Portrait of Elizabeth O'Neill Verner (1937) by Marie Danforth Page
Courtesy of the Tradd Street Press, Ltd.
(oil on canvas)
Born Elizabeth
Quale O’Neill, Verner was a lifelong Charlestonian. Her paternal grandparents
were Irish Catholic immigrants, and her father was a rice broker who, it seems, never fought for the Confederacy because his parents sent him to France to study
during the Civil War. As a consequence, convent-educated
Verner was decidedly not a member of Charleston’s former slave-owning Episcopalian
aristocracy who would become Verner’s patrons.
Verner’s vision of Charleston, however, understandably appealed to
members of Charleston’s elite society because it presented an affectionate, if
somewhat nostalgic or romanticized, view of historical Charleston while,
intentional or not, arguably continued to reinforce certain 19th
century social and racial hierarchies.
Untitled Park Scene by Elizabeth O'Neill Verner
(oil on canvas)
In 1901 at age
seventeen, Verner was sent to live with relatives to attend the Pennsylvania
Academy of Fine Arts in Philadelphia.
Her most important teacher during her two years at the academy was Thomas
Anshutz, a proponent of Thomas Easkin’s esthetic of realism. She then taught
art in Aiken, South Carolina before returning to Charleston. In 1907, she married E. Pettigrew Verner,
with whom she had two children (and for whom she converted to Presbyterianism). Familial duties necessarily precluded a
full-time career as an artist while her children were young, but starting in
1910 she began sharing a studio on Atlantic Street in downtown Charleston with
the miniature portraitist Leila Waring.
On Sundays, Verner and Waring, along with Alice Smith, and Anna Heyward
Taylor (whose nearby studios were on the same street) would invite guests to go
from house to house to have tea and to view their latest works. Verner’s medium at this time was primarily oil
painting.
Mossy Tree by Alice Ravenel Huger Smith
Printed by Elizabeth O'Neill Verner (c. early 1920s)
Courtesy of the Corrigan Gallery
(colored woodblock print)
The details are
unclear, but at some point Verner learned the rudiments of woodblock carving
and printing from Alice Smith. She also appears to have met Helen Hyde and Bertha Jaques when they visited Charleston prior to the end of WWI. I’m
speculating, but Verner's woodblock prints were likely made in the period between
1918 and 1925. Verner’s grandson has a
copy of Alice Smith’s 1918 print “Mossy Tree” which was printed by Verner. Putting to one side its poor state of physical
preservation, this print pales in comparison to the one printed by Smith herself. While Verner's use of bokashi is not bad, it clearly
lacks Smith’s finesse, and the printing at the print’s borders is particularly
crude. Still, everyone has to start somewhere.
[Woman with child in Archway] (c. early 1920s) by Elizabeth O'Neill Verner
Courtesy of the Corrigan Gallery
(colored woodblock print)
[Woman with child in Archway] (c. early 1920s) by Elizabeth O'Neill Verner
Courtesy of the Corrigan Gallery
(colored woodblock print variant)
Garden on the Heads! (c. 1925) by Anna Heyward Taylor
Courtesy of the Greenville County Museum of Art
(colored woodblock print)
Verner would go on
to produce at least two original woodblock prints of her own design. The first, depicting an African-American
woman with a young child in a building archway.
This print exists in at least two states, showing Verner’s
experimentation with the use of different color blocks. The precise location in Charleston is unknown
to me, but perhaps a reader with some familiarity with the buildings and
streets of that town might be able to identify it for me. The subject matter and treatment is reminiscent of certain
white-line prints made by Anna Heyward Taylor around the same time. (It's also entirely possible that she obtained carving and/or printing advice from Taylor as well as Smith.)
[South Carolina Seascape] (c. early 1920s) by Elizabeth O'Neill Verner
Courtesy of Charlton Hall Auctioneers
(colored woodblock print)
Verner’s second
woodblock print is a seascape. It is a
much more mature work showing her growing proficiency in printing
woodblocks. While lacking the power of Alice
Smith’s compositions, it exudes a quiet beauty and a sense of tranquility. Based on this design, I think it’s a shame
that she didn’t pursue woodblock printmaking further. (If anyone is aware of any other Verner woodblock print designs, please let me know.) I suspect, however, that she, like countless
other woodblock printmakers before and after her, discovered that making woodblock
prints is a laborious, time-consuming endeavor, and not a particularly
lucrative one. She may have also wanted
to avoid competing with Taylor's neighboring studio for business, and instead decided to carve out a separate niche of her own in
the Charleston art community.
In the Shadow of St. Michael's, Charleston (c. 1928) by Elizabeth O'Neill Verner
Courtesy of the Gibbes Museum of Art
(etching)
Alice Smith learned etching from Gabrielle D. Clements, who spent the winters between 1916 and 1920 in Charleston, and from Ellen Day Hale, who also visited Charleston during that time period. (The subject of etchings likely also came up during Hyde’s and Jaques’ visits as well.) Smith, in turn, taught etching to Verner in 1922 and to several other local Charleston artists. In 1923, Smith spearheaded the creation of the Charleston Etchers’ Club, whose founding members included Smith, Verner, Clements, Hale, Waring, Minnie Mikell, Antoinette Rhett, Alfred Hutty, and John Bennett.. Hutty secured an etching press for the club, which was set up in the Charleston Museum.
Ravenel Doorway, Charleston (pre-1933) by Elizabeth O'Neill Verner
Courtesy of the Gibbes Museum of Art
(etching)
Verner’s life,
however, was soon turned upside down when her husband died unexpectedly in
1925, leaving Verner a forty-one year old widow with no money, a mortgage, and
two adolescent children to support. Printmaking
was no longer a pastime for Verner; she became a full-time professional etcher
out of necessity, one who, in her own words, “had to work 14 hours a day for 10
years and I did.” In 1926, she purchased
her own press, which allowed her to work and print in her own studio. Her mentor Alice Smith, a descendent of one
of South Carolina’s most affluent antebellum families, was particularly helpful
during this period, sending her clients to Verner’s studio and regularly
sending out Verner’s etchings along with her own watercolors for exhibition to
galleries, museums, and art professionals around the country.
Ponte Santa Trinita, Florence (1930) by Elizabeth O'Neill Verner
Courtesy of the Gibbes Museum of Art
Courtesy of the Gibbes Museum of Art
(pencil drawing)
Over the course of
her career, Verner would create over 260 prints in editions that typically
numbered eighty or more impressions. Multiple states exist for many of her etchings, and one occasionally can find proofs with additional handworking in pencil. Most were
scenes of Charleston and the surrounding Lowcountry, but she also received commissions to etch
or sketch West Point, Mount Vernon, Williamsburg, Harvard Medical School, and Princeton
University, among other venues. She also
traveled to Europe, the Caribbean, and Mexico, which provided her with foreign
subjects to draw, some of which were used to illustrate her 1946 book Other Places. While in London in 1930, she continued to study
etching at the Central School of Art.
Springtime in Charleston (1936) by Elizabeth O'Neill Verner
Courtesy of David L. Hamilton
(drypoint)
Verner remarried
in 1932 but it was a short marriage, as her second husband died three years
later. In 1933, she stopped making
etchings, but continued to make drypoints up until the end of 1938. The fact that her printing press had been
damaged in a move to a new studio on Tradd Street may have played a part in
this decision to stop making prints, not to mention the increased competition she was facing from another Charleston etcher, Alfred Hutty. But with her children now in their late
twenties and early thirties, Verner no longer had a family that she needed to
support and was at liberty to pursue other artistic passions.
Threshing Rice (c.1937) by Elizabeth O'Neill Verner
Courtesy of the South Carolina State Museum
(pastel on silk)
In 1934, Verner
began to work with pastels, although her earliest pastels were experimental and
unsuccessful. By late 1937, however, she
had perfected a process to make what she called “Vernercolors.” Verner would glue raw Japanese Imperial silk
to composition board panels and, while the silk was still wet, she would begin
to draw. After it dried, she would apply
still more pastel to the silk. Her
favorite subject for these pastels were the African-American flower sellers found
on Charleston sidewalks. Although street
vendors appeared regularly in Verner’s etchings, they tended to be shadowy,
faceless figures. Verner’s pastels,
however, are realistic portraits of actual flower-women. They were compensated for their time as
models, and sometimes were named in the finished works. Verner would continue to make such pastels well
into her eighties.
Matte by Elizabeth O'Neill Verner
Courtesy of The Cobbs Auctioneers
(pastel on silk)
Seated Woman with Blue Hat and Flowers by Elizabeth O'Neill Verner
Courtesy of the Charleston Renaissance Gallery
(pastel on silk)
Throughout her
career, Verner was a tireless promoter of the city of Charleston. In 1920, she became a founding member of the
Society for the Preservation of Old Dwellings.
She was a charter member and on the board of directors of Southern
States Art League from 1922 to 1933. When
the city officials in 1944 threatened to pass an ordinance to ban flower
vendors from the heart of Charleston’s historical district due to complaints
about noise, litter, and overly aggressive sales tactics, Verner, then President
of the Garden Club, led a civic protest in opposition, touting their tourist appeal
and their utility as models for her own work.
The dispute was resolved by the city allowing Verner to personally issue
a limited number of “good behavior” vendor licenses to such flower women. Verner would author several books of her own
about the city of Charleston illustrated with her drawings and etchings,
including Prints and Impressions of
Charleston (1939) and Mellowed by
Time: A Charleston Notebook (1941). In
1928, Doubleday published a Charleston edition of DuBose Heyward’s 1925 novel Porgy (later turned into the opera Porgy and Bess) illustrated with reproductions
of Verner’s etchings.
Symphony of Flowers (c. 1949) by Elizabeth O'Neill Verner
Courtesy of the Johnson Collection
(pastel on silk)
Twin Oaks (1957) by Elizabeth O'Neill Verner
Courtesy of the Charleston Renaissance Gallery
(pastel on wood)
In 1967, Verner
produced her last large pastel, Day Clean at Middleton Place. In 1972, the “Verner Award,” recognizing her outstanding contributions to the arts, was named in her honor and has been
presented annually by the Governor of South Carolina on behalf of the South
Arts Commission. Verner, the "Matriarch of the Charleston Renaissance," passed away at
age ninety-five in 1979 in the city of birth.
Elizabeth O'Neill Verner in later life
Courtesy of Galaxyofart.com
(photograph)
Readers who have
read this far may wonder why I’ve devoted so much cyber-ink to Verner. Her woodblock print career was transitory
and limited, with only two journeyman efforts to her name. Neither design features Asian subject matter
or appears to have been influenced by principles of Japanese or Chinese art
other than, perhaps, the use of asymmetry. The reason,
dear readers, is that Verner spent two months in Japan in 1937, the results of
which will be detailed in my next post.
(To be continued.)
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