This biography from the Archives of AskART:
| The following biographical information is from The Courier, newspaper for Chatham, New York. Dated January 7, 1932.
"Work of Kinderhook Artist is January Feature of Institute: Albany Institute of History and Art Shows Fifty Paintings of Landscape and Flowers by Mrs. Athenia Hastings."
An exhibition of fifty paintings by Mrs. Athenia Belknap Hastings of Kinderhook, is the featured attraction during January at the Albany Institute of History and Art.
The exhibition is so arranged that as the visitor enters the gallery, it is almost as if one stepped into an old-fashioned garden, according to the curator. All the familiar flowers are shown, roses, peonies, poppies, foxglove, iris and phlox.
The canvases are decorative in character. Mrs. Hastings has arranged each bouquet in some rare old vase either of Chinese Lowestoft or of Sevres porcelain.
Easter Flowers, a most pleasing arrangement of early spring blossoms and plants, and Pink Peonies, a study in soft shades of pink, blue and mauve, are outstanding among the flower paintings.
Among the landscapes are scenes in the Kinderhook hills, the Maine coast, New Hampshire and Bermuda. One of these, a moonlight view of a Bermuda harbor, won high honor last June at the 25th annual exhibition of American paintings at the Albright Gallery, Buffalo. The Kinderhook scenes are especially pleasing for their accurate presentation of the picturesque and historic country in the vicinity.
Mrs. Hastings is a granddaughter of John Frazee, architect and sculptor, first man to be commissioned by Congress to design a bust. This was of John Jay, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, where the sculpture has been placed. Frazee also designed the sub-treasury building in New York City, built in 1836.
Mrs. Hastings studied at the National Academy of Design*, where she was awarded the Elliott bronze medal, the highest prize in the antique class, and the Suydam silver medal, highest premium in still life. Her first exhibit was in 1916, since then her works have been shown throughout the United States and Bermuda.
Submitted by Edward P. Bentley, Art Researcher, East Lansing, Michigan
* 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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