Jane Byrd McCall Whitehead

Jane Byrd McCall Whitehead (1858–1955) was an American artist, photographer and aesthete.

Jane Byrd McCall Whitehead
Jane Byrd McCall Whitehead and son Peter in 1905
Born
Jane Byrd McCall

(1858-09-22)September 22, 1858
DiedSeptember 22, 1955(1955-09-22) (aged 97)[1][2]
SpouseRalph Radcliffe Whitehead

She was born on September 22, 1858, in Philadelphia to Jane Byrd Mercer and Peter McCall. Her father was a lawyer and a former mayor of Philadelphia.[2] She studied art with John Ruskin at the Académie Julian in Paris, and in 1886 while travelling with her parents through Europe, she was presented to Queen Victoria.[2] In 1892 she married Ralph Radcliffe Whitehead.[2] With her husband, she founded Byrdcliffe, an arts and crafts colony that opened in 1903.[3][4] In 2004, her work was the subject of a one-person show, Jane Byrd McCall Whitehead's (1861-1955) Idealized Visions About Simple Living and the Arts and Crafts, at the Georgia Museum of Art. As an aesthete, her work and sensibilities "demonstrate how the visual and aesthetic qualities of artistic living and the "simple" life evolved throughout [her] lifetime."[5]

Whitehead's work is included in the collection of the Smithsonian American Art Museum[1] and the Layton Art Collection of the Milwaukee Museum of Art.[6]

References

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  1. ^ a b "Jane Byrd McCall Whitehead | Smithsonian American Art Museum". americanart.si.edu.
  2. ^ a b c d "The Winterthur Library". findingaid.winterthur.org.
  3. ^ "The Arts and Crafts Movement in America". www.metmuseum.org.
  4. ^ Genocchio, Benjamin (14 August 2003). "100 Years Ago, When the Arts Found Woodstock". The New York Times.
  5. ^ "Jane Byrd McCall Whitehead's (1861-1955) Idealized Visions About Simple Living and Arts and Crafts". Georgia Museum of Art/TFAOI. Retrieved 11 June 2022.
  6. ^ "Byrdcliffe: Creativity and Creation". Milwaukee Art Museum. Retrieved 11 June 2022.