Peggy Bacon, Drypoint Etching "Penguin Island" 1926

Details

Description

Margaret Frances "Peggy" Bacon (May 2, 1895 – January 4, 1987) was an American printmaker, illustrator, painter and writer. Bacon … Read more Margaret Frances "Peggy" Bacon (May 2, 1895 – January 4, 1987) was an American printmaker, illustrator, painter and writer. Bacon was known for her humorous and ironic etchings and drawings, as well as for her satirical caricatures of prominent personalities in the late 1920s and 1930s. Bacon's parents were both artists and met while attending the Art Students League in New York. At the end of 1913, Bacon first studied art at the School of Applied Design for Women but disliked it calling it, "the prissiest, silliest place that ever was." She transferred after a few weeks to the School of Fine and Applied Arts on the West Wide where she took classes in illustration and life drawing. During the summer of 1914 Bacon attended Jonas Lie's landscape class in Port Jefferson, Long Island.
From 1915-1920 Bacon studied painting with Kenneth Hayes Miller, John Sloan, George Bellows and others at the Art Students League. While at the League, Bacon became friends with several other artists. Her circle of friends and acquaintances included Dorothea Schwarz (Greenbaum), Anne Rector (Duffy), Betty Burroughs (Woodhouse), Katherine Schmidt (Kuniyoshi Shubert), Yasuo Kuniyoshi, Molly Luce, Dorothy Varian, Edmund Duffy, Dick Dyer, David Morrison, and Andrew Dasburg. In 1917, she exhibited two works in the First Annual Exhibition of the Society of Independent Artists (April 10-May 6, 1917). Around 1917 Bacon also became interested in printmaking and taught herself drypoint as there was no one teaching etching at the Art Students League at the time. Bacon's first caricature prints were featured in single-issue, satirical magazine Bad News, which was published by Bacon and her fellow art students in 1918. Drypoint was Bacon's primary medium until 1927, and pastels until 1945. Although Bacon had trained as a painter, she eventually became famous for her satirical prints and drawings. Her caricatures were first published in a single issue spoof, entitled Bad News. Her early portrait caricatures in Bad News, like her early drypoints, depended upon a hard, controlling outline, filled in with shading or an obscure pattern. Bacon was also featured in solo shows in prominent galleries such as; Stieglitz's Intimate Gallery, the Weyhe, and the Downtown Gallery.
In the summer of 1919 Bacon studied with Andrew Dasburg in Woodstock, New York. That same summer she was engaged to American painter Alexander Brook and the two married on May 4, 1920. After marrying, Bacon and Brook moved to London for a year, where their daughter Belinda was born. When they returned, the family divided their time between Greenwich Village in New York City and Woodstock, New York, two vibrant artist communities. In 1922 a son, Sandy, was born in Woodstock. In 1940 Bacon and her husband divorced.
Bacon was a very prolific artist. In 1919, at the age of 24, she wrote and illustrated her first book, The True Philosopher and Other Cat Tales. She went on to illustrate over 60 books, 19 of which she also wrote, including a successful mystery book, The Inward Eye, which was nominated for an Edgar Allan Poe award in 1952 for best novel. Bacon's popular drawings appeared in magazines such as The New Yorker, New Republic, Fortune, and Vanity Fair and she exhibited in galleries and museums frequently. Bacon had over thirty solo exhibitions at such venues as Montross Gallery, Alfred Stieglitz's Intimate Gallery, and the Downtown Gallery. In 1934 Bacon was awarded the Guggenheim Fellowship for creative work in the graphic arts. During her time as a fellow she completed 35 satirical portraits of art world figures for a collection called Off With Their Heads!, which was published that same year by Robert M. McBride & Company. In 1942 she was granted an award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters and in 1980 the Academy awarded her a gold medal for her lifelong contribution to illustration and graphic art. In 1947, Bacon was elected into the National Academy of Design as an Associate member, and became a full member in 1969. In December 1975, the National Collection of Fine Arts, now the National Museum of American Art, honored Bacon with a yearlong retrospective exhibition titled, "Peggy Bacon: Personalities and Places."
In addition to her artistic career, Bacon taught extensively during the 1930s and 1940s at various institutions, including the Fieldston School, the Art Students League, Hunter College, the Corcoran Gallery in Washington DC, and summers at the School of Music and Art in Stowe, Vermont. The Lawrence A. Fleischman Gallery at the Donald W. Reynolds Center for American Art and Portraiture, exhibited “Six Degree’s of Peggy Bacon.” The exhibit Six Degrees of Peggy Bacon traced her associations using photographs, letters, graphics, and archival documents from the Archives of American Art to illustrate Bacon’s connection to dozens of other prominent artists. According to the theory of the six degrees of separation, she is connected to Albert Einstein, Cézanne, Eleanor Roosevelt, Babe Ruth, Frida Kahlo and President Ulysses S. Grant. See less