19 Works, Today, January 14th is Artist Alice Pike Barney's day, her story, illustrated #014

Alice Pike Barney

Dreamland, ca. 1906

Pastel on paper

22 x 18 1⁄2 in. (55.9 x 47.0 cm)

Smithsonian American Art Museum

Alice Pike Barney (born Alice Pike; 1857–1931) was an American painter. Defying social and family expectations, the wealthy, often eccentric Alice Pike Barney zestfully committed herself to the arts and became known for her lively art salons, bohemian lifestyle, and unusual family. Her two daughters were the writer and salon hostess Natalie Clifford Barney and the Baháʼí writer Laura Clifford Barney.

Alice Pike Barney

Daughter, The Writer; Natalie Clifford Barney, ca. 1895

Oil on canvas

21 5⁄8 x 18 in. (54.8 x 45.7 cm)

Smithsonian American Art Museum

Alice Pike Barney

Daughter, Laura at Sixteen, c. 1896

Oil on canvas

30 3⁄4 x 26 5⁄8 in. (78.2 x 67.5 cm)

Smithsonian American Art Museum

Defying social and family expectations, the wealthy, often eccentric Alice zestfully committed herself to the arts and became known for her lively art salons, bohemian lifestyle, and unusual family.

Barney's father Samuel Napthali Pike, who had made his fortune as the distiller of Magnolia brand whiskey, was a patron of the arts in Cincinnati, Ohio, where he built Pike's Opera House. After the family moved New York City in 1866, he built what would become the Grand Opera House at Twenty-Third Street and Eighth Avenue. Barney was the youngest of four children and the only one who fully shared her father's cultural interests; as a child she showed talent as a singer and pianist.

Unknown artist

How I found Livingstone

Print

I have no further description, at this time

In 1871, Leaving Zanzibar in search of David Livingstone, for whom nothing has been known for more than three years, journalist Henry Stanley met the famous British explorer on the eastern shore of Lake Tanganyika. Stanley uttered the famous line of history: " Dr. Livingstone, I presume? ”. Later, the two will explore northern Lake Tanganyika together, then the journalist will return to England, Livingstone heading to Zambia.

At 17 she became engaged to the  journalist, explorer, Henry Morton Stanley. Alice's mother considered the match unsuitable due to the age difference – she was 17, he 33 – and insisted that they wait to marry. While he was away on a three-year expedition in Africa, she instead married Albert Clifford Barney, son of a wealthy manufacturer of railway cars in Dayton, Ohio.

Alice Pike Barney

Albert Clifford Barney, c. 1899

Pastel on paper on fiberboard

30 1⁄2 x 20 3⁄4 in. (77.5 x 52.6 cm)

Smithsonian American Art Museum

In 1882 Barney and her family spent the summer at New York's Long Beach Hotel, where Oscar Wilde happened to be speaking on his American lecture tour. Wilde spent the day with Alice and her daughter Natalie on the beach; their conversation changed the course of Alice's life, inspiring her to pursue art seriously despite her husband's disapproval.

Alice Pike Barney

Ceres, c. 1901

Pastel on canvas

18 x 14 7⁄8 in. (45.8 x 37.8 cm)

Smithsonian American Art Museum

In ancient Roman religion, Ceres was a goddess of agriculture, grain crops, fertility and motherly relationships. She was originally the central deity in Rome's so-called plebeian or Aventine Triad, then was paired with her daughter Proserpina in what Romans described as "the Greek rites of Ceres". More on Ceres

Alice Pike Barney

Circe

Pastel on canvas

30 1⁄8 x 24 7⁄8 in. (76.4 x 63.1 cm.)

Smithsonian American Art Museum

When Odysseus and his men landed in Aeaea, his crew later met with Circe and were turned into pigs. Circe's spells however had no effect on Odysseus who earlier was given an herb by Hermes to resist her power. Circe realizing she was powerless over him lifted the spell from the crew and welcomed them in her home. After about a year when Odysseus leaves she warns them of the sirens they will encounter on their journey. Circe and Odysseus also bore a child together named Telegonus who later ruled over the Tyrsenians.

Alice Pike Barney

Medusa. c. 1892

Model: Laura Dreyfus Barney

Pastel on canvas

36 1⁄4 x 28 5⁄8 in. (92.0 x 72.8 cm)

Smithsonian American Art Museum

In Greek mythology, Medusa, also called Gorgo, was one of the three monstrous Gorgons, generally described as winged human females with living venomous snakes in place of hair. Those who gazed into her eyes would turn to stone. Most sources describe her as the daughter of Phorcys and Ceto, although the author Hyginus makes her the daughter of Gorgon and Ceto. More on Medusa

Alice Pike Barney

A Song, ca. 1895

Oil on canvas

35 x 22 1⁄8 in. (88.9 x 56.1 cm.)

Smithsonian American Art Museum

Alice Pike Barney

Lucifer, c. 1902

 Model; Natalie Clifford Barney

Pastel on canvas

30 x 25 in. (76.3 x 63.5 cm)

Smithsonian American Art Museum

Lucifer is the name of various mythological and religious figures associated with the planet Venus. Due to the unique movements and discontinuous appearances of Venus in the sky, mythology surrounding these figures often involved a fall from the heavens to earth or the underworld. Interpretations of a similar term in the Bible led to a Christian tradition of applying the name Lucifer, and its associated stories of a fall from heaven, to Satan, but modern scholarship generally translates the term in the relevant Bible passage as "morning star" or "shining one" rather than as a proper name, "Lucifer". More on Lucifer 

In 1887 she travelled to Paris to be nearer her two daughters while they attended Les Ruches, a French boarding school founded by Marie Souvestre. While there, she studied painting with Carolus-Duran. 

Alice Pike Barney

La Cigale, c. 1900

Pastel on canvas mounted on fiberboard

27 x 18 1⁄8 in. (68.7 x 46.0 cm)

Smithsonian American Art Museum

La Cigale is a theater near Place Pigalle, in the 18th arrondissement of Paris. 

She returned to Paris in 1896 – bringing her daughter Laura to a French hospital for treatment of leg pain from a childhood injury – and resumed her study with Carolus-Duran as well as taking lessons from the Spanish painter Claudio Castelucho. When James Abbott McNeill Whistler opened the Académie Carmen in 1898, she was one of the first students. Whistler was a formative influence.

In 1899 she began a salon at her rented home on the Avenue Victor Hugo; regular guests included the Symbolist painters Lucien Lévy-Dhurmer, John White Alexander, and Edmond Aman-Jean, and her art began to show a Symbolist influence.

Cover of Quelques Portraits-Sonnets de Femmes

When Natalie wrote a chapbook of French poetry, Quelques Portraits-Sonnets de Femmes (Some Portrait-Sonnets of Women), Barney was pleased to provide illustrations. She did not understand the implications of the book's love poems addressed to women and had no idea that three of the four women who modeled for her were her daughter's lovers. 

Albert, alerted to the book's theme by a newspaper review headlined "Sappho Sings in Washington", rushed to Paris, where he bought and destroyed the publisher's remaining stock and printing plates and insisted that Barney and Natalie return with him to the family's summer home in Bar Harbor, Maine. His temper only worsened when friends forwarded him clippings from the Washington Mirror.

Alice Pike Barney

Lunar, ca. 1921

Pastel

14 x 18 in. (35.5 x 45.7 cm)

Smithsonian American Art Museum

Alice Pike Barney

Moon Madness, c. 1928

Pastel on fiberboard

17 7⁄8 x 13 7⁄8 in. (45.4 x 35.1 cm)

Smithsonian American Art Museum

Washington, about to publish its first Social Register, was becoming more socially stratified, and Barney's background as the daughter of a whiskey distiller and granddaughter of a Jewish immigrant had made her the subject of vague insinuations in the society pages. The gossip would have no lasting effect on the Barneys' social standing, but Albert considered it a disaster. His drinking increased, as did his blood pressure, and two months later he had a heart attack. His health continued to deteriorate, and he died in 1902.

Alice Pike Barney

Nude

Pastel on paper

25 1⁄2 x 19 1⁄2 in. (64.8 x 49.6 cm)

Smithsonian American Art Museum

Alice Pike Barney

In Sunlight, c. ca. 1910

Oil on fiberboard

11 3⁄8 x 8 5⁄8 in. (28.8 x 22.0 cm)

Smithsonian American Art Museum

Alice Pike Barney

In Shadow, ca. 1910

Oil on fiberboard

11 3⁄8 x 8 5⁄8 in. (28.8 x 22.0 cm.)

Smithsonian American Art Museum

Barney had solo shows at major galleries including the Corcoran Gallery of Art. In later years, she invented and patented mechanical devices, wrote and performed in several plays and an opera, and worked to promote the arts in Washington, D.C. Many of her paintings are now in the collection of the Smithsonian American Art Museum.

Where Shadows Live: Alice Pike Barney and Her Friends

An exhibit catalog about the Washington home and social circle of of Natalie Barney's mother, the artist Alice Pike Barney. The Alice Pike Barney Studio House is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and is now the Embassy of Latvia.

In 1902, Barney began construction on the Studio House, an eclectically decorated art center that was open to all. With the support of Congress, she also helped build the National Sylvan Theater near the Washington Monument, the nation’s first federally supported outdoor theater, where she organized the production of some of her own plays. Barney was dedicated to improving the standards of living in D.C. and helped establish Neighborhood House, a social services home that is still in existence. She also actively supported the women’s suffrage movement.

Alice Pike Barney

Mirza Abul Fazl, c. 1903

Pastel on paper

sight 28 x 18 1⁄4 in. (71.1 x 46.4 cm)

Smithsonian American Art Museum

Mirza Abul Fazl (1865 - 1956), was a native of East Bengal, now independent Bangladesh, later moved to Allahabad, India. Among the contemporary Muslim scholars Dr Mirza Abul Fazl, learned in Arabic and Sanskrit, was a pioneer who took interest in the study of the chronological order of the Qur`an and invited the attention of Muslim scholars towards its importance. He was the first Muslim to present a translation of the Qur'an into English along with the original Arabic text. More on Mirza Abul Fazl

She converted to the Baháʼí Faith around 1900. More on Alice Pike Barney

Please visit my other blogs: Art Collector, Mythology, Marine Art, Portrait of a Lady, The Orientalist, Art of the Nude and The Canals of Venice, Middle East Artists, 365 Saints and 365 Days, also visit my Boards on Pinterest

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