MARIE GELON CAMERON

Mrs. Edgar S. Cameron (dates unknown) was born in Paris.  Marie and Edgar Cameron must have met there when both were students at the Académie Julian (1884-1886).  Both had spaces in the Tree Studio Building.  Marie Gélon’s earliest efforts were in the naturalist vein — dark interior scenes of Brittany’s working class, such as the women in Mending the Nets, exhibited at the St. Louis Universal Exposition.  Back in Chicago, her palette lightened up, as she did more landscape painting, right in Chicago (Lincoln Park) and in Saugatuck.  The Glen is an impressive, detailed rendering of a corner of nature, in which the freshness of the forthcoming spring season has been captured.  This work was illustrated in the catalog of the Art Institute’s 1915 exhibition.  Cameron, who exhibited there between 1896 and 1923, is known mostly for her portraits.

Sources:
Stuart, Evelyn Marie. “Annual Exhibition of Local Artists.” Fine Arts Journal 32 (April 1915):  177; Clarkson, Ralph. “Chicago Artists: Past and Present.” Art and Archaeology 12 (September-October 1921): 129-144; Sparks, Esther. A Biographical Dictionary of Painters and Sculptors in Illinois 1808-1945. Diss., Northwestern University, 1971, p. 319; Morse, Annie. Capturing Sunlight: The Art of Tree Studios. Exh. cat. Chicago: Department of Cultural Affairs, 1999, p. 40.

Michael Preston Worley, Ph.D.