Painter · American
Attested lodger
Mary Fairchild MacMonnies
A painter of figures and gardens, active in France for more than twenty years.
- Dates1858 — 1946
- NationalityAmerican
- DisciplinePainter
- Place of birthNew Haven, Connecticut, United States
Biography
Trained in Saint Louis and then Paris, Mary Fairchild exhibited at the Salon and received major decorative commissions. Much of her career unfolded in France before her return to the United States.
Giverny
She settled in Giverny with her husband Frederick William MacMonnies in 1898, in the village’s former priory — Le Prieuré, today Le Moutier — first rented, then bought in 1901. The couple fitted out studios and a garden there and received a colony of American artists. She left France for good in 1910.
Relation with the Hôtel Baudy
She is in the register with her husband, and the way she is entered says a great deal. In April and May 1890 the register reads “M. et Mme. MacMonnies, sculpteur et artiste peintre”: she is named for what she is. In August 1893 the same line becomes “M. et Mme. MacMonnies, sculpteurs”, in the plural of her husband’s trade. Three years, and her own profession has gone from the page.
Principal works
Key points
- 1858Born — New Haven, Connecticut, United States
- Giverny1898 — 1910, resident at Le Prieuré
- 1946Died
Sources
- 01Base Joconde, notice d’œuvre « Roses et lys », musée des Beaux-Arts de Rouen, inv. 1903.2
- 02Musée Blanche Hoschedé-Monet, Vernon, notice d’œuvre inv. 79.18
- 03Association Les Jardins Baudy des Peintres Américains, note de synthèse « Le Giverny Group et l’Hôtel Baudy »
- 04Hôtel Baudy guest register, “Registre pour inscrire les voyageurs”, Philadelphia Museum of Art; transcribed by Carol Lowrey in William H. Gerdts, Monet’s Giverny, Abbeville Press, 1993, pp. 222-227.
In the collection
Related documents
Around them
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