Mary Brewster Hazelton

Mary Brewster Hazelton (November 23, 1868 – September 13, 1953) was an American portrait painter. She attended the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, where she was later an instructor. Among her other achievements, Hazelton was the first woman to win an award open to both men and women in the United States when she won the Hallgarten Prize from the National Academy of Design in 1896. Her portrait paintings are in the collections of the Massachusetts State House, Harvard University, Peabody Essex Museum, and Wellesley Historical Society. The professional organizations that Hazelton was affiliated with included the Wellesley Society of Artists, of which she was a founding member, and The Guild of Boston Artists, of which she was a charter member. She lived her adult life with her sisters in the Hazelton family home in Wellesley, Massachusetts.

Mary Brewster Hazelton
Born(1868-11-23)November 23, 1868
Milton, Massachusetts
DiedSeptember 13, 1953(1953-09-13) (aged 84)
Wellesley, Massachusetts
Resting placeWoodlawn Cemetery, Wellesley, Massachusetts[1]
42°17′42.62″N 71°16′42.72″W
NationalityAmerican
Known forPainting portraits
Awards

Early life
Two Sisters at a Piano, 1894

Mary Brewster Hazelton was born on November 23, 1868 in Milton, Massachusetts[2] to Dr. Isaac Hills Hazelton (1838–1929) and Mary Allen Brewster Hazelton (1843–1923).[3][4] A Harvard College graduate, Dr. Hazelton served for the United States Navy during the Civil War as an assistant surgeon. He was an innovator in the treatment of the mentally ill.[4] Mary had a brother, Isaac Brewster (I. B.) Hazelton (1873–1943), and two sisters, Olivia Bowditch Hazelton (1873–1967) and Margaret Page Hazelton (1876–1965).[3][lower-alpha 1] The family moved to Wellesley, Massachusetts, in 1873.[6] She began making artwork in the 1880s, which she often signed with her nickname, "Daisy".[7] In 1886, Hazelton graduated from Wellesley High School.[6] The three sisters lived together in the family home at 319 Washington Street over the course of their lives. The house has been called "Clapp House" and "Hazelton House".[5]

Education
Venice Grand Canal, 1900

Hazelton attended the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (MFAB) under Edmund Tarbell. She was Philip Hale's assistant and completed her education at MFAB in 1892. She was a drawing class assistant for Frank Weston Benson after graduation and the following year became an assistant drawing instructor.[8] Both Benson and Tarbell were noted Boston Impressionists.[9]

Rupert Hughes described Hazelton's painting, Margaret, made by 1895, as a "more than usually tender bit of Impressionism".[10] She studied with Impressionist painters in Paris[11] and also studied in Spain, England, the Netherlands and Italy after winning the Paige Traveling Scholarship from the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston in 1899.[8][1] Hazelton was the organization's first traveling scholar[12] and received $800 each year of her two-year study program.[13]

Style
Wellesley Hills Congregational Church murals, 1912

Hazelton was one of the women that collector Everette James identified as having "demonstrate[d] remarkable individual artistic skill" who attended the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston in the late 19th century. This was at a time, though, that women were not recognized for their individual style and abilities. "Tarbellites" was a phrase used at the time that reflected the belief that women's skill was derived from their mentors, like Edmund C. Tarbell.[14] Greater public exposure has helped to highlight the individual and unique qualities of some of the women portrait painters "that would rival a Tarbell, Benson or De Camp," according to James in Antiques Journal.[14][15][lower-alpha 2]

In his 2001 article Early Women Artists at the Guild of Boston Artists, Bob Jackman noted that Hazelton painted in a creative and assertive style that included "a loose Impressionist manner" that rivals the works of many other Boston painters. Her technical abilities in composition and use and capture of light are exemplified in the painting Two Sisters at the Piano that she made about 1894.[17]

Career
The Letter, 1914, which won the Newport Art prize in 1916[1]

Women did not win non-gender specific awards until 1896 when Hazelton won the National Academy of Design's First Hallgarten Prize[18][11] for her oil painting In a Studio. It was determined to be the best oil painted made by a person under the age of 35 in the United States that year.[6][19] The Museum of Fine Arts in Boston awarded her the first Paige Traveling Scholarship in 1899.[6][19] Hazelton won an Honorable Mention at the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York in 1901.[6][19]

Hazelton had a studio at the old Harcourt Building in Boston[11] in 1904, when a severe fire burned the life's work of several artists including Hazelton, Joseph DeCamp, and William M. Paxton. In the aftermath, a group of artists planned for a new building, which became Fenway Studios (30 Ipswich Street). Hazelton was among the initial group of artists that signed up, and arranged for studio 304.[20] From 1906 to 1940, she had a studio at Fenway.[7][lower-alpha 3]

In 1912, the Wellesley Hills First Congregational Church commissioned Hazelton, who was a member, to paint wall murals[21][23] for the church. One mural depicts the four virtues—truth, charity, justice, and faith—in eight-foot figures of three women and one man. For instance, the male figure carries a sword and scales to represent justice. She also created murals of the Four Evangelists and a representation of the Trinity.[23]

Mother and Child, 1921

During World War I, Hazelton designed a Liberty Loan campaign poster,[11] using her painting Victory's Record.[24] She exhibited The Letter and Reverie at the Panama–Pacific International Exposition in San Francisco, California, in 1915,[21][19] where she won a bronze medal.[25] She won the Popular Prize in Newport, Rhode Island in 1916 for The Lady in Black.[21][19] She also won a prize for The Letter at Newport.[1] John Singer Sargent considered her "one of the foremost portrait painters of her time", according to Wellesley author Jennifer A. Jovin.[11]

Hazelton was a Wellesley Society of Artists founder and treasurer, charter member of The Guild of Boston Artists, and an early member of the Copley Society.[26] She was a member of the Concord Art Association, American Federation of Arts,[27] and Connecticut Academy of Fine Arts.[19]

Death

Hazelton suffered a stroke in 1952, which required her to switch to painting with her left hand. She died at the Newton-Wellesley Hospital[28] on September 13, 1953.[1]

In 1965, the Wellesley Historical Society began purchasing paintings by Hazelton for its collection.[21] Scrapbooks, correspondence, sketchbooks, diaries, photographs, and other materials are also held by the Wellesley Historical Society.[7]

Collections
Dr. John Warren, copy after Rembrandt Peale, Harvard University Portrait Collection, Cambridge, Massachusetts

Notes
  1. Olivia was a kindergarten music education expert, Isaac was a commercial artist, and Margaret was a homemaker.[5]
  2. James owns Hazelton's painting Lady in a Kimono, which has been held at Vanderbilt University's Department of Radiology and Radiological Services.[16]
  3. A timeline summary of the Hazelton family by the Wellesley Historical Society also states that in 1909 she established a studio in Boston at 304 Ipswich Street.[21] Hazelton had studio 304 in the Fenway Studios building (30 Ipswich Street)[22] and according to the Wellesley Historical Society was in the studio building from 1906 to 1940.[7]
  4. The painting of Paul Jean Louis Azan (1918) is in the Harvard University Portrait Collection, Cambridge, Massachusetts.[30][31]

References
  1. "Miss Mary B. Hazelton Passed Away Sunday" (PDF). Wellesley Townsman. September 17, 1953. Archived from the original (PDF) on April 2, 2015. Retrieved March 16, 2015.
  2. "Hazelton Family Collection (1770–2011)" (PDF). Wellesley, Massachusetts: Wellesley Historical Society. p. 4. Archived from the original (PDF) on August 29, 2013. Retrieved March 16, 2015.
  3. "Hazelton Family Collection (1770–2011)" (PDF). Wellesley, Massachusetts: Wellesley Historical Society. p. 9. Archived from the original (PDF) on August 29, 2013. Retrieved March 16, 2015.
  4. Jennifer A. Jovin; Wellesley Historical Society (2008). Wellesley. Arcadia Publishing. p. 41. ISBN 978-0-7385-5708-3.
  5. "Hazelton Family Collection (1770–2011)" (PDF). Wellesley, Massachusetts: Wellesley Historical Society. pp. 9, 17. Archived from the original (PDF) on August 29, 2013. Retrieved March 16, 2015.
  6. "Hazelton Family Collection (1770–2011)" (PDF). Wellesley, Massachusetts: Wellesley Historical Society. p. 5. Archived from the original (PDF) on August 29, 2013. Retrieved March 16, 2015.
  7. "Hazelton Family Collection (1770–2011)" (PDF). Wellesley, Massachusetts: Wellesley Historical Society. p. 19. Archived from the original (PDF) on August 29, 2013. Retrieved March 16, 2015.
  8. "Hazelton Family Collection (1770–2011)" (PDF). Wellesley, Massachusetts: Wellesley Historical Society. pp. 9, 17. Archived from the original (PDF) on August 29, 2013. Retrieved March 16, 2015.
  9. Lee M. Edwards; Jan Seidler Ramirez; Timothy Anglin Burgard (1986). "Edmund Charles Tarbell". Domestic Bliss: Family Life in American Painting, 1840–1910. Hudson River Museum. p. 42. GGKEY:RGJYX4BZ64G.
  10. Robert Hughes (1895). "Impressionism and the Society of American Artists (pp. 615–625)". The Peterson Magazine. C.J. Peterson. p. 625.
  11. Jennifer A. Jovin; Wellesley Historical Society (2008). Wellesley. Arcadia Publishing. p. 42. ISBN 978-0-7385-5708-3.
  12. "School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston: Traveling Scholars" (PDF). School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Retrieved March 16, 2015.
  13. "Hazelton, Isaac Hills". Harvard College Report of Class of the 1860, 1895–1900 (PDF). Cambridge, Massachusetts: University Press. 1900. p. 81. Retrieved March 16, 2015.
  14. Everette James, M.D. "American Impressionists". Antiques Journal. Archived from the original on April 2, 2015. Retrieved March 16, 2015.
  15. "Melding Art and Medicine: Everette James M.D. '63". Duke Magazine. Duke University. Retrieved March 16, 2015.
  16. "Lady in a Kimono". Smithsonian Institution Research Information System. Retrieved March 17, 2015.
  17. Bob Jackman (October 5, 2001). "Early Women Artists at the Guild of Boston Artists". Antiques and the Arts Weekly. Archived from the original on September 24, 2015. Retrieved March 16, 2015 – via Guild of Boston Artists.
  18. Kirsten Swinth (2001). Painting Professionals: Women Artists & the Development of Modern American Art, 1870–1930. UNC Press Books. p. 233. ISBN 978-0-8078-4971-2.
  19. Jules Heller; Nancy G. Heller (19 December 2013). North American Women Artists of the Twentieth Century: A Biographical Dictionary. Hoboken: Taylor & Francis. p. 1864. ISBN 978-1-135-63889-4.
  20. "Fenway Studios". National Historic Landmark Nomination Form. National Park Service, Department of the Interior. September 13, 1978. pp. 14–15, 22. Retrieved March 16, 2015.
  21. "Hazelton Family Collection (1770–2011)" (PDF). Wellesley, Massachusetts: Wellesley Historical Society. p. 6. Archived from the original (PDF) on August 29, 2013. Retrieved March 16, 2015.
  22. "Fenway Studios". National Historic Landmark Nomination Form. National Park Service, Department of the Interior. September 13, 1978. p. 23. Retrieved March 16, 2015.
  23. "Stained Glass Windows / Hazelton Murals". Wellesley, Massachusetts: Wellesley Hills Congregational Church. Retrieved March 16, 2015.
  24. "About Town" (PDF). The Townsman. Wellesley, Massachusetts. September 17, 1953. Archived from the original (PDF) on April 2, 2015. Retrieved March 16, 2015.
  25. Official catalogue of the Department of fine arts (with awards). Panama-Pacific International Exposition. San Francisco, California: The Wahlgreen Company. 1915. p. 146. Retrieved 26 March 2015.
  26. "Hazelton Family Collection (1770–2011)" (PDF). Wellesley, Massachusetts: Wellesley Historical Society. p. 20. Archived from the original (PDF) on August 29, 2013. Retrieved March 16, 2015.
  27. "Hazelton Family Collection (1770–2011)" (PDF). Wellesley, Massachusetts: Wellesley Historical Society. p. 22. Archived from the original (PDF) on August 29, 2013. Retrieved March 16, 2015.
  28. "Hazelton Family Collection (1770–2011)" (PDF). Wellesley, Massachusetts: Wellesley Historical Society. pp. 9, 17. Archived from the original (PDF) on August 29, 2013. Retrieved March 16, 2015.
  29. "John Adams". Smithsonian Institution Research Information System. Retrieved March 16, 2015.
  30. "Paul Jean Louis Azan". Smithsonian Institution Research Information System. Retrieved March 16, 2015.
  31. "Paul Jean Louis Azan". Harvard Art Museums, Harvard University. Retrieved March 16, 2015.
  32. "George Cheyne Shattuck". Smithsonian Institution Research Information System. Retrieved March 16, 2015.
  33. "Dr. John Warren". Smithsonian Institution Research Information System. Retrieved March 16, 2015.
  34. "Appleton, William". Massachusetts General Hospital. Retrieved March 21, 2015.
  35. "William Stoughton". Smithsonian Institution Research Information System. Retrieved March 16, 2015.
  36. "Francis Henry Appleton". Smithsonian Institution Research Information System. Retrieved March 16, 2015.
  37. "The Wellesley History Center: A Concept Whose Time Has Come" (PDF). Wellesley, Massachusetts: Wellesley Historical Society. p. 2. Archived from the original (PDF) on April 2, 2015. Retrieved March 16, 2015.

Further reading
  • Louise and Alan Sellars Collection of Art by American Women; Brenau College (1991). "Mary Brewster Hazelton". Art by American Women: Selections from the Collection of Louise and Alan Sellars: Brenau College, Gainesville, Georgia, April 20-June 15, 1991 and other selected locations. Louise and Alan Sellars Collection of Art by American Women. p. 65.
External images
Wellesley Hills Congregational Church mural that flanks stained-glass windows
William Appleton, Massachusetts General Hospital
William Stoughton, 1924, Massachusetts State House

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