Collecting, Creating, and Contributing: Boston Women in the Arts, 1870-1940

A Lecture by Dr. Erica E. Hirshler, Croll Senior Curator of American Paintings at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

“There is nothing that men do that is not done by women now in Boston” wrote a columnist for The Art Amateur in 1889. Linked by their aspirations, training, affiliations, friendships, and common environment, Boston’s women shared much more than the common accident of their sex, and the city was distinguished by their success. In this illustrated talk, Dr. Erica E. Hirshler, Croll Senior Curator of American Paintings at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, explores the challenges faced and accomplishments attained by a community of Boston women artists, organizers, and collectors in late 19th and early 20th Boston. Her lecture is the culminating event in a series of exhibition programming for "Their Objects, Their Stories: The Nichols Women as Collectors, 1870-1960," on view through October 13, 2018 at the Nichols House Museum.

An expert in late 19th and early 20th-century American painting, Dr. Hirshler has published extensively on John Singer Sargent, Mary Cassatt, Childe Hassam, Dennis Bunker, William Merritt Chase, Winslow Homer, and women artists and collectors. She is particularly interested in the artistic exchange between the United States and Europe, in issues of national identity, and in portrayals of women; she also studies Boston’s history, art, and patronage. Author of "A Studio of Her Own: Women Artists in Boston 1870–1940" (2001), Dr. Hirshler holds a BA from Wellesley College and a PhD from Boston University; she has lectured at museums and other cultural institutions across the United States, Europe and Japan. She is currently planning an exhibition about Sargent and fashion.

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