Scenic Impressions by Estill Curtis Pennington Martha R. Severens

Author:Estill Curtis Pennington,Martha R. Severens
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781611177176
Publisher: University of South Carolina Press

Henry Caliga (1857–1934), Portrait of Elisabeth Chant, 1925, oil on canvas, 26 x 28.675 inches (detail). Cameron Art Museum, Wilmington, North Carolina; Gift of Hester Donnelly (1972.2.28).

CHANT, ELISABETH AUGUSTA (1865–1947)

A colorfully eccentric figure who inspired artists in the American Midwest and South, Elisabeth Augusta Chant was born on March 10, 1865 in Yeovil, Somerset, England. Her father, James Chant (1840–1908), was a sea captain active in the Asian spice trade. Between 1866 and 1872, he took his wife, Elisabeth Rowe Wills (circa 1836–1878), and their children on voyages to India, China, and Japan. The artist often claimed to have sailed the seven seas by the age of seven. In 1873, the family immigrated with other residents of Yeovil to Hawley, Minnesota, where they established a colony. James Chant initially worked for the Northern Pacific Railway before moving to Minneapolis after his wife’s death. He opened a meat and provisions market there and remarried. Minneapolis was experiencing a growth spurt at the time, which impacted its cultural aspirations.

The eldest of nine children, Elisabeth displayed an early interest in art, but was discouraged from pursuing an education in the arts. She instead enrolled at the Training School for Nurses at Northwestern Hospital for Women and Children; a career in nursing, her stepmother insisted, was both practical and socially acceptable. She graduated in 1886 and, in 1889, was employed as a student nurse in Duluth. Between 1890 and 1893, she took painting classes with Douglas Volk (1856–1953), the first director of the newly founded Minneapolis School of Fine Arts, and received evening instruction from Burt Harwood (1855–1922). With the outbreak of the Spanish-American War in 1898, Chant was sent by the Red Cross to work in various camps in Savannah and Albany, Georgia. She was discharged the following year.

Returning to Minneapolis in 1899, Chant began to take art seriously; she became actively involved in various art groups such as the Handicraft Guild and the Minneapolis Art League. She met and began to share a studio with fellow student Margarethe E. Heisser (1871–1908). Both women were active in the Arts and Crafts movement and supported themselves by painting murals and decorative panels, along with making pottery and prints. Their studio was a frequent gathering place for meetings of the Minneapolis Arts and Crafts Society.

In 1901, Chant began a two-year sojourn in England where she reconnected with distant relatives and traced her family’s relationship to the court of King Arthur. From this time forward, she displayed a keen interest in Arthurian legends and tales of Camelot, which often emerged in her murals. Reveling in the experience abroad, she wrote enthusiastic travelogue-style articles for the Minneapolis Journal and studied at the Royal School of Art Needlework in Kensington near the Victoria and Albert Museum. She returned to Minneapolis in 1903 and immersed herself in exhibitions and activities there; local, as well as regional, commissions for residential murals—often Arthurian or pantheistic in theme—provided a steady income.

Beginning in 1908, Chant suffered devastating personal losses. When her sister, father, and Heisser died in quick succession, she became emotionally unstable.

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