This biography from the Archives of AskART:
|  A native New Englander, Gertrude Fiske was an Impressionist figure and landscape painter and a leading woman artist of the Boston School. She was a founding member of the Guild of Boston Artists and of the Art Associations of Concord, Massachusetts, and Ogunquit, Maine. She was also an Associate member of the National Academy of Design in New York and the first woman appointed to the State Art Commission of Massachusetts.
Fiske was a "blue-blood" Bostonian as a direct ancestor of Governor William Bradford. She attended the School of Drawing and Painting of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston with Edmund Tarbell, Frank Benson, and Philip Hale, and was one of only a few individuals who actually completed the Museum School's seven-year course. During the summers she painted with Charles Woodbury at Ogunquit, Maine. Her studios were in Weston and Boston, Massachusetts and Ogunquit, Maine.
In 1962, a memorial exhibition of her work was held at the Concord Art Association and at the Farnsworth Art Museum in Rockland, Maine.
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Gertrude Fiske was most productive from 1915 to 1935, and it is these outdoor paintings, created in the 20 year time-span, that are her most prolific. Her work is often described as being stylized with pattern and surface design. The paint's texture, movement of lines, and a perfect compositional balance allude to her connection with the Boston School at a young age.
It has been said about Fiske in "Christian Science Monitor", 1916:
Her ability to reconstruct nature in its essentials upon her canvasses is seen at its fullest in her (outdoor) sketches. Here she discovers decorative values with ease and surety, and sets them forth with taste and selection that results in works that could hardly be bettered, in their unpretentious way, by much studio revision.
Spanierman Gallery, 1989
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Biography from Pierce Galleries, Inc.:
| GERTRUDE H. FISKE (American, 1878-1961):
Gertrude H. Fiske was a native New Englander born in Boston April 16, 1878, the oldest of six children. She trained at the Museum School (Boston) with Edmund C. Tarbell, Philip L. Hale and Frank W. Benson (1904-1912) and with Charles H. Woodbury (summers) in Ogunquit, Maine.
Fiske was a major member of the Boston School and her beach scenes are sought after worldwide. She was a founding member of the Guild of Boston Artists, a founder of the Concord Art Association and participated in the founding of the Ogunquit Art Association. She was an Associate of the National Academy of Design and a member of the National Association of Women Painters & Sculptors; Guild of Boston Artists; Connecticut Academy of Fine Arts; Concord AA; New Haven Paint & Clay Club; American Federation of Arts; Oqunquit AA; Grand Central Art Galleries of NYC; Chicago Society of Etchers; Boston Society of Etchers; National Arts Club; Cosmopolitan Club and she was the first woman to appointed to the State Art Commission of Massachusetts (1929-1930).
Fiske won silver and gold medals at the Panama-Pacific Exposition (1915); Conn. Academy of F.A. (1918; 1925); Wilmington Society of F.A (1921); National Academy of Design (1922; 1925; 1928, 1931, 1935); National Assoc. of Women Painters & Sculptors (1925, 1929); New Haven Paint & Clay Club (1925, 1929); Springfield Art League (1929, 1931); Ogunquit Art Center (1932) and more.
Fiske maintained Boston, Weston and Ogunquit art studios and was close friends with fellow artists Jane Peterson and Anne Carleton. She was given solo exhibitions at the GBA (1916); R.I. School of Design and the Cleveland Art Museum (1917); Wellesley College, GBA, Farnsworth Museum (1920); GBA (1924, 1927, 1933).
Fiske’s work is represented in the Art Institute of Chicago; Corcoran Gallery of Art; Carnegie Institute; Penn. Academy of F.A.; Nassau County Museum of F.A.; Baltimore Museum of F.A.; Detroit Institute of Arts; Brooklyn Museum of Art; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; McNay Art Institute, San Antonio, TX and more.
She died on April 18, 1961. The Farnsworth Art Museum in Rockland, Maine gave her a retrospective exhibition in 1966 and later New York’s Schoelkopf Galleries and Vose Galleries of Boston gave exhibitions in 1967; Columbia Museum of Art, Columbia, SC (1975), Robert Schoelkopf Galleries (1981). |
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Gertrude Fiske is also mentioned in these AskART essays:
San Francisco Panama-Pacific Exhibition 1915
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