Monday Museum Mystery: Who is this Artist?
This week on Monday Museum Mysteries, we are staying close to Oxford. This artist spent most of her childhood in Oxford, and it remained an important place to her. She loved art so much that, in her will, she left her private collection to the city of Oxford. Do you have any idea who this artist might be?
She was an academically trained artist. What do you think that means? It is a way to say that she learned about art and practiced her art in a school. Like other artists, she worked very hard on improving her artwork. One way that she did this was by coping what other artists painted. She copied some very famous artists and art from around the world. This actually became her job; she was a copy artist at Marshall Fields in Chicago, a prestigious and unusual job for a woman of her time. Do you know who painted these two paintings? Do you know the artworks' names? By painting artists from different time periods, she was able to practice different techniques for her art. Can you tell which one our mystery artist created and which one is the famous original? She is very good, isn't she!
Her family was also very important to the creation of the University Museum. When our mystery artist donated her artworks to the museum, it was actually her sister Kate that saw the museum built. Our artist's family helped provide the funding for the Museum. Who is our artist?
After you have thought long and hard about who our mystery artist is, then scroll down to the end of the post to reveal the answer!
Did you guess the answer correctly? Be sure to check out our next Monday Museum Mystery for more exclusive looks into the University Museum's behind-the-scenes collection!
