William Woodward (1859-1939)
c. 1910
Oil on canvas
| Madame John’s
Legacy William Woodward (1859-1939) c. 1910 Oil on canvas |
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| Born in Seekonk,
Massachusetts, William Woodward studied art at the Normal
Art School in Boston, the Rhode Island School of Design,
and Academie Julien in Paris. In 1884 Tulane
College and High School (today Tulane University) hired
him to teach free-drawing classes. With his brother
Ellsworth he helped organize the art department at
Newcomb College, a new school for women, in 1887.
Woodward’s great interest in architecture was
evident in his efforts to save the Cabildo and Arsenal
from demolition in 1895 and in his instrumental role in
founding the Tulane School of Architecture in 1907. Through his paintings, Woodward recorded historic buildings of the French Quarter and the Louisiana and Mississippi Gulf Coast. He adopted the use of a solid Raffaelli oil crayon, which he felt emphasized the effects of natural light and color. Working in the impressionist style favored by many early twentieth-century American artists, he captured these effects by painting en plein air, or out-of-doors. Madame John’s Legacy (c. 1788) is one of the oldest buildings in the Mississippi River Valley. George Washington Cable used the building as the setting in his popular 1879 short story Tite Poulette. In the early twentieth century, the building was home to a small art colony. Mrs. I. I. Lemann donated the building to the Louisiana State Museum in 1947. Woodward’s Madame John’s Legacy shows the facade of the building on a bustling Dumaine Street filled with street venders and passersby, while residents on the balcony take in the sights. By the
same artist: |