Mabel Dwight
Mabel Dwight
1876 - 1955
American printmaker and illustrator. Among the pioneer generation of women printmakers in America, she was known for her humorous satires of the American scene. Raised in New Orleans, she moved to San Francisco where she studied art at the Hopkins Institute (c. 1896–7) and joined the Sketch Club (a professional organization that offered exhibition and collaboration opportunities for women).
By 1903 she had settled in Greenwich Village. Three years later she married the painter and etcher Eugene Higgins (1874–1958), and set aside her career. When the marriage ended 11 years later, she became a secretary of the Whitney Studio Club (where she attended evening sketch sessions), shed her married name and traveled abroad. During a trip to Paris in 1926–7, she discovered the medium that suited her artistic temperament: lithography, and studied the technique with Edouard Dûchatel (fl 1880s–1930s) in Paris.
After returning to New York, in 1928, she became well known for lithographs featuring the comédie humaine (the human drama of daily life). Her prints (done on either stone or zinc plates) grew out of sketches she made of New Yorkers engaged in everyday activities, such as riding the subway or buying a hat. She was also adept at creating mood pieces, architectural scenes, portraits and scenes relating to the major issues of her day. Her work reached a national audience when her illustrations appeared in Vanity Fair and other popular magazines.
During the Depression she became involved in radical causes, joined the American Artists’ Congress (formed to promote the economic and social interests of artists) and had her prints published in The New Masses. Her work, in the tradition of Honoré Daumier, combined humor with political commentary. She participated in the New Deal’s Public Works of Art Project (PWAP) and Federal Art Project (FAP) (1935–9). For the latter she produced 25 lithographs that touched on various urban topics. [Margaret Moore Booker. "Dwight, Mabel." Grove Art Online. Oxford Art Online. Oxford University Press, accessed September 8, 2014, http://www.oxfordartonline.com/subscriber/article/grove/art/T2086860.]
Dwight achieved critical success during her lifetime, with numerous one-man shows, many of them at Weyhe Gallery in New York, and she was included in group exhibitions at the Print Club of Philadelphia, FAP, and elsewhere. She was named one of the best living American printmakers by Prints magazine in 1936, and her print Queer Fish, originally sold through the American Artists Group (AAG), achieved popular and critical acclaim for the artist.
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French, 1864 - 1901
