Mary Fairchild MacMonnies Low
We present today's painting thanks to Union League Club Chicago—what a marvellous collection they have!
Mary Fairchild MacMonnies Low was one of the outstanding American painters from the second generation of Impressionists. Judging from this painting in the Union League Club Chicago, she clearly mastered the stylistic tenets conceived by the master French Impressionist Claude Monet. A rebel in her early years, she petitioned the Saint Louis Art School to allow female students the right to study the nude male model. MacMonnies Low has not painted wishful thinking in her rendition of this lush garden; like any proper Impressionist, she painted en plein air, working outdoors and faithfully catching the sunlight and its reflection on the landscape at a particular moment in time. Her impression is her actual garden in Giverny, at the site of a former monastery where she and her sculptor husband Frederick MacMonnies lived. Though nearly missed in the abundantly rich garden, one can spot her two young daughters walking with their nursemaid.
Sally Metzler, Ph.D.
Director of the Art Collection, Union League Club Chicago.
P.S. Here you will find four other women Impressionists you shouldn’t forget.