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parades. She wrote home from her frequent trips in Europe almost every day, delving into topics including her works in progress, passing scenery, treatment of women travelers, and her criticisms of ancient building restorations and of art and recent art restorations in
European museums and gallery shows. The handwritten material confirms, corrects and fleshes out information published about her in publications including
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Virtually all biographical information for Mary Rogers
Williams (1857–1907) comes from her archive in a private New England collection, a promised gift to Smith College, which contains diary entries, sketches, letters and clippings and other ephemera including concert programs and confetti from Paris
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described Mary
Williams as "an artist with rare poetic instinct and feeling" and "a woman of conscience as well as feeling, and of a fine scorn for all shams." The Champney article added, "When asked what style she proposed to adopt, she replied: 'If I cannot have a style of my own, I trust I may be
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and at
Hartford's Decorative Art Society before taking the Smith post. (A Hartford neighbor and family friend, Lindley Williams Hubbell, became a renowned poet.) Her classes at Smith included drawing, painting, sculpture, art history, "study of design with practical work" and "artistic anatomy", and
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Almost every summer, she traveled in Europe, attracting crowds in villages when she sketched the scenery and locals. She sometimes walked between towns, partly because she could not afford car or carriage fees, and would set off to "catch a sketch" or "find a sketch," as she wrote to her sisters.
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church services in Europe (sometimes numerous times in a row on
Sundays) and wrote lavish descriptions of the costumes and music to her sisters. She had a Hartford-made bicycle shipped overseas for traveling in the countryside. She lived in
140:(1892–96, 1899-1902), Society of American Artists (1896), Macbeth Gallery (1902, 1903—she also commissioned "aquarium"-like frames from Macbeth, with a glass layer an inch away from the delicate pastel surface) and
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Williams' diary, photos of her and thousands of pages of her correspondence are in a private New
England collection. A few letters about and from her are in the Macbeth Gallery papers at the
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in
Hartford). Family and friends kept her paintings inventory together, and most remain in a private New England collection. Institutions that have her work include the
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Merrill, Linda (1990). An Ideal
Country: Paintings by Dwight William Tryon in the Freer Gallery of Art. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution.
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Williams, Mary R. (1898). Catalogue of Casts in
Hillyer Art Gallery, Smith College. Hartford, CT: Press of the Case, Lockwood & Brainard Co.
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she wrote a catalog of the college's plaster cast sculpture collection. She occasionally visited New York, stopping by the studio of her friend
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to the
Paestum ruins south of Naples. She often depicted high horizons, whether in meadows or medieval hill towns, under ribbons of sky.
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144:(1899). Commemorative posthumous shows were held in 1908 and 1909 at the Philadelphia Water Color Club (at Pennsylvania Academy),
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Macbeth Gallery (1902). "Art Notes Published in the Interest of the Macbeth Gallery." New York, April 1902, no. 19, p. 300.
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and earned acclaim for paintings of her native New England and scenes from her wide travels in Europe, from
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White, Henry C. (1930). The Life and Art of Dwight William Tryon. Boston, New York: Houghton Mifflin.
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cemetery there (there is also a marker for her with her siblings' and parents' graves in
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Forever Seeing New Beauties: The Forgotten Impressionist Mary Rogers Williams, 1857-1907
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artist known for pastel and oil portraits and landscapes. She was second in command of
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of her has been written by the journalist Eve M. Kahn for Wesleyan University Press.
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Jordan, Mary Augusta. (1907). "Ars Longa," obituary for Mary Rogers Williams, in
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and Hartford Art Society in Hartford. Publications that praised her include the
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128:(1895, 1896, 1902–04), Gill's Art Galleries, Springfield, Massachusetts (1898),
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Williams died a few days after she was diagnosed with abdominal tumors in
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30:(September 30, 1857 – September 17, 1907) was an American
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A Profile, c. 1895, oil on canvas, by Mary Rogers Williams
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and various art magazines. In 1894, in an article in the
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124:(1892), Art Association of Indianapolis (1895),
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174:(vol. 2, no. 6, p. 111-124), the novelist
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58:Mary Rogers Williams was born and raised in
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364:Champney, Elizabeth Williams (1894). "
126:Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts
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444:19th-century American women painters
100:in 1898–99 (she studied then at the
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384:Rediscovering Mary Rogers Williams
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434:19th-century American painters
213:Connecticut Historical Society
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130:American Girl's Club in Paris
106:James Abbott McNeill Whistler
320:in Old Lyme, Connecticut. A
122:American Water Color Society
205:Smith College Museum of Art
176:Elizabeth Williams Champney
64:Hartford Public High School
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134:National Academy of Design
439:19th-century male artists
146:New York Water Color Club
138:New York Water Color Club
116:A member of the New York
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382:Kahn, Eve M. (2014). "
313:Springfield Republican
179:spared an adopted one.
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377:Smith College Monthly
370:Quarterly Illustrator
277:New York Evening Post
209:Connecticut Landmarks
201:Spring Grove Cemetery
195:and is buried in the
172:Quarterly Illustrator
112:Artistic achievements
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261:Buffalo Evening News
255:Brooklyn Daily Eagle
102:Ecole des Beaux-Arts
81:Albert Pinkham Ryder
68:James Wells Champney
44:Dwight William Tryon
28:Mary Rogers Williams
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142:Paris Salon
136:(1903–04),
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328:References
266:The Critic
322:biography
104:and with
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211:and the
193:Florence
93:Catholic
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