The Red Rose Girls: An Uncommon Story of Art and Love [Hardcover]

Alice A. Carter (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 1, 2000

Illustrators Jessie Willcox Smith (1863-1935) and Elizabeth Shippen Green (1871-1954), and muralist Violet Oakley (1874-1961) captivated early-20th-century society with their brilliant careers and uncommon lifestyle. This richly illustrated biography traces the lives of these three talented women, who took over the Red Rose Inn, a picturesque old estate on Philadelphia's Main Line, and made a pact to live together forever-until one of them created havoc by leaving the fold to marry.

Revealing a household of intimate friendship, mutual inspiration, shared ideas, and love, The Red Rose Girls unfolds against a backdrop of the emerging women's rights movement in an era when female sexuality was still little understood or publicly acknowledged. It is an unforgettable story of three extraordinary women artists who achieved success on their own terms.

Full-color reproductions of the Red Rose Girls' artwork and wonderful archival photographs bring these women and their milieu to life.

175 illustrations, 60 in full color, 8 1/2 x 11"

ALICE A. CARTER is a professor at the School of Art and Design at San Jos State University. An award-winning illustrator who has done extensive work in the entertainment industry and in advertising, she is also the author of The Art of National Geographic.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Alice Carter's The Red Rose Girls traces the lives of three talented artists: Jessie Willcox Smith, Elizabeth Shippen Green, and Violet Oakley. After studying together under the sympathetic guidance of Howard Pyle in Philadelphia, the three (all youngest siblings) decided that they could work best away from the distractions of the city. In 1900, they established their home and studios in a rambling country house called the Red Rose Inn, leading Pyle to dub them the "Red Rose Girls." Strengthened by the emotional support and artistic inspiration that each gave the others, their careers blossomed. Green was a successful illustrator, especially for Harper's Magazine; Smith produced charming portraits of children; and Oakley was famous for huge murals commissioned to decorate state buildings. With their friend Henrietta Cozens acting as "housewife," their unconventional living arrangement attracted much interest, not all of it positive. Carter, a professor at San Jose State University, claims that it freed them from the domestic responsibilities and isolation that could cripple an artist, especially a female artist in pre-emancipated society. For eight years the four led an almost idyllic existence of genteel lifestyle and artistic productivity, but eventually the group disintegrated, with Green's marriage causing an especially painful break. Carter's sympathetic, easy prose perfectly complements the women's idealized art and their uncomplicated belief in the goodness of life. Combining delightful photographs of their domestic lives with examples of their work, The Red Rose Girls re-creates a vanished world of optimism and grace. --John Stevenson

From Publishers Weekly

Three of the first American women artists to achieve fame and fortune in the Victorian era--Jessie Willcox Smith, Elizabeth Shippen Green and Violet Oakley--lived unconventional lives marked by a remarkable degree of collaboration. In this fascinating but incomplete study, Carter explores the trio's internecine artistic and romantic relations, sparked during their studies at the renowned Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. Smith's idyllic representations of children in her Child's Garden of Verses remain well known. Green's art-nouveau paintings graced the covers of most of the popular magazines of her day, including Collier's and Harper's. Oakley, the youngest of the group, was the first American woman granted serious commissions, including a series of murals for the Pennsylvania State Capitol in 1911. For 17 years, the three committed themselves to each other as "sympathetic companions" and artistic collaborators, sharing a studio in Philadelphia and then an estate, the Red Rose Inn, in Villanova, Pa., where another companion, Henrietta Cozens, served as the "wife" of the household. As the women's fame grew, the press lauded their accomplished m?nage ? quatre (not considered a disgrace in the days when "Boston marriages" were presumed to be asexual). But when Green married at 39 after a seven-year engagement, Oakley's devastation created a scandal and severed the group's artistic partnership. Carter builds a solid foundation but never fully fleshes out the artists or their romantic association, though the exquisite illustrations are worth the price of admission. 115 b&w and 60 color illus. Agent, John Campbell. (Mar.)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 216 pages
• Publisher: Harry N. Abrams (March 1, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0810944375
• ISBN-13: 978-0810944374
• Product Dimensions: 11.3 x 8.9 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #395,487 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #25 in Books > Gay & Lesbian > Biographies & Memoirs > Lesbian

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Red Rose Girls, April 4, 2000

By 

A LeNay (San Luis Obispo, CA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Red Rose Girls: An Uncommon Story of Art and Love (Hardcover)

The Red Rose Girls is a remarkable book. Alice Carter does a superb job of documenting the lives and careers of Violet Oakley, Jessie Wilcox Smith, and Elizabeth Shippen Green. When the last page was turned I not only had a deep respect for their professional accomplishments but I felt that I had known each of these women personally.

The strength and success of these women artists is an inspiration to everyone regardless of their sex or chosen occupation. The "Red Rose Girls" is a must have for any library. The quality of writing and research in this book makes it hard to put down and I am looking forward to seeing more publications by this author.

20 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars great story, too much speculation, February 8, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: The Red Rose Girls: An Uncommon Story of Art and Love (Hardcover)

The story of these illustrators is wonderful; 3 women who had the talent and tenacity to find a way to become successful professional artists, independent of men at a time when that was near impossible. I love this book for its collection of photographs of the women, their home life, and their art, arranged chronologically, so that it becomes apparent how much they affected and influenced each others work.

My complaint is that the writing is completely preoccupied with the question of the women's physical sexuality. Ms Carter more than implies a kind of polygamous group intimacy and belabors her point by projecting her assumptions into the photographs and writings over and over. And yet there is no basis for this theory, except Ms Carters own idea that no person can possibly have an asexual lifestyle, and because they weren't married, they must have been sexual with each other.

It is entirely possible that some, or even all of the women were sexually involved, but I find that unanswerable question so much less important than the facts of how they were able to avoid falling into social conventions by banding together financially and emotionally as an artistic cooperative, and a family. I wish Ms Carter had spent less time speculating and more time discussing things like what mediums the women were working in, which, oddly, I still don't know after reading the whole 216 pages of this preoccupied and strangely organized book. I am glad to own it for the collection of photos and art work, and for that I give it 3 stars.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An Amazing Achievement, April 7, 2002

By 

Thomas Plagemann (san francisco, CA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Red Rose Girls: An Uncommon Story of Art and Love (Hardcover)

It was some months ago when I discovered and read Ms. Carter's lush tale of four intertwined lives. I still remember the regret and exhiliaration I felt on turning the final page.
Not wanting a story to end is perhaps among the higher compliments I would pay to a book, and usually one relegated to a rare work of fiction. In fact, prior to Red Rose Girls, Donna Tartt's masterpiece, The Secret History was my lonely sole contender for this sort of accolade. To add my name to the chorous of other reviews teetered on redundancy, lily-gilding or worse....gushing. But then, we New Englanders are a stiff lot, and loathe to such displays.
It was interesting then, to trip over a Feb. 8th review in which a reader, also from my birthplace, expressed some criticism of Carter's speculation on the probable physical nature of the characters relationship, finding it presumptuous and distracting. (my words)
It was precisely the lack of any undue focus on lesbianism, alongside a riveting collection of photographs, that caught my attention and held it for the duration. Throughout this fascinating account crept a quiet, matter-of-fact, stylistic elegance that kept my attention firmly on the place and the times, on three lives dedicated to art, on four lives dedicated to each other. Brava!