Whose Paint Brush Has Brought Her Fame

Cecilia’s gray eyes grew thoughtful as she considered the drawing that she was copying. She held it at arm’s length, scrutinizing it critically.

“Ah, this is much more fun than practicing scales,” she reflected.

When the family examined these drawings, they said, “Cecilia would never be a success at music, but she draws very well.”

This little girl was Cecilia Beaux, whose portraits have won many medals. She was born in Philadelphia in 1863. Her father came from Provence, France, where the people have ever been famed for their enjoyment of beauty. Her mother was of New England descent and had inherited from her ancestors the ability to do things and to do them conscientiously and well.

From each parent the little girl received a golden gift: from her father, his joy in the beautiful; from her mother, the love of doing things. Her good use of these two gifts has made Cecilia Beaux a famous artist.

Cecilia was taught at home until she was twelve years old. Then she attended a private school for a short time. Because of the skill that she had shown in copying drawings her aunt and uncle, with whom she spent a great deal of time, proposed a training in art for her.

This young girl had a few lessons in drawing from a Philadelphia artist, Mrs. Thomas Janvier. She also had an opportunity to have her work in painting criticized by Mr. William Sartain. Her gray eyes shone with happiness as she applied her colors and listened eagerly to every word from this distinguished teacher. Cecilia Beaux was practically self-taught. These few lessons constituted her only instruction in art until she went abroad some years later.

Instead of sitting and dreaming of the great pictures that she might paint some day, Cecilia Beaux looked for an opportunity to use her brush or pencil to aid her financially. A scientific society needed some one upon whom they could depend to make accurate drawings of fossils. This kind of work necessitated very careful attention to detail. The drawings were to be made into plates to illustrate scientific books. They would have been useless if they had not been exactly correct.

Some young artists, eager to do what they would call big things, would have been impatient with such slow, tedious work. Cecilia Beaux did not despise it. She did it to the very best of her ability, just because she believed in doing things well. Little did she dream that this training in careful and exact drawing was to be of great help to her when she began to paint portraits.

Another way in which she earned money was by giving lessons in painting and drawing. She also found that she could increase her income by painting portraits on china plates, taking her subjects from photographs. She did these very well, too, being careful to make correct likenesses.

Then Cecilia Beaux began to make crayon portraits from photographs. These attracted attention and she soon received many orders for portraits.

One success followed another, but although Cecilia Beaux received much praise for her work, she was not content with what she had accomplished. She felt that she needed still more training and that to have it she must go to Paris.

Accordingly, Miss Beaux went to Europe and began to broaden her talent by studying with several great French masters. One of them, Robert Fleury, used to summon her before the class to praise her work publicly. So modest was this American girl that she thought he could not be in earnest. Her fellow-students, also, used to discuss her excellent work.

The many friends that she made in Paris begged her to stay in that beautiful city and paint there, but she was too thoroughly American to spend her life in a foreign land. So, after a few years, she returned to her own country.

A great many of Miss Beaux’s best-known pictures are of women and children, but she has painted men with great success, too. In fact, she was chosen to paint portraits of Clemenceau, Admiral Beatty, and other great war leaders. Her portraits of women and children are really little pictures of everyday home life. She has caught the children as they have paused in their play for a moment.

“Ernesta,” one of Miss Beaux’s well-known portraits, hangs in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. Among her other important paintings are “The Last Days of Infancy,” “The Dancing Lesson,” “Sita and Sarita,” and “The New England Woman.”

Cecilia Beaux has won medals and prizes at many exhibitions of art. People are glad to pay large sums of money for her pictures, and it is considered an honor to be painted by her. She has steadily achieved success because she has never scorned nor slighted small tasks. She has done them conscientiously and well, making them a preparation for greater things to come.