Artist:
Violet Oakley
(American, 1874 - 1961)
Love Your Enemies
Medium: Oil on canvas
Date: ca. 1897
Dimensions:
18 × 23 7/8 in. (45.7 × 60.6 cm)
Accession number: 83.13.1
Label Copy:
After studying at the Art Students League of New York and the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Violet Oakley joined Howard Pyle’s illustration class at the Drexel Institute. Throughout her career, she remained close with other women artists who studied with Pyle and worked in illustration. This painting was probably created for Pyle's advanced class in illustration, in which he emphasized compositional groupings of figures. Pyle often assigned themes similar to those he depicted in his own work. Oakley’s painting is related to Pyle’s work of the same subject titled The Enemy at the Door, published in Scribner’s Magazine in 1895.
Curatorial RemarksViolet Oakley's painting was probably created for Pyle's advanced class in illustration. In this class, Pyle discussed principals for using groupings and arrangement of figures and backgrounds to create a finished picture from imagination. Pyle often gave his students themes or tableaus that he had depicted in his own work. An example can be seen in the comparison here between Oakley's student painting and Pyle's frontispiece illustration, "The Enemy at the Door," published by Scribner's magazine, November 1895.
On view