Dixie Selden (American, 1868-1935)
The Market – Brittany
Oil on board
11.5 x 15.5 in.
Brittany is a peninsula, historical country, and cultural area in the west of modern France, covering the western part of what was known as Armorica during the period of Roman occupation. It became an independent kingdom and then a duchy before being united with the Kingdom of France in 1532 as a province governed as a separate nation under the crown. More on Brittany
was an American artist. She studied with Frank Duveneck, who was a mentor and significant influence, and William Merritt Chase, who introduced her to Impressionism. Selden painted portraits of Americans and made genre paintings, landscapes and seascapes from her travels within the country and to Europe, Asia, the Middle East and Mexico. She helped found and was twice the president of the Women's Art Club of Cincinnati. Her works have been exhibited in the United States. She was one of the Daughters of the American Revolution and on the Social Register.
Private collection
Dixie Selden (American, 1868-1935)
On Riverside Drive
Oil on artist board
14 x 12 in
Private collection
Dixie Selden (American, 1868-1935)
79th and Riverside Drive, c. 1915
Oil on canvas
Cincinnati Art Museum
Dixie Selden, named for the song Dixie Land, was born in Cincinnati, Ohio. When she was two years old, the family moved to Covington, Kentucky, across the Ohio River from Cincinnati. Selden was left an only child when two of her siblings died when they were infants. Her parents indulged her artistic abilities, including building her a studio. They took her on two tours of Europe in 1878 and 1882 to 1883.
Selden attended Bartholomew's Girls' School in Cincinnati. She enrolled in the McMicken School of Design, now the Art Academy of Cincinnati, in 1884 and studied there off an on until 1912. She studied drawing and painting with oils and watercolor. Selden was one of Duveneck's, a figure and portrait painter (See below), favorite students and he became her mentor who recommended her for commissions and assisted her in having her works shown in "male-dominated" exhibitions. Duveneck also greatly influenced Selden's style.
Selden painted portraits of Frank Duveneck (See below), which is considered "her most powerful portrait"; Mrs. Albert Berne and Her Sons, Mrs. Mary Emery, and Judge A. M. Cochran of Maysville, Kentucky. Selden also painted images of domestic life, portraits of family members and pets, and flowers.
Dixie Selden
Frank Duveneck, c. 1918
Oil on canvas
Cincinnatti Art Museum
Frank Duveneck (October 9, 1848 – January 3, 1919) was an American figure and portrait painter.
Duveneck was born in Covington, Kentucky, the son of German immigrant Bernhard Decker. Decker died in a cholera epidemic when Frank was only a year old and his widow remarried Joseph Duveneck. By the age of fifteen Frank had begun the study of art under the tutelage of a local painter, Johann Schmitt, and had been apprenticed to a German firm of church decorators.
While having grown up in Covington, Duveneck was a part of the German community in Cincinnati, Ohio, just across the Ohio River. However, due to his Catholic beliefs and German heritage, he was an outsider as far as the artistic community of Cincinnati was concerned. More on Frank Duveneck
Dixie Selden (1868-1935)
Madeline McDowell Breckinridge, c. 1920
Oil on canvas
Ashland, The Henry Clay Estate, Lexington, Kentucky.
Madeline (Madge) McDowell Breckinridge (May 20, 1872 – November 25, 1920) was an American leader of the women's suffrage movement in Kentucky. She married Desha Breckinridge, editor of the Lexington Herald, which advocated women's rights, and she lived to see the women of Kentucky vote for the first time in the presidential election of 1920. She also initiated progressive reforms for compulsory school attendance and child labor. More on Madeline McDowell Breckinridge
Dixie Selden (1868-1935)
Aunt Patsy Swiney, c. 1919
Oil on canvas
Cincinnati Art Museum
Aunt Patsy Swiney was born in Bath County . As a slave she was presented to Mrs. Webster's on her wedding day, a custom in the South during the days of slavery to provide a bride with a suitable maidservant.
Aunt Patsy Swiney remained with the Webster's after having been freed, and never lived in any other household. She never married. "Aunt Patsy" followed her family into the Episcopal Church, a regular communicant, and on communion days when she grew too feeble to attend church, the Bishop would administer communion at her residence.
Helping rear the children of the family and becoming in fact a "mammy" to the little ones, Patsy became more or less of an autocrat whose word was law. She was considered a perfect type of the "black mammies" who reigned in Southern families, and when an artist of Cincinnati, Miss Dixie Selden, sought a model to perpetuate the species on canvas, she came to Cynthiana and spent some time painting a portrait of "Aunt Patsy," which hangs in the art gallery of the Art Museum of Cincinnati. More on this painting
Selden won prizes for her oil paintings and portraits that she began to exhibit at the Covington Art Club in 1890. She exhibited four paintings in 1891 at the Cincinnati Art Club. Selden attained the status of a professional artist in 1892 when her works were shown with those of Duveneck, Charles Henry Sharp, Henry Farny, Edward Henry Potthast, and Frank H. Lungren. That year, Selden helped found the Women's Art Club of Cincinnati and was its president twice. She began to work in Covington in 1894 as an illustrator and portraitist.
Selden painted Daughter of the Revolution, a self-portrait, in 1894, but she terminated her membership in the Daughters of the American Revolution in 1899 for unknown reasons.
Dixie Selden (1868-1935)
Gloucester Harbor
Oil on canvas
Private collection
Gloucester is a located in Essex County, Massachusetts. A popular summer resort, Gloucester includes the villages of Annisquam, Bay View, Lanesville, Magnolia, Riverdale, East Gloucester and West Gloucester.
Gloucester is a major fishing village that also has a decent array of recreational boating services available for the cruising mariner. Gloucester was made famous by the book and movie "The Perfect Storm," which told he tale of the Andrea Gale, a swordfishing boat lost out of Gloucester with all aboard in 1991. More on Gloucester
Dixie Selden (1868-1935)
Patched Sail, circa 1929
Oil on board
Cincinnati Art Museum
Dixie Selden (American, 1868-1935)
Street in Bar Harbor c.1917
Oil on Canvas
20 x 16 inches
Private collection
Bar Harbor is a resort town on Mount Desert Island in Hancock County, Maine, United States. During the summer and fall seasons, it is a popular tourist destination and, until a catastrophic fire in 1947, the town was a noted summer colony for the wealthy.
The town is home to the College of the Atlantic, Jackson Laboratory, Bar Harbor Bank & Trust and MDI Biological Laboratory. More on Bar Harbor
Beginning in 1895, Selden spent the summers in Edgartown, Massachusetts, Boothbay, Maine (See above), and in France (See below) at Normandy and Brittany (See below). During her visits, she made genre works, landscapes, and seascapes.
Dixie Selden (American, 1868-1935)
Street Scene, Likely Brittany, dated 1924
Oil on artist board
16.5 x 20.5 in
Private collection
Dixie Selden (American, 1868-1935)
Harbor Scene, Probably Concarneau in Brittany
Oil on board
18.25 x 14.25 in.
Private collection
Concarneau is a commune in the Finistère department of Brittany in north-western France. Concarneau is bordered to the west by the Baie de La Forêt.
The town has two distinct areas: the modern town on the mainland and the medieval Ville Close, a walled town on a long island in the centre of the harbour. Historically, the old town was a centre of shipbuilding. Also in the Ville Close is the fishing museum. The Ville Close is connected to the town by a bridge and at the other end a ferry to the village of Lanriec on the other side of the harbour. More on Concarneau
Dixie Selden (American, 1868-1935)
Brittany Harbor Scene
Oil on artist board
15.25 x 19.25 in
Private collection
Dixie Selden (American, 1868-1935)
The Pottery Vendor, c. 1926
Oil on canvas
22.5 x 22.75 in.
Extensive travels to Europe provided Dixie Selden with a wealth of lively scenes and individuals. After a trip to Normandy in 1902 where she painted portraits of locals, Selden grew fascinated with depicting women in traditional northern French dress as seen by this example and others. During the early 20th century, female mourners, like the women in The Pottery Vendor, still wore the traditional long black skirts accented by aprons and tall white hats that flared out at the edges. However, none of the figures in the other examples have such abstracted rounded forms like those in A Pottery Vendor. In this unique example, painted while visiting Corncaneau, Selden illustrated the everyday life of the tiny fishing village that attracted numerous American tourists from 1880 to the early 20th century. More on this painting
Selden studied in Venice (See below), Italy with William Merritt Chase. Her style changed considerably after studying with Chase, as she moved from the darker influence of the Munich School to a lighter, impressionistic style after 1909. She also studied in Vienna and Paris with other artists, and in St. Ives, England with Henry B. Snell.
Dixie Selden (American, 1868-1935)
Scene of Venice, circa 1923
Oil on canvas
20" x 16" in
Private collection
Selden traveled extensively with fellow artist Emma Mendenhall (1873-1964) throughout the United States, Europe, Mexico (See below), China, Japan, and the Middle East, painting landscapes, genre scenes, and portraits "with a "broad stroke and sprightly brush." The images captured people, street and market scenes.
Dixie Selden (American, 1868-1935)
At the Plaza Gates, Mexico
Oil on board
2 x 16 inches (30.5 x 40.6 cm)
Private collection
Selden reached national acclaim and her works were exhibited and won prizes throughout the United States. Her art was shown at the Art Institute of Chicago, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, New York Academy of Art, and Cincinnati Art Museum, including a 1910 exhibition of her works with those of Emma Mendenhall and Annie G. Sykes.
Dixie Selden (American, 1868-1935)
French City Street
Oil on canvas
19.5 x 15.5 in.
Private collection
Dixie Selden (American, 1868-1935)
St. Ives Harbor with Rower
Oil on canvas
20 x 16"
Cincinnati Art Galleries
St Ives is still very much a working port and from the beach you can watch local fishermen landing their daily catches of fresh seafood like mackerel and bass and the town’s Lifeboat Station, situated on the harbour for over 100 years, is open to the visitors during the summer season. More on St Ives
Selden was a member of the National Association of Women Painters and Sculptors, American Women's Art Club, National Arts Club, Southern States Art League, Louisville Art Association, Covington Art Club, and Cincinnati McDowell Society.
Her painting, Boats in Harbor, was sold for US$32,500 in 2011. The maximum price paid for one of her paintings is reported to be $62,100 by Blouin Art Info.
Called "the little one" by Duveneck, she was a petite woman who had a "vivacious, joyous personality" and established many close, lifelong friendships. Having never married, Selden enjoyed a long friendship with fellow Cincinnati artist, Emma Mendenhall.
Selden died suddenly of a heart attack in 1935. She is buried in Highland Cemetery, Fort Mitchell, Kentucky. More on Dixie Selden
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