for her contribution to the revival of miniature painting at the beginning of the twentieth century, Chapman was a prolific artist and also painted landscapes, interiors, still-lifes, and larger portraits. According to her own count, she painted 181 miniatures, some in oil on pieces of canvas no larger than 4 x 5 inches.

Because of ill health, Chapman moved to California in the 1920s. She died in Palo Alto in 1947. Her vast estate was largely ignored, until relatives came to the rescue and purchased it. The family catalogued and restored the 700 works that remained and eventually began showing them in 1975. Retrospective exhibitions of Chapman's work have been presented at the National Museum for Women in the Arts, Washington, D.C., as well as at museums and art centers throughout the country.


GENERAL INFORMATION
The Frick Art & Historical Center is located at 7227 Reynolds Street in Point Breeze. Free parking is available in the Frick's off-street lot, or along adjacent streets.
The Frick is open 10:00 a.m.-5:00 p.m., Tuesday-Sunday, and closed Mondays and major holidays. Extended holiday hours are offered on Wednesdays in December: The entire site is open 10:00 a.m. - 9:00 p.m. on these days.

Admission to The Frick Art Museum, Car and Carriage Museum, Greenhouse, and Playhouse is free. Docent-led tours of Minerva Chapman: Miniature Portraits and Off the Pedestal are available free of charge on Wednesdays, Saturdays, and Sundays at 2:00 p.m. Groups of five or more and those interested in scheduling a tour of the permanent collection are requested to schedule a private tour at an alternate time. The cost for group tours and permanent collection tours is $7 per person, and reservations must be made one to two weeks in advance. Call 412-371-0600, 9:00 a.m.-5:00 p.m., Monday-Sunday. Tours of Clayton are available Tuesday through Sunday; reservations are recommended. Admission is $12 for the general public and $10 for students and seniors.

For information and reservations, call 412-371-0600, 9:00 a.m.-5:00 p.m., Monday through Sunday.

For further information or images, please contact Greg Langel at 412-371-0600, ext. 524, or at glangel@frickart.org.



The Frick Art & Historical Center, a 501 (c) (3) non-profit organization, is an historic site and cultural center with a mission to serve the public through preservation, presentation, and interpretation of the fine and decorative arts and historically significant artifacts for all residents of and visitors to
Western Pennsylvania.