Biographical and technique information on Katherine Abbot, American
portraitist in the late 19th and early 20th century.  Exhibited at
1900 Paris Art Exposition.  Is fairly unknown today --not listed in
Grove Dictionary of Art.

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Request for Question Clarification by luciaphile-ga on 17 Apr 2003 13:33 PDT

Hi cocochanel-ga,

I've found some biographical material. What kind of technique
information are you looking for? Thanks.

Regards,
luciaphile-ga

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Clarification of Question by cocochanel-ga on 17 Apr 2003 14:41 PDT

Was her technique the same as that of contemporaries such as Whistler
and Sargent?  Did she only do portraits?  Possibly other subjects as
well?  Was she an Impressionist?  At the Paris Exposition she won a
bronze medal; what was it for?

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Clarification of Question by cocochanel-ga on 29 Apr 2003 07:56 PDT

I realize that research takes as long as it takes, but is there anyway
that I could have whatever Katherine Abbot information you have been
able to find by next Monday, May 5, please?  I need it that afternoon
for a presentation that I am doing.  Thanks for whatever help you can
offer me.

Coco Chanel

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Request for Question Clarification by luciaphile-ga on 29 Apr 2003 10:34 PDT

Hi cocochanel-ga,

I'm at a dead end with Katherine Abbot. I've located some sketchy
biographical material on her (when she was born, where she was from,
who she studied with, some additional awards she won, the name of one
of her paintings, some information about her marriage and her death
date).

I have not, however, despite going through a *lot* of print sources
been able to track down any of the other information you requested.
Because of that I haven't wanted to post what I had.

If what I have described above is sufficient, I'll be happy to submit
that as an answer. Let me know!

Regards,
luciaphile-ga

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Clarification of Question by cocochanel-ga on 29 Apr 2003 13:21 PDT

What you have will have to be sufficient!  Your biographical
information will be much more than I already have.  As a
librarian/archivist, I find it fascinating that so little seems to be
known about someone who, for her time, was I gathered considered quite
accomplished as a painter.  We have just restored a large portrait
done by here in 1897 -- and that's what prompted the question in the
first place.  Thanks for your help on this.  I do appreciate it.

Coco Chanel

Hi coco chanel,

Thanks for your question. I tend to work a lot on questions requiring
print sources, so this one was quite interesting. I wish I could have
turned up more material on Abbot. I'm a librarian myself and this is
exactly the sort of puzzle I like to piece together.

Although Katherine Abbot is not listed in Grove, she did make it into
several reference books and I was able to locate a couple of bits of
information from other print sources.

Part of the problem you may have experienced in finding material on
Katherine Abbot is because she's listed as Katherine Cox in several
sources. Even with this other surname, I was still unable to find as
much as I would have liked.
 
Katherine Gilbert Abbot was born in 1867 in Zanesville, Ohio. She
married Allen Howard Cox [I am uncertain when her marriage took place.
She is listed as "Mlle" for the 1894 and 1895 exhibitions. I have
nothing concrete to base this on, but material on her seemed to stop
after 1901, so perhaps her marriage took place after that].
 
Aside from her exhibition in the 1900 Paris Art Exposition for which
she won a bronze medal. She also exhibited at the Paris Salon in 1894
and at the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, NY [1901 - perhaps most
famous today because President McKinley was assassinated during the
Exposition] where she won an honorable mention.
 
"Dictionary of Women Artists: An Internation al Dictionary of Women
Artists Born Before 1900," by Chris Petteys. Boston: G.K. Hall & Co,
1985, p. 166.
 
The entry in "Who Was Who in American Art" contains similiar
information, but has in addition, the fact that she exhibited at
Salons of the Societe Nationale des Beaux Arts, Paris (SNBA) in 1895
and at the Art Institute of Chicago from 1898-1899.
 
"Who Was Who in American Art." Madison, CT, Sound View Press, 1999,
vol. 1, p. 756.
 
Another source gives us the fact that the G stood for Gilbert.
 
"American Art at the Nineteenth-Century Paris Salons," by Lois Marie
Fink. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990,p. 315

According to "Paris 1900," Abbot studied with H. Siddons Mowbray and
William Merritt Chase in New York and then with Leon Merson, Jean
Geffroy and Delance in Paris. The piece that won her the medal was
entitled "Anxiety." They list her as having died in 1929.

"Paris 1900: The 'American School' at the Universelle Exposition," by
Diane P. Fischer (ed). New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press,
1999, p. 194.

As far as web sites go, the only even vaguely substantive one I found
is Ask Art's entry on Abbot and even that is pretty sparse.

Ask Art/Katherine G. Abbot Cox
http://askart.com/artist/c/katherine_g_abbot_cox.asp
 
Using Hotbot's search engine (it allows you to search Google, FAST,
inktomi, Teoma, I did turn up one possible avenue--a link to a
previous art exhibit that contained a painting(s) by Abbot. The link
is now dead, but by using the Wayback Machine I was able to pull it
up.

Sheldon Past Exhibitions: 1898-1909
http://web.archive.org/web/20020607080451/http://sheldon.unl.edu/HTML/EXHIB/sched_1900s.html

Sheldon's current web site unfortunately does not have much search
capability, but perhaps they may have some more information about the
painting that was exhibited there.

Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery
http://www.sheldonartgallery.org/

SEARCH STRATEGY
Print Sources:
Biography and Genealogy Master Index
Materials listed above
Library OPACs for books on the Paris Art Exposition (LC subject
heading is: Exposition universelle internationale de 1900 (Paris,
France).
"Nineteenth Century Readers Guide" (there are many articles about the
Paris Art Exposition of 1900 as well as many about the art exhibits at
the Pan American Exposition, but I found no mention of Abbot in the
ones I had access to).

ONLINE Sources:
Google Search
"katherine g abbot"
"katherine abbot cox"
"katherine gilbert abbot"
katherine abbot zanesville
"allen howard cox"
katherine abbot artist paris exposition

Hotbot
http://www.hotbot.com

Wayback Machine
http://www.archive.org

I hope this answers your question. If you require additional
information or if the links do not work, please ask for clarification
before rating my answer and I'll do my best to assist you.

Regards,
luciaphile

Stellar answer and research on someone who, it seems, there is just a
bit of information here and there.  Thanks for all the
help.  I have tried the additional links that you suggested and they
have fleshed out Katherine Abbot Cox a bit more as well.
cocochanel

Thanks for the compliment and the nice tip!

Luciaphile