Known for her painterly, naturalistic landscapes and still-life images, Sarah Jane Blakeslee received her art training in Realism* and Impressionism* and was profoundly influenced by the work of Paul Cezanne.

Blakeslee was born in Evanston, Illinois in 1912. She attended the Art Institute of Chicago*, Illinois in 1926, followed by the Corcoran School of Art in Washington, D.C. Additional instruction was obtained from Catherine Critcher, an artist recognized for her Native American portrait paintings. In 1931 she began studying at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts* in Philadelphia under the artist Francis Speight. As an instructor and landscape painter, Speight was influential on the artwork she produced. Blakeslee and Speight later married.

Sarah Blakeslee was awarded the Cresson Scholarship* from the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in 1933, enabling her to travel and paint in Europe for a year. It was during her time abroad that Blakeslee encountered the artwork of Paul Cezanne, which, having a significant impact on her style of painting, is most apparent in her earlier work. She also received awards in honor of her work, such as the Charles K. Smith Award from the Woodmere Gallery; Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts' Mary Smith Prize*; and the National Academy of Design* Roger Fund. She painted Apple Orchard, a mural for the post office in Strasburg, Virginia, as part of the Works Progress Administration* in 1938.

Blakeslee's artwork has been exhibited by the Art Institute of Chicago; Corcoran Gallery; National Academy of Design; North Carolina Museum; Pennsylvania Academy; and the 1939 Worlds Fair in San Francisco, California. Her work is held in permanent collections of institutions including the Greensville Museum of Art in North Carolina; Muskegon Museum of Illinois; North Carolina Museum of Art; Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts; and the St. John's Museum in North Carolina.

Blakeslee died on 12 January 2005 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, one day prior to her ninety-third birthday.


Submitted by Jenna Wuensche, Researcher

Source: Jules Heller and Nancy G. Heller, North American Women Artists of the Twentieth Century

Additional Resources (Internet Sources):
http://www.michenermuseum.org/ James A. Michener Art Museum, Bucks County Artists, Interactive Database
http://www.postmarks.org/photos/ Post Office Photos, Strasburg, Virginia Post Office



* For more in-depth information about these terms and others, see AskART.com Glossary http://www.askart.com/AskART/lists/Art_Definition.aspx

Sarah Blakeslee was born in Evanston, Illinois on January 13th, 1912, the same year Jackson Pollock was born. Her formal education in art began in 1926, when at the age of 13 she attended the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Shortly thereafter she moved to Washington, D.C. and took classes under Catherine Critcher during her senior year of high school. With persuasion from Critcher, Sarah began studying at the Corcoran School of Art in 1930.

In 1931, she left the Corcoran and went to Chester Springs Pennsylvania to study at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. At the time, it was considered one of the best en plein aire schools in the nation. Sarah was awarded the Cresson Traveling Scholarship in 1933 and returned to Philadelphia to continue her studies at the other campus of the Pennsylvania Academy. She was awarded a second Cresson in the Spring of 1934 and traveled to Europe a second time. After taking additional classes at the Corcoran upon finishing at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, she married Francis Speight on November 7, 1936.

Returning to Pennsylvania from a honeymoon in North Carolina, Sarah began exhibiting her work at the Corcoran during their annual exhibitions in 1937 and 1938. She also painted a mural for a post office in Virginia and exhibited work at the 48th Annual Exhibition at the Art Institute of Chicago during this time.

After her formal training in impressionism and realism, and gaining experience as an en plein aire landscape painter, she spent the years from 1938 to 1964 exhibiting in many venues and working as a portrait painter. She participated in the Golden Gate International Exhibition in San Francisco and the New York World's Fair. Blakeslee's artwork can be found in numerous museums collections including the North Carolina Museum of Art, North Carolina State University, Greenville Museum of Art, and the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

In 1961 Sarah Blakeslee and her husband Francis Speight relocated from Pennsylvania to Greenville, North Carolina where Speight took a teaching position at East Carolina University. Sarah continued to paint and teach at various art centers in Greenville, Kinston, Washington, and Rocky Mount, North Carolina. Blakeslee returned to Pennsylvania following her husband's death and lived near her children until her death in 2005.

Sources:
Greenville Museum of Art Catalogue, Sarah Blakeslee: A Retrospective. 1993.

York, Maurice C. The Privilege to Paint. Greenville Museum of Art. 2002.

SARAH JANE {SPEIGHT} BLAKESLEE (1912–2005)

Sarah Blakeslee’s pursuit of art began in her teenage years when the Evanston, Illinois, native enrolled in classes at the Art Institute of Chicago. After her family relocated to the Washington, D.C. area, she pursued further instruction at the Corcoran School of Art, at a private school operated by Catherine Critcher, and later at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. While a student there, Blakeslee was awarded two Cresson Traveling Scholarships that enabled her to spend a number of months abroad, time she used to visit museums and learn from first-hand encounters with the work of European masters.

Blakeslee developed into an accomplished and versatile artist using both watercolor and oil with equal dexterity. After her return to the states, she married one of her former Academy teachers, Francis Speight, in 1936. They moved to the bucolic community of Castle Valley in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, where they lived until 1961. Always independent-minded, Sarah Blakeslee retained her maiden name as her professional moniker throughout her career.

Blakeslee painted directly from her subjects—whether the surrounding landscape or portraits of friends and family. One of her most freely painted works, Springhouse at Home, Castle Valley reflects the artist’s deft assimilation of both Impressionism and Realism. The painting depicts the family’s homestead, which Blakeslee certainly knew intimately. Her familiarity with the subject’s every detail allowed the artist to eschew specificity for an easy naturalism and painterly approach that favored areas of vivid color and broad, loose brushstrokes. The two-acre plot in Castle Valley included a three-story house built in 1820 and covered in yellow stucco; a springhouse stood near a creek running along the back and one side of the property. Two children, the artists’ son and daughter, are at the spring’s edge, an area where they likely often played. The spring itself seems fairly still compared to the turmoil of gestural brushstrokes in the trees above and behind the structure. Blakeslee’s contrasting treatment of the two areas serves to draw the viewer into the space and simultaneously invites exploration of the painting’s highly active surface.

During the busiest years of motherhood, Blakeslee’s domestic responsibilities slowed her career, yet she found time to produce still life paintings, figure studies, and interior scenes that were exhibited and won awards. Her impressive exhibition record dates back to 1937, when the twenty-five-year-old painter’s entries were accepted to the Forty-eighth Annual Exhibition at the Art Institute of Chicago and the Fifteenth Biennial Exhibition at the Corcoran Gallery of Art. She frequently showed her work at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and participated in the 1939 and 1940 Golden Gate International Expositions in San Francisco and at the 1939 New York World’s Fair. In 1937, the United States Treasury Department Section of Fine Arts commissioned her to paint a mural for the post office in Strasburg, Virginia. Blakeslee’s work was the subject of two solo exhibitions at the Greenville, North Carolina, Museum of Art, in 1937 and 1963.

The Johnson Collection, Spartanburg, South Carolina
thejohnsoncollection.org