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Ad Code: 4
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"Woodland", 9 x 5.5", oil on board, signed lower left
Artwork images are copyright of the artist or assignee
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This biography from the Archives of AskART:
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Eleanor Maud May Douglas, RCA, OSA artist, author, Roycroft artisan, potter, canoeist, horsewoman, pianist and violinist, was primarily known for her oil paintings of trees, woodland interiors and landscapes. Eleanor studied at the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts in Ontario, Canada.
Eleanor Douglas was born May 24th, 1872 on a farm in Port Elgin, Bruce County, Ontario, Canada to William Douglass and “Polly” Marian (née Gaukel), and was the fourth child in a family of ten children. Growing up, she lived on the Ojibway Indian Saugeen Reservation (later known as the Chippewa), located along the Saugeen River and Bruce Peninsula, near Southampton, Ontario, Canada, about 150 miles northwest of Toronto. As a young girl she lived with her grandfather who maintained a small store and post office on the reservation. She knew the Ojibway and their customs quite intimately, and learned many of the Indian practices such as canoeing, riding, making moccasins, stringing snowshoes and using bark for various items. She also learned to speak some of the Indian language of Anishinabe and later received her Indian name “Phpence” (which translates to “Laughing Girl”).
Douglas lived with her second cousin and artist Carl Ahrens (Canadian 1862-1936) among the Ojibway tribe until 1900 when they moved to East Aurora, NY to join Elbert Hubbard’s community of craftsmen. They developed the Roycroft Pottery program using red terra cotta clay, with help from fellow artist and sculptor Jerome Conner (Irish American 1874-1943). Ahrens and Hubbard soon were at odds over how the pottery should be run, and Ahrens left the Roycroft community after only four months. Needless to say the venture was short-lived, as pieces were sold unglazed for quick marketing, and the pottery was soon dropped from the Roycroft production lines. It is uncertain exactly when the pottery business closed, but it appears that Douglas tried to continue on without Carl for a short time. A sample promotion for the venture appeared in a Roycroft Art & Handicraft advertisement circa the fall of 1900: “Perhaps you would like to see what the Roycrofters are trying to do in POTTERY. The Potter Shop is just across the Road from the Printery. Miss Douglass will be glad to show her wares.” Included in a 1902 exhibition of Eleanor’s paintings were a few pieces of the Roycroft pottery she had produced. Apparently none of the approximately 100 pieces Eleanor and Carl made have survived.
In the late 1890’s, Eleanor Douglas saw an abandoned schoolhouse near the Roycroft Campus in Willink, NY (now known as East Aurora). Originally built in 1800, it had served as the local schoolhouse from 1857-1889. She purchased the building at 61 Hamburg Street naming it the School House Studio. She created a home and gardens, welcoming friends and patrons into her vine covered studio with an open door policy. Outside she tended sunflowers, hollyhocks, honeysuckle and meadow rue. Her studio guest book included many signatures of notable people who enjoyed the hospitality of her warm cobblestone fireplace and the music of her piano or violin. The original building is still there today and is now known as the West End Gallery which is owned by the Roycroft Renaissance artist Michele Conley Vogel, who along with her husband, purchased the building in 1989 and fully restored it. The adjacent road the gallery sits on was previously named in Eleanor’s honor with the address currently being 48 Douglas Lane.
Eleanor was a “Lover of the Woods”[1] and spent each day hiking through the forests and fields around Willink and East Aurora sketching, painting or canoeing. Abundant subject matter was found close to her door or on early morning adventures which might range thirty miles, with painting equipment strapped to her bicycle. The moniker “Lady of the Forest” was earned by her for camping in the woods for days at a time in a tent or shack. A favorite spot was the ‘Ole Swimmin Hole’ along the banks of Cazenovia Creek, also frequented by the famous artist Alexis Jean Fournier (American, 1865-1948). Sketches of trees, groves, streams and landscapes were made in any weather and wearing whatever apparel needed – rubber boots, skiis, snowshoes or toboggan suit. Eleanor was known as a free thinker and a free spirit, wearing divided skirts well before they were the norm. Although fond of company, she often walked alone and enjoyed the solitude stating that she could think and study better when alone.
“Eleanor Douglas preached the gospel of simplicity and of the open road, the life of the great outdoors. She was the true nature lover, and that love found expression in paintings that will live…”[2].
Eleanor was well liked in her community and by her contemporaries, and her work was highly respected among local art societies as well as national exhibitions. Eleanor first exhibited with the Ontario Society of Artists and the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts in Ontario, Canada, and later with the Buffalo Society of Artists (BSA), Buffalo, NY. She was a member of the BSA and also the Paint and Varnish Club, which was organized by fellow Roycroft artist Alexis Jean Fournier. The Club met regularly at Eleanor’s School House Studio and included such notable artists as Robert North (American, 1882-1986), and Margaret Evans Price (American, 1888-1973).
Her last name was originally spelled ‘Douglass’ and it appears that sometime just before or after the turn of the 20th century she dropped the second ‘s’ from her name. All of her paintings still in existence today bear the signature ‘Douglas’. No official reason was ever given as to why she dropped the second ‘s’, but some speculate that she did it when she began to exhibit her work. In the late fall of 1914, Eleanor closed up her School House Studio to spend the winter at her mother’s house in Chicago, IL. On Saturday morning, November 14th, Eleanor suddenly died at her mother’s home from heart failure. She is buried in Mt. Greenwood Cemetery, Chicago, IL.
Forest Cheney, former curator of a large New York gallery and admirer of Eleanor’s work once stated about her, “The striking characteristics of Miss Douglas’s work consist of the potency of its individuality, and her remarkable portraits of the silent monarchs of the woods, whose voiceless stories few artists have been able to relate, either by pen of the master stroke of the brush.”[3]
“Her work shows a strong vivid realism that carries one back to the Barbizon school, combined with an idealism which makes her canvases more than a mere trapping of beautiful moods of nature and fixing them in color.”
[4] Chronology:
1872- Born, May 24th, on a farm to father William Douglass and mother “Polly” Marian (née Gaukel), was the fourth child in a family of ten children, Port Elgin, Bruce County, Ontario, Canada.
1888- Eleanor’s father died, Port Elgin, Ontario, Canada.
circa mid-late 1870’s-1893- As a young girl Eleanor lived with her grandfather who maintained a small store and post office on the Ojibway Indian Saugeen Reservation (later known as the Chippewa), located along the Saugeen River and Bruce Peninsula, near Southampton, Ontario, Canada, and also learned language and customs.
circa 1893-1900- Eleanor lived with her second cousin (on her mother’s side) fellow artist Carl Henry Ahrens (Canadian, 1862-1936) and his first family, just off the Suageen Indian Reservation, Ontario Canada.
1894-1900- Exhibited, annual group shows, Ontario Society of Artists, Ontario, Canada.
1896- Eleanor and Carl Ahrens and family were taken into the Ojibway tribe and lived on the Saugeen Reservation, and remained for several months. Eleanor received her Indian name “Phpence” (which translated to: Laughing Girl), near Southampton, Ontario, Canada. Circa 1896- Douglas family moved to Chicago, IL after the family home burned in Port Elgin, Ontario.
1898-1900- Exhibited, annual group shows, Royal Canadian Academy of Arts, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
1900- May, moved to East Aurora, NY with cousin artist Carl Ahrens and his family to join Elbert Hubbard’s Roycroft community of Arts & Crafts artisans and started the short lived Roycroft Pottery.
circa 1901- Purchased School House Studio, 61 Hamburg Street, Willink, (now East Aurora), NY.
circa Fall 1900-1901-Continued the Roycroft Pottery without Carl Ahrens for a short time, but the pottery was eventually dropped from the Roycroft production lines, East Aurora, NY.
1902- Exhibited, spring, group show, 9th Annual Exhibition of the Buffalo Society of Artists, for the paintings Elm Woods and Sunset View, which were both purchased by Mr. Olmstead and Charles Rohlfs respectively, Albright Art Gallery, Buffalo, NY. Exhibited, solo show, Twentieth Century Club (The first club run by women, for women in the U.S., est. 1894), 595 Delaware Ave., Buffalo, NY.
1903- Exhibited, spring, group show, 10th Annual Exhibition of the BuffaloSociety of Artists, six paintings shown The Woodland, Sunset and Spring Woodland”, Autumn Woods, Beech Woods and Midsummer Day, Albright Art Gallery, Buffalo, NY.
1906- Exhibited, spring, group show, 12th Annual Exhibition of the Buffalo Society of Artists, two paintings of forest scenes, Albright Art Gallery, Buffalo, NY.
1907- Exhibited, spring, group show, 13th Annual Exhibition of the Buffalo Society of Artists, three paintings shown By the River, Woodland Path and After Rain, Albright Art Gallery, Buffalo, NY. Exhibited, spring, group shows in several principal Canadian cities (unknown locations), Canada. Exhibited, fall/winter, group show, Annual Thumb-Box Exhibition, Buffalo Society of Artists, Albright Art Gallery, Buffalo, NY.
circa 1911- Two paintings exhibited in the Macbeth Galleries, The House in the Field and Willink Landscape, 450 Fifth Avenue, NYC.
1912- Exhibited, Fall/Winter, group show, Annual Thumb-Box Exhibition of the Buffalo Society of Artists, Buffalo, NY.
1914- February 11-March 8, exhibited, group show, “First Local Salon 1914”, The Buffalo Fine Arts Academy, six paintings shown, Fall Woodland, Woodland (both lent by, Seymour H. Knox), Apple Trees and Hemlocks, On the Knox Farm, “The River Don”, and an untitled Landscape, Albright Art Gallery, Buffalo, NY. Exhibited, group show, Twentieth Annual Exhibition of the Buffalo Society of Artists, (Prize Second Honorable Mention) for the painting The Knox Woods, also Landscape in Willink and In the Sunlight, Buffalo, NY.
Circa the late fall, 1914, Eleanor closed up her School House Studio to spend the winter at her mother’s house in Chicago, IL. On Saturday morning, November 14th, Eleanor suddenly died at her mother’s home from heart failure, and is buried in Mt. Greenwood Cemetery, Chicago, IL.
1915- April 10, a retrospective memorial exhibition of 50 paintings titled “Douglas Memorial”, which was held along with the Annual Exhibition of the Buffalo Society of Artists, in the Memorial Gallery in the rotunda at the head of the stairs, Albright Art Gallery, Buffalo, NY.
circa 1914-1915- Discussions were made by the Buffalo Society of Artists to preserve Eleanor’s School House Studio as a possible art center where rare items of interest might be shown to the art world, Willink (now East Aurora), NY.
1917- Eleanor’s mother died, Chicago. IL.
1989- Roycroft Renaissance artist and owner of the West End Gallery (formerly Eleanor Douglas’s School House Studio/Gallery) along with husband Donald purchased Eleanor’s former studio and begin restoration on the structure, East Aurora, NY, in 1990 they received the Preservation Award for their restoration of the building, from the Erie County Preservation Board and Erie County Department of Environmental and Planning, D’Youville College, Buffalo, NY.
1993- Exhibited, group show, three paintings shown, Roycroft Gift Shop, 2/R Fine Arts, East Aurora, NY.
PRIZES:
Second Honorable Mention, Twentieth Annual Exhibition of the Buffalo Society of Artists, Buffalo, NY.
MEMBERSHIPS/ASSOCIATIONS
Royal Canadian Academy of the Arts, Toronto, Ontario, Canada; Ontario Society of Artists, Ontario, Canada; Buffalo Society of Artists, Buffalo, NY; Paint and Varnish Club.
Museums: Detroit Museum of Art, ten paintings in the collection, Detroit, MI.
PUBLICATIONS:
Unknown Toronto newspaper article, “Saturday Night”, August 29, 1896;
Roycroft Art & Handicraft, “Perhaps you would like to see what the Roycrofters are trying to do in POTTERY. The Potter Shop is just across the Road from the Printery. Miss Douglass will be glad to show her wares.”, advertisement in the booklet, printed by the Roycrofters, circa Fall 1900;
The Buffalo Express, “Among the Artists: Miss Eleanor Douglass Exhibited Her Pictures at the Twentieth Century Club.”, Thursday Morning, March 6, 1902;
The Illustrated Buffalo Express, “Society of Artists: Spring Exhibition will be Continued Daily During Holy Week.”, Sunday, March 23, 1902;
The Buffalo Express: “Spring Display: Society of Artists opened its tenth annual Exhibition last evening, A Credible Showing”, Tuesday Morning, May 5, 1903;
The Buffalo Express, “Art Exhibition Shows Great Gain: Buffalo Society of Artists has Reason to be proud of its fine Display”, Saturday Morning, April 28, 1906;
The Illustrated Buffalo Express, “East Aurora News.”, Sunday, March 31, 1907;
The Buffalo Express, “Spring Exhibitions”, Monday Morning, April 22, 1907; The Buffalo Express, “First View Last Night: Creditable and Larger than ever before is the Society of Artists’ thirteenth annual Display”, Saturday Morning, May 4, 1907; The Buffalo Express, “Gallery and Studio Chat: Society of Artists”, Monday Morning, October 21, 1907; Buffalo Express, newspaper article, “A Lover of the Woods”, March 29, unknown writer and page number, and portrait image included on photo page, 1908; The Buffalo Express, “In East Aurora”, Monday Morning, June 13, 1910; The Buffalo Express, “Gallery and Studio Chat: In The Studios”, Monday
Morning, March 20, 1911; The Buffalo Express, “Social Calendar: Record
of Events in Buffalo Societies, East Aurora Society”, Friday Morning,
September 22, 1911; The Buffalo Express, “East Aurora Notes.”, Sunday,
September 24, 1911; The Buffalo Express, “Gallery and Studio Chat: With
the Artists.”, Monday Morning, November 6, 1911; The Buffalo Express,
“Annual Thumb-Box: This and Arts and Crafts Exhibit Opened by Society
of Artists.”, Monday Morning, November 11, 1912; The Buffalo Express, “First Buffalo Salon to Open of Wednesday at Art
Gallery”, Monday Morning, February 9, 1914; The Buffalo Express,
“Gallery and Studio Chat: Present Exhibitions at Gallery to Close this
Week; Society of Artists”, Monday Morning, May 8, 1914; The Buffalo
Express, “Gallery and Studio Chat: Orpen Pictures and Local Exhibition
Opening at Gallery”, Monday Morning, April 13, 1914; The Buffalo Express, “A Memorial Exhibition: Works by the Late Eleanor
Douglas to be Shown at Art Gallery, Half a Hundred Canvases, Friends of
the Artist Will Lend Their Choicest Treasures”, Monday Morning, March
20, 1915; The Buffalo Express, “Douglas Memorial: An Entire Gallery has
Been Reserved for the Eleanor Douglas Pictures.”, Saturday Morning,
April 10, 1915;
The Caxton: A Magazine for Quality Folks, “Eleanor Douglas and Her Studio”, by Newton A. Fuessle, September, 1910, Number 12, Volume 1, Pgs. 27-31, Published by The Caxton Society at Pittsfield which is in Berkshire, MA;
The Detroit Museum of Art: Annual Report for the Year 1911, Detroit, MI, Pg. 31, 1911;
Article from The Mediator, “For and About Women: Eleanor Douglas and Her Work, Her Painted Arguments for Country Life”, by Newton A. Fuessle, Pgs. 41-43, April c1913;
The Obituary, East Aurora Advertiser, “MISS ELEANOR DOUGLAS: Died in Chicago Saturday Morning, November 14th.”, November, 1914, unknown writer, section or page number, (unknown day); Obituary from, Illustrated Buffalo Express, “Eleanor Douglas”, November 14, 1914;
Catalogue of An Exhibition of Works by Buffalo Artists, “First Local Salon 1914”, The Buffalo Fine Arts Academy, Albright Art Gallery, Buffalo, NY, 1914;
American Art Annual (AKA later known as Who’s Who in American Art, WW17), by Florence N. Levy Editor, Vol. 14, New York, The American Federation of Arts, Washington D.C., 1917;
East Aurora Bee, newspaper article, “West End’s Echoeing History Honored with County Award”, by Cheryl Aron Bielli, May 17, 1990, page 3;
East Aurora Advertiser, newspaper article, “Local Women Artists Featured at the 2/R Fine Arts Gallery”, September 2, page 5, 1993;
Head, Heart and Hand: Elbert Hubbard and the Roycrofters, by Marie Via and Marjorie B. Searl, pgs. 115-118, 132 and 134, University of Rochester Press, Boydell and Brewer Limited, 1994 (reprinted 2007);
Who was Who in American Art: 1564-1975, by Peter Hastings Falk, Editor-in-Chief, Sound View Press, Madison, CT, 1999;
Images of America: The Roycroft Campus, by Robert Rust and Kitty Turgeon, Arcadia Publishing, Charleston, SC, Chicago, IL, Portsmouth, NH, San Francisco, Printed in Great Britain, 1999;
The Fra, article, “Carl Ahrens: Roycroft Potter and Internationally Renowned Painter”, by Kim Bullock, (great-granddaughter), Volume XXI, 01, March 2007, No. 1, Pg. 5;
Toronto Daily Star, newspaper article by an art critic, unknown writer, section and date; Many miscellaneous newspaper clippings from articles in our internal collection with unknown dates.
(Rewritten & compiled chronologically by Mark Strong of Meibohm Fine Arts, Inc., East Aurora, NY, 05/2010, Sources: Too long to list, and furnished upon request or can be viewed on our website meibohmfinearts.com)
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