Lillian Genth

Genth was born in Philadelphia and received a scholarship to the Philadelphia School of Design for Women. Upon graduating, she went to Europe and studied in Paris with James McNeill Whistler (1834-1903) at his Académie Carmen. Like Whistler, Genth chose to paint academic subjects such as strong, attractive women with exotic adornments on their clothing and environment. Both painters had a somewhat traditional style of painting but they also used the techniques and innovations of the Impressionists. During her lifetime, Lillian Matilde Genth was considered to be the most successful painter of female nudes in America. Besides being noted for her studies of nudes in poetic and pastoral settings, she was also a successful portrait painter. In 1928, she announced that she would no longer paint female nudes but instead would concentrate on painting Spanish and Oriental themes.

EXTENDED BIO

Lillian Mathilde Genth (born Philadelphia, 1876; died New York City, 1953) was a United States artist. She studied art at the Pennsylvania School of Design for Women, and under Whistler at Paris. She returned to the United States in 1903. She painted many female nudes with landscape backgrounds and also several portraits. She was awarded the Mary Smith prize in 1904, the Shaw memorial prize in 1907 and the Hallgarten prize of the National Academy in 1911. She is represented in the National Gallery, Washington, D.C., the Carnegie Institute, Pittsburgh, the Brooklyn Institute Museum, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.[1]

REFERENCES

This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Rines, George Edwin, ed. (1920). "Genth, Lillian Mathilde". Encyclopedia Americana.