Artist Jane Peterson
American Woman Painter of Impressionist and Expressionist Styles
© Meg Nola
Sep 21, 2008
Jennie Christine Peterson -- later known as Jane -- was born November 28, 1876 in Elgin, Illinois. Her father made watches in a factory while her mother was a housewife, both parents offering their daughter encouragement and what funds they could spare to send her to art school. Jane headed to New York in 1895 and attended The Pratt Institute, working hard at her studies and living on little beyond ambition and bread and milk. At Pratt she was taught by artist Arthur Wesley Dow, whose theories regarding form and composition would also later influence painter Georgia O’Keeffe.
Europe and Beyond
After a brief stint of teaching, Jane made her way to Europe. She had an independent, charming personality and quickly found allies to help her in her career, studying further with Madrid artist Joaquin Sorolla and befriending American painters Maurice Prendergast and John Singer Sargent.
From Europe, Jane continued her travels and artistic sojourns through Algeria and Turkey -- not something that women of her era were likely to do, and especially not young, unmarried women. Jane also made the acquaintance of renowned artist and stained glass master Louis Comfort Tiffany, and went with him on a painting tour of the United States. Soon after her return from Europe in 1909 and following her first major exhibit, Peterson opted to forgo using her given first name of Jennie Christine to become just Jane.
Given Jane’s expansive approach towards life, her wide range of work is not surprising. She enjoyed painting city views, seascapes, portraits and still-lives, always conveying a distinctive sense of light and energy. Her style reflected influences from the Impressionists, Post-Impressionists and Fauves, but like many of her American counterparts, Peterson absorbed what she learned abroad and then made it her own. Back in the United States, she taught at the Art Students’ League and exhibited often, and by 1925 had been noted by the New York Times as “one of the foremost women painters in New York.”
Marriage, Ipswich and Flowers
1925 also was the year that Jane Peterson married a well-to-do attorney named Moritz Bernard Philipp. By then, Jane had a beautiful Manhattan studio on Fifth Avenue, as well as being able to work in Ipswich, Massachusetts on New England scenes. Peterson’s Pratt teacher Arthur Wesley Dow had been born in Ipswich, and with several other artists including Jane ultimately formed a group known as the Ipswich Painters, all inspired by the natural beauty of the region.
Following her marriage, Jane’s focus shifted to floral portraits. Her garden at her Ipswich home known as Rocky Hill was full of many different blooms, which she tended to and painted expertly. Even after her husband’s death, Jane continued to spend summers in Ipswich working on floral paintings, and she published a book on the subject in 1946.
Legacy
Jane Peterson died in 1965 at the age of eighty-eight. The determined young woman from Illinois who had once worn mostly second-hand dresses had become a well-known artist, world traveler, wealthy widow and philanthropist. While Peterson is linked with the American Impressionist school, she also is included among Expressionist or early Modernist painters. Her works can be found at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Brooklyn Museum of Art, The National Museum of Women in the Arts and The Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden.
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