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About Arrah L. Gaul
Arrah Lee Gaul was the granddaughter of John Parkinson Gaul who was born next door to the Betsy Ross House. The young artist studied at the Philadelphia School of Design for Women between 1907 and 1910 on a scholarship.1 Two of her teachers were Henry B. Snell and Elliott Daingerfield, whose influenced she acknowledged. Perhaps she was a classmate of Harriette Bowdoin (see above entry), who listed the same two instructors. With Snell, Gaul traveled to Europe for summer studies, including one summer in Brittany. Snell also took his students to picturesque little towns in Italy. At the Art Institute of Chicago in 1915, Gaul submitted A Street in Ravello and An Italian Sketch (both watercolors), which were accepted. Related is an oil on canvas, A Corner of Ravello, executed a year earlier (Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts). In 1916, Gaul exhibited The Harbor: Edgartown at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, possibly our painting. A year later, she was one of the founding members of the group of women painters known as the Philadelphia Ten. Among her colleagues there were Theresa Bernstein, Isabel Branson Cartwright, Fern Isabel Coppedge, Edith Lucile Howard, and M. Elizabeth Price. The members wanted to be able to exhibit a large number of works, "to show just the work they wished to present, in the most dignified and harmonious manner."2 Gaul took part only in the first show, which was held at the Art Club of Philadelphia. There she exhibited A Corner of Ravello, mentioned above. The critic of the Philadelphia Public Ledger wrote how Gaul’s Italian scenes were "full of spirit of the light and the life of Italy. . . ." It is believed that Gaul’s marriage to Alfred Laurens Brennan interfered with her participation in the Ten, however, he died in 1921.3 Meanwhile, Gaul had become a teacher at the School of Design in watercolor, painting and drawing, and became head of the department of art education.
The setting of Edgartown Harbor is the east coast of Martha’s Vineyard. Gaul chose an unimposing view from a dirt lot in the foreground. Steps lead up to a fancy garden, complete with a large decorative planter-urn, beyond which is the busy harbor, crowded with sailboats. The brightness of the sun-filled area is overwhelming. In the water are reflections of the sails -- the classic broken brushwork recalls the works at La GrenouillPre by Renoir and Monet from 1869. The overall effect conforms to the American impressionists’ focus on a positive, cheerful and sunny view of American life and leisure. This represents the "Good Life" that American impressionists painters attempted to live: ". . . a way of life in a special world for the successful artist of the late nineteenth century; art and life were one, and the pursuit of harmony and tranquility were goals of living as well as painting."4
The untiring Gaul joined the equally energetic Jane Peterson on an exotic voyage to Constantinople, Athens, Messina and Algiers. The Philadelphia Public Ledger (12 April 1925) reported that she executed around seventy-five canvases en plein air, many of which were on display at the Art Club of Philadelphia. The painter seems to have played a significant role in the Philadelphia International Sesquicentennial Exposition in 1926, for which she painted sixty views of High Street, which were recreations of historic sites and demolished buildings. Gaul had numerous one-woman shows during her lifetime. In 1947 she made an extended trip to the Far East. Working in two different studios in New York City, she kept on painting until she was ninety years old: portraits, landscapes and still-lifes. When she passed away, the Philadelphia Inquirer (14 December 1980) called the painter "intent, determined, stubborn, positive — a woman you couldn’t fool." |
Paintings by Arrah L. Gaul
| Edgartown Harbor |
| Oil on canvas: 20 x 24 in. |
| signed: lower left |
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Click Picture to Enlarge
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