Violet Oakley sketchbooks and pageant paintings

Table of Contents

Summary Information

Background note

Scope and content note

Administrative Information

Related Materials

Controlled Access Headings

Bibliography

Collection Inventory

Sketchbooks group 1

Sketchbooks group 2

Designs for the Philadelphia Historical Pageant of 1908

Miscellaneous

Summary Information

Repository

Historical Society of Pennsylvania

Creator

Oakley, Violet, 1874-1961.

Title

Violet Oakley sketchbooks and pageant paintings

ID

3336

Date

1893-1979, undated; bulk 1893-1949

Extent

9.2 Linear feet ; 1 box, 101 volumes, 3 drawers of flat files

Author

Finding aid prepared by Sara H. Nash.

Language

English

Abstract

Violet Oakley (1874-1961) was an American illustrator, portraitist, and mural artist, best known for painting the murals in the Senate and Supreme Court chambers of the Pennsylvania State Capitol. She also privately published The Holy Experiment, which illustrated her Harrisburg murals and explained her views, and  The Law Triumphant, based on the journal she kept while in Geneva observing the League of Nations meetings. In her younger years, Oakley was known as one of the Red Rose Girls, a group of illustrators who lived and worked together in Villanova. The group included Oakley, Jessie Willcox Smith, and Elizabeth Shippen Green, all of whom were trained by Howard Pyle at the Drexel Institute. After the marriage of Green, the women and their household moved to the Mount Airy section of Philadelphia. They called their new residence Cogslea, deriving the appellation from the initial of each of their last names. Oakley met her life partner, Edith Emerson, while teaching at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. They resided together at Cogslea for over 40 years. This collection consists primarily of Violet Oakley’s sketchbooks from 1893 to circa 1949 in 101 volumes. The sketchbooks contain drawings by Oakley in charcoal, chalk, ink, and occasionally watercolor. Subjects include League of Nations meetings, Florence, Lake Geneva, Caux, other sites in Europe, Tangier, and Algiers. The collection also includes studies for the Pageant of 1908 on illustration board in watercolor, pastel, and charcoal.

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Background note

Violet Oakley (1874-1961) was an American illustrator, portraitist, and mural artist, best known for painting the murals in the Senate chamber and Supreme Court room of the Pennsylvania State Capitol. The youngest of three daughters, Oakley was born in June 1874 to Arthur and Cornelia Oakley of Bergen Heights, New Jersey. In 1881, the family moved to South Orange where their daughters attended private schools. Oakley was descended from artists on both sides of her family and determined at an early age to become a painter. Her formal training began at the Art Students League in New York and continued at the Academie Montparnasse in Paris, France, and in Sussex, England, where she studied under Charles Lasar. The Panic of 1893 badly strained the family's finances, and her father, an investment banker, became ill, causing the family to return from Europe. Soon after, they moved to Philadelphia to seek treatment for Arthur. In 1896, Oakley enrolled in the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, but with the ongoing illness of her father, the tuition proved beyond her means. Oakley then enrolled at the Drexel Institute (now Drexel University) to continue her training. There she studied under illustrator and author Howard Pyle, who connected Oakley with two other artists, Elizabeth Shippen Green and Jessie Willcox Smith, who played important roles in her life. With Pyle's mentorship, Oakley, Green, and Smith, became successful illustrators. The trio rented studios at 1523 Chestnut Street, where they frequently collaborated. In 1899, Caryl Coleman offered Oakley an apprenticeship at the Church Glass and Decorating Company in New York. While there, she designed the art for the chancel of All Angels Church on West 80th Street. This work marked her transition to the large format of murals.

Arthur Oakley’s health continued to decline, and in the last stages of his illness in 1900, Violet converted to Christian Science. Her devotion to her new religion increased over the years and became integral to her art. While her talent for illustration helped her win covers of popular magazines, it was her larger works that caught the attention of Joseph Huston, architect of the Pennsylvania State Capitol in Harrisburg. In 1902, he commissioned Oakley to create murals for the Governor's Reception Room. At the time, it was the largest public commission ever offered to a female artist. The fourteen-scene mural, titled The Founding of the State of Liberty Spiritual, depicted the story of William Penn and the establishment of the colony of Pennsylvania.

By 1902, the careers of Oakley, Smith, and Green were established, and they were able to rent a property in Villanova called the Red Rose Inn. The household included the three women, Oakley’s mother, Green’s elderly parents, and their friend, Henrietta Cozens. The trio became known as the Red Rose Girls. In 1905, the Red Rose Inn was sold, and the new owner declined to renew the lease. The women then leased the dilapidated Hill Farm in the Mount Airy section of Philadelphia. After extensive renovations, they moved into their new home in 1906. They dubbed the property Cogslea, from the initials of their last names.

Oakley’s work garnered her a steady stream of work, including murals for the Charlton Yarnall Mansion and the library of Chestnut Hill Academy in Philadelphia and the Cuyahoga Courthouse in Cleveland, Ohio. Muralist Edward Abbey’s untimely death in 1911 created an opportunity for Oakley. He had the contract for the murals in the Pennsylvania State Capitol, but had not yet begun the Senate and Supreme Court chambers. Oakley was awarded the commission, which affirmed her status as a professional muralist. As a result, she was hired to teach at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts (PAFA) in the spring of 1913.

Oakley met her future partner, Edith Emerson (1888-1981), through her teaching at PAFA in 1916. The women became close professionally and personally over the next few years, and in 1917, Emerson became Oakley’s assistant. Emerson moved in with Oakley on March 13, 1918, and the couple designated the date as their anniversary. The women resided together at Cogslea for over 40 years.

The first five of the nine Senate chamber panels were unveiled in February 1917, with the remainder added in 1919 and 1920. Late alterations to the Pennsylvania State Capitol building delayed her work on the Supreme Court chamber commission, and Oakley took on other work and lectures in the interim, including designing the medal for the Philadelphia Award and a triptych, The Great Wonder, for Alumnae House at Vassar. In 1922, she made a privately printed book,  The Holy Experiment, which illustrated her Harrisburg murals and explained her views. The Vassar painting was finished in 1924, and the Supreme Court chamber mural cycle,  The Opening of the Book of Law, was finished and unveiled in May 1927.

Oakley left for Europe soon after the Harrisburg unveiling to begin work on a commission for an altar screen for the Graphic Sketch Club in Philadelphia. The completed reredos, The Finding of Moses, was installed soon after her return from Europe, in February 1930. The other purpose of her trip was to observe the proceedings of the League of Nations, and she attended the September meetings for three years. While in Geneva, Oakley kept a journal, which along with the Geneva drawings  (The Miracle of Geneva) and the Supreme Court murals, became the basis of her next book,  The Law Triumphant, published in 1933. Oakley exhibited the Geneva drawings in many cities in the eastern half of the United States, for which she received some national recognition but little remuneration. She delivered the drawings to the Palais de Nations in fall 1936 and exhibited a painting,  Christ at Geneva, at the Salle Centrale.

Oakley worked steadily in the 1940s, teaching, presenting lectures, and painting. During World War II, she painted portable triptychs for commissions organized by the Citizens Committee for the Army and Navy. The Philadelphia Bulletin hired Oakley to sketch the United Nations delegates in New York in 1946. In the late 1940s, she created ten murals for the First Presbyterian Church of Germantown. Her last major work was the publication of a new expanded edition of  The Holy Experiment in 1950. Violet Oakley died on 25 February 1961 at the age of 86.

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Scope and content note

This collection consists primarily of Violet Oakley’s sketchbooks from 1893 to circa 1949 in 140 volumes. The sketchbooks contain drawings by Oakley in charcoal, chalk, ink, pastel, and occasionally watercolor. Subjects include friends, people, animals, architecture, landscapes, League of Nations meetings, Florence, Lake Geneva, Caux, other sites in Europe, Tangier, Algiers, Maine, New York, and Cogslea Studio in Mount Airy, Philadelphia. The drawings are primarily sketches in varying states of detail, ranging from a few lines to complex images in color. Many of the sketchbooks focused on the League of Nations and the United Nations also contain extensive notes. There are two groups of volumes, processed at differnt times. To limit confusion, each group is organized by date, but they were not interfiled to prevent nonconsecutive volume numbers. In regard to dates of the material, only some of the sketchbooks were dated by the artist. Many have had dates and locations noted on the inside covers in another hand, and these may or may not be accurate. Most of the volumes have hand-numbered stickers on their covers, and these appear to have been applied while they were held by the Violet Oakley Foundation, where they might have been filed by subject. The stickers have been left in place, and the numbers are included in the item descriptions. The collection also includes studies for the Pageant of 1908 on illustration board in watercolor, pastel, and charcoal. Additionally, there are two volumes written by Edith Emerson; one is a letter home from Italy (Volume 132a), and the other is “Little Adventures by the Way,” a partial journal of her stay in Italy (Volume 132b).

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Administrative Information

Publication Information

 Historical Society of Pennsylvania , 2023.

Access restrictions

The collection is open for research.

Provenance

Gift of the Philadelphia Art Museum, 1984.

Accession number 84.92.

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Related Materials

Related materials

At the Historical Society of Pennsylvania:

The Holy Experiment (printed volume) by Violet Oakley 1922 (Call number Bd.61.Oa.5)

The Law Triumphant (portfolio) by Violet Oakley 1932 (Call number Bd.61.Oa.5a-b)

The Founding of the State of Liberty Spiritual (portfolio) by Violet Oakley (Collection 3570)

Violet Oakley engraving plates (Collection 3334)

At other institutions:

Violet Oakley Papers, Helen Farr Sloan Library & Archives, Delaware Art Museum

Violet Oakley papers, 1841-1981; Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution

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Controlled Access Headings

Subject(s)

• Art and artists--20th century.
• Art and artists--Pennsylvania--Philadelphia.
• Artists--Pennsylvania--Philadelphia--20th century.
• League of Nations.
• Pennsylvania--History--Artistic Representation.
• Pennsylvania--State Capitol.
• Religious imagery--20th century.

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Bibliography

Van Hook, Bailey. Violet Oakley: An Artist's Life. Newark: University of Delaware Press (2016).

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Collection Inventory