Emma Fordyce MacRea

Detail from Emma Fordyce MacRea by Ivan Gregorewitch Olinsky (1930)

Emma Dean Fordyce was born on April 27^th 1887 in Vienna.  She was the first-born child of Alice Dean Fordyce (née Smith) a woman of inherited wealth and Dr. John Addison Forsyth.  Her father was a professor of dermatology who was born in Guernsey County, Ohio and graduated in medicine from Northwestern University Medical College in 1881 and after a number of posts in America, travelled to Europe and spent the major part of this time in Vienna.   He returned to America in 1888, a year after his daughter was born and took up posts as a professor at New York University and later Columbia University.

Oriental Backgroumd by Emma Fordyce MacRea (1928)

Emma was brought up in a wealthy household and became interested in the arts through the family’s regular trips to Europe for her father’s work.  Her primary education was at Miss Chapin’s School, an all-girls independent day school on Manhattan’s Upper East Side neighbourhood in New York City.  From there she attended the Brearley School, an American all-girls private school on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. 

October Winds by Emma Fordyce MacRea (1914)

In 1910, twenty-three-year-old Emma married Thomas MacRea an intern at her father’s practice.  The marriage was a disaster and lasted less than twelve months.  In 1921 the marriage was annulled and a year later Emma married Homer Swift.  With her first marriage over in 1911 she decided to carry on with studying art and enrolled at the Art Students League under Frank Vincent du Mond, Luis Mora and Kenneth Hayes Miller.  She also took classes at the New York School of Art. In 1914 one of Emma’s paintings entitled October Winds was shown at the Anderson Galleries in New York.  It was a work in the Impressionist style .  Few of her earlier had a richer palette and a hint of form  and few of her very early works exist.  In the 2008 Cape Ann Museum Exhibition catalogue it stated that Emma had already laid down the subjects she favoured for her art.  They were landscapes, floral still life and female figurative compositions. She worked in a flat, linear, primarily two-dimensional style with references to Old Masters and Japanese prints.  MacRae was known for her unique painting style where she used paint sparingly and often scrapped away sections of paint to reveal a textured, chalky canvas. These techniques gave her paintings an antiqued look, while also feeling modern.

The Clam House, an etching by Arthur Wesley Dow (c.1892)

In the early 1920s Emma’s painting style changed.  Despite great reviews of her work exhibited in New York and Boston galleries she decided to move away from Impressionism and create her own artistic style.  We cannot be certain as to why she changed her painting style but it could be due to her second round of coursework at the Art Students League.  It could also have been the change in her personal life or what she had read in Arthur Wesley Dow’s influential book, Composition A Series of Exercises in Art Structure for the Use of Students and Teachers.  Dow was an American painter, printmaker, photographer, and educator known for his teachings based on Japanese principles of art and for his significant artistic and intellectual contributions to the Arts and Crafts movement.  Dow taught that rather than copying nature, individuals should create art through elements of the composition, such as line, mass, and colour.

Easter Lily by Emma Fordyce MacRea

An example of this change in Emma’s style could be seen in her painting entitled Easter Lily.

It is interesting to note that in many of her female figurative paintings she had focused not just on the sitter but various background items.

Left: Leonore in White by Emma Fordyce MacRea. Right: Ruth by Emma Fordyce MacRea.

In Emma’s painting, Leonore in White, the female figure is holding her book on her lap whilst in the background we have an oval mirror and on a table in the background there is a flower-filled vase. In the other painting, Ruth, we see another female reading with her book on the table and has a background of a painting and a blue upholstered chair.

Left: Distant Mountains by Emma Fordyce MacRea Right: 5 O’Clock by Emma Fordyce MacRea

In the subdued palette used in her painting, Distant Mountains the female wears her green dress which echoes the colour of the ground in the landscape that we see in the valley. In her painting, 5 O’Clock, the vibrant orange dress worn by the model is picked up in the deeper tones of the reddish-orange in the wallpaper. Also in the background there is a landscape painting and a large square clock showing the time as 5 O’Clock.

Fishermen’s Huts by Emma Fordyce MacRea

Lobstermen’s Huts by Emma Fordyce MacRea

With just a few exceptions Emma’s landscape paintings could not be classified as pure landscapes as she always populated the depictions with figures, buildings and boats. In her painting Fishermen’s Huts she has depicted the harbour wall and the coastline slicing diagonally through the depiction and by so doing separates the moored boats from the angular houses seen above the harbour.

The Lily by Emma Fordyce MacRae

Emma loved to paint floral still life depictions and would often use hardboiard Masonite as her painting surface and instead of using the front smooth side would instead paint on the gesso-ground rough rear side which in some ways mirrored a canvas surface.  One example of this was her painting entitled The Lily. First she would sketch in the composition with black chalk or a soft pencil and often she would leave some of this under-drawing visible as outlines in the final painting.

Pigeon Cove by Emma Fordyce MacRea (c.1930)

Emma MacRae’s paintings were exhibited at several important museums and galleries throughout the country, such as The National Academy of Design, Pennsylvania Academy, Carnegie International in Pittsburgh, Chicago Art Institute, John Herron Art Institute of Indianapolis (now the Herron School of Art and Design), the Corcoran Art Gallery in Washington D.C., Currier Museum of Art, and Boston Art Club. She also exhibited paintings between 1937 and 1945 as part of The Philadelphia Ten Painters, also known as The Ten, which was a group of female artists from the United States who exhibited together from 1917 to 1945. Emma joined several other artist groups, including the National Association of Women Painters and Sculptors, Allied Artists of America, North Shore Art Association, National Association of Mural Painters, Boston Art Club, and the New York Society of Painters. In 1951, she received full membership in the National Academy of Design.

Foxgloves in Cloisonné Pot by Emma Fordyce MacRea (1934)

Emma Fordyce MacRae, who married twice had one child, Alice MacRae, from her first marriage.   Emma kept her first married name throughout her professional painting career but for personal matters, after her second marriage to Dr. Homer Swift, went by the name “Swift” .

Rockport Beach, Cape Ann, Massachusetts by Emma Fordyce MacRea (1935)

In 1916, Emma’s father purchased some prime real estate land in the hills overlooking  Stage Fort Park, at Stage Head just west of Gloucester MA ,and on it he had a house built. 

Stage Fort across Gloucester Harbor by Fitz Henry Lane, (1862)

When her father died in 1925 the house became hers.  She would spend the summers there and soon built up a large portfolio of paintings depicting surrounding areas.  The house was called Atlantic Heights and in it she had her own studio.

Gloucester Garden by Emma Fordyce MacRea

It had a large garden which was looked after by her husband Homer Swift. It was often a mass of colours and many of the flowers featured in her floral Still Life works as well as in her painting entitled Gloucester Garden.

Emma Fordyce MacRea died on August 6th 1974 aged 87.

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Most of the information regarding the life and works of Emma Fordyce MacRea came from two excellent websites:

Cape Ann Museum Archives

and

Cape Ann Museum Catalogue