Lot 106: Vanity

Walter McEwen (American, 1860-1943)
Vanity
signed 'M'Ewen.' (on the chair rail)
oil on canvas
39¼ x 23½ in. (99.7 x 59.7 cm.)

San Francisco, The Tower of Jewels, Panama Pacific International Exposition , 20 February - 4 December 1915.

PROPERTY OF A NEW YORK COLLECTOR


Walter McEwen was born in Chicago in 1860. In the United States, he became an Associate Member of the National Academy, a member of the Century Club, the National Institute of Arts and Letters and the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts many years after he was well-recognized as an established artist.

Although an American by nationality, McEwen's passion for and involvement in Europe made him a Continental at heart. He lived there for many years and was one of the founding members of the Artist Colony at Edmond, Holland along with George Hitchcock and Geri Melchers. McEwen studied in Munich at the Royal Academy under Frank Duveneck, in Paris with Fermand Cormon and at the Academie Julien with Tony Robert-Fleury. MacEwen became a member of the Society of American Painters in Europe, Order of St. Michael, Bavaria, Order of Leopold II, Belgium (1909). In 1896, he was awarded the Chevalier d'honneur and became an Officier in 1908.

McEwen exhibited at the Paris Salon in 1896 and the Paris Expositions of 1889 and 1900, where he received a medal each year. More significantly, he exhibited in Berlin in 1891 where he won the gold medal. The artist's success was assured and MacEwen's continued to win medals in Chicago, Antwerp, Munich, Vienna, Pennsylvania and New York.

Using his American nationality to his advantage, McEwen was able to exhibit at the St. Louis Exposition of 1894, where he also won a medal and more importantly the Panama Pacific International Exposition in San Francisco 1915 where his works were hung with those of John Singer Sargent, Mary Cassat, and William Merrit Chase.