This biography from the Archives of AskART:
| A sculptor known for carved marble figures and portrait busts* and also for butter sculpture*,
Caroline Brooks was from Cincinnati and had studios in Washington DC,
New York City and San Francisco. She married well-known painter Samuel Marston Brookes
(1816-1892). Although his last name is commonly spelled Brookes,
she signed her work Brooks.
Her father, Abel Shawk, invented and built the first successful steam
fire engine. Her parents provided drawing and painting lessons
for her, and in 1862, she graduated from the St. Louis Normal
School. That same year, she married Samuel Brookes.
Caroline Brooks was regarded as highly skilled and had much patronage among notable
persons for her marble sculpture, but her ongoing legacy
seems to be her association with butter sculpture. In fact, she became known as the 'Butter Woman' or 'Butterlady', terms that suggest
female domesticity and less than serious regard as a sculptor.
The description of 'Butter Woman' derived from her sculpture entry in
the 1874 Philadelphia Centennial Exposition*. Titled Dreaming Iolanthe
and carved from butter,
it was exhibited in an ice-filled tub in the Women Pavilion. It
became such
an object of curiosity that some critics thought it was denigrating
because it suggested the traditional feminine role, the 'butter and egg
lady', instead of enhancing
the pavilion's purpose of showing the progress and independence of
American
women. It was written that "the unfortunate Iolanthe became the
butt of many jokes and some bitterness; many more important exhibits
and works of art were forgotten." (Weimann,o 3)
However, there was
much positive response from the public, and one critic asserted that it
was the 'best exhibit at the fair'. The artist, feeling
reinforced, "subsequently patented her method, claiming that plaster
casts taken from butter produced a far more sensitive surface than
conventional methods." (Rubinstein, 93) She gave many public
exhibitions of modelling in butter, and in 1877 secured the patent,
which improved methods for lubricating plaster molds.
Caroline Brooks had entries in the Paris World's Fair of 1878 including a second Dreaming Iolanthe,
which was a life-size statue in butter she completed in Washington and
which was successfully shipped to Paris. Other exhibitions for
her work were the Chicago World's Colombian Exposition of 1893, and the
1894 Midwinter Fair in San Francisco. At the San Francisco Fair,
she, by then a widow, had complications in that she was teased as being
the 'Butterlady', had to continually explain the process of butter
sculpture, and also was the only woman artist who had a concession,
which suggested she was in need of income.
In Washington DC and New York, she filled portrait bust commissions in marble of
prominent persons such as English writers George Eliot and Thomas
Carlyle, Swedish philosopher Emanuel Swedenborg, members of the Vanderbilt family, and United States President James
Garfield. Among her other sculptures were two statues of
Lady Godiva, which were destroyed in the 1906 San Francisco
earthquake.
Sources:
Charlotte Streifer Rubinstein, American Women Sculptors
Jeanne Madeline Weimann, The Fair Women
Peter Hastings Falk, Editor, Who Was Who in American Art
Edan Hughes, Artists in California, 1786-1940
Appletons Encyclopedia: http://famousamericans.net/carolineshawkbrooks/
CD Rom: Shaping San Francisco, http://www.shapingsf.org/ezine/womens/1894fair/main.html
* For more in-depth information about these terms and others, see AskART.com Glossary http://www.askart.com/AskART/lists/Art_Definition.aspx
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This biography from the Archives of AskART:
| Born in Cincinnati, Ohio on April 28, 1840, Caroline Brooks became
known for modelling in butter at the Paris World’s Fair in 1878.
She then had studios in New York City and Washington, DC where she did
marble busts of such notables as Garfield, George Eliot, Thos Carlyle,
and the Vanderbilts.
By 1894 she had moved to San Francisco and was active there until 1902. By 1910 she was in St Louis, MO.
Exhibition
Paris World’s Fair, 1878
World's Columbian Expo (Chicago), 1893
Calif. Midwinter Expo, 1894 | Source:
Edan Hughes, "Artists in California, 1786-1940"
City Directory; Census; New York Historical Society's Dictionary of Artists in America (Groce, George C. and David H. Wallace); Dictionary of American Painters, Sculptors & Engravers (Fielding, Mantle). | | Nearly 20,000 biographies can be found in Artists in California 1786-1940 by Edan Hughes and is available for sale ($150). For a full book description and order information please click here. |
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