Docent’s Corner | A Good Beginning – Edmund Greacen and the Alexander Collection
Image credit: Edmund W. Greacen (American, 1876-1949). Yellow Bouquet – Red Dress, n.d. On loan from the Alexander family.
When visitors to the current BRAHM exhibition of The Alexander Collection are asked to select their favorite painting in the room, it is not unusual for them to be drawn to Yellow Bouquet - Red Dress by Edmund W. Greacen. The soft, impressionistic image of a lovely young woman in quiet contemplation of the yellow bouquet of flowers in her hands, seemingly unaware that the private moment is being captured in paint by an artist, is enduringly beautiful.
Although artist Edmund William Greacen (1876-1949) was not a member of the painters who comprised the prominent artists’ groups The Ten or The Eight, he moved in their circles. He was a student at the Art Students League of New York beginning in 1899 and studied at the New York School of Art with William Merritt Chase (who became one of The Ten in 1902). After Greacen and his artist wife accompanied Chase to Spain for art classes in 1905, they went on to travel in the Netherlands, Belgium, and England. Their son was born in Paris in 1906, and they rented a house in Giverny, France, near Claude Monet’s home and gardens in 1907. Greacen was impressed with Monet’s work and undoubtedly influenced by it, though they only met once. The Greacens’ daughter was born in Giverny in 1908.
Returning to New York City in 1910, Greacen set up his studio there and became actively involved in the current art scene, joining the National Arts Club and establishing the Manhattan School of Art. He also joined fellow artists Childe Hassam, Willard Metcalf, Guy E. Wiggins, Robert Vonnoh, and Bessie Potter Vonnoh as a member of the Old Lyme Art Colony of American Impressionists at Old Lyme, Connecticut. After serving briefly in France during World War I, he returned to the art world, becoming an Associate Member of the National Academy of Design in 1920, and a full Academician in 1935. In 1922, he had received a prestigious prize from the Salmagundi Club and had founded the Painters and Sculptors Gallery Association with John Singer Sargent and Walter Leighton Clark. This organization later became the Grand Central Galleries and the Grand Central School of Art, with Greacen as director, a role he would continue for 20 years. Greacen suffered a series of strokes in the late 1930s, succumbing in 1949 after many years of ill health.
In 1991, Greacen’s granddaughter, Mrs. Faure, was living in Ponte Vedra Beach near Jacksonville, FL, and was having an estate sale that included hundreds of paintings by her famous grandfather, Edmund Greacen. Welborn and Patty Alexander were living in Jacksonville at that time and had recently become acquainted on a bicycle trip in the south of France with American impressionist art collectors Jack and Russell Huber from Atlanta. Ever on “the hunt” for good art to add to their collection, the Hubers combined a visit with the Alexanders with a visit with Mrs. Faure. Acquiring well-provenanced art directly from the artist or the artist’s family is one of the best ways to add to a collection. On this expedition, the Hubers encouraged the Alexanders to also make a selection, and Yellow Bouquet – Red Dress was their choice. Little did Welborn and Patty Alexander realize at the time that this single lovely painting would become the beginning of a truly life-changing experience that would have them create an amazing art collection that we are sharing today and would involve them in the creation of this very art and history museum, BRAHM. Yes, it was a VERY good beginning!
This Docent’s Corner is brought to you by Sue Glenn