Overview
Collection Information
Size: 0.2 Linear feet, (on 1 microfilm reel)
Summary: A scrapbook of lecture notes and student exercises for the 1902-1903 class on design taught by Edna Boies at the Veltin School for Girls, Manhattan. This scrapbook provides unusual documentation of the kind of instruction and course work found in an art class at the turn of the century. The chronologically arranged lecture notes are composed of directions, information and inspirational quotes. Topics covered include Japanese prints, the elements of good design, the Parthenon, Giotto, and the early Renaissance. Assignments and class exercises include the designing of a class pin, good composition using mass and line, designing vases, covered bowls, jewelry and lamps. Included in the scrapbook are Boies' own exercise samples, tracings of exercises produced by students, critiques of class work, poems, an introductory essay on Japanese prints, and clippings from THE OWL, a student newspaper, reviewing a lecture series delivered by Royal Cortissoz during the school year.
Biographical/Historical Note
Block printmaker. Born in Hudson, Michigan in 1872, Edna Boies studied a general art course at the Art Academy of Cincinnati from 1895 to 1899, then woodblock print making at the Pratt Institute, New York, under Arthur Wesley Dow. For the academic year of 1902-03, Boies taught composition and design at the Veltin School for Girls, Manhattan. Boies married art educator James Roy Hopkins in 1904. The two artists travelled around the world, spending time in Japan, where Edna Hopkins further studied Ukiyo-e woodblock print making. The couple settled in Paris in 1905, returning to the United States at the start of World War I. From 1914 to 1920, Edna Hopkins was involved with the Provincetown Printers. She lived in Paris from 1920 to 1923. She abandoned print making in 1923, perhaps due to arthritis, having established a reputation as a woodblock printer and teacher. Her work was influenced by Ukiyo-e prints, B.J.O. Nordfeldt and the Provincetown Printers, and European Post-Impressionism.
Provenance
Donor Mary Ryan acquired this scrapbook, along with other materials by Hopkins, in France in the mid-1980s. Hopkins had left the materials with a friend before she returned to the United States in 1923. They were discovered by a French dealer in 1984. See Mary Ryan Gallery 1989 exhibition catalog on Edna Boies Hopkins.
Language Note
English .
