ILLINOIS HISTORICAL ART PROJECT

CHAPTER 1

Anna Lee Stacey “paints because she was born that way.”[1] A widely acknowledged artist of her time, Anna dedicated her life to her art. She was a prolific artist and one of the most exhibited local artists at the Art Institute of Chicago. She won numerous awards, and exhibited her work throughout the United States. A gregarious person, “Mrs. Stacey spent almost all of her time she was not doing club work, before her easel.”[2] Throughout her life, Anna continued to perfect her technique, but retained conventional codes of perspective, expression and representation.

 

Not a great deal is known about Anna’s early life or her family. She was born in Glasgow, Missouri, on September 10, 1865. Her father, John Dey, was from New Jersey, and her mother, Elizabeth Fisher, was from Indiana. Anna Lee had two older sisters, Mary and Sarah, one younger sister, Rowena, as well as one older brother, Charles.[3] Glasgow is located on the Missouri River and was a steamboat stop. The town was recovering from a bloody Civil War battle in 1865, when half a block, including City Hall, was burned. Huge mansions, lavish hotels and bathing spas were constructed during the recovery period.

 

Anna had no formal art training as a child, but said she liked to draw, and she even painted her dolls. “When my parents saw how I loved to make pictures, they arranged for private lessons in art which was not a simple matter in the little town of Glasgow, Mo.”[4] An interested teacher gave her a few lessons that were a kind of rudimentary training in copying.[5] Later in life Anna recalled, “At that time, my idea of the beautiful in art was a wooden snow shovel with a painted scene bedecked with diamond dust…”[6] As early as 1876 she attended the non-sectarian, co-educational Pritchett School Institute in her home town.[7] The institution offered education from the elementary level through a full college degree. From a newspaper photo of Anna in 1902, we know she wore glasses.[8]

 

Anna continued her education at the Kansas City Art Institute and School of Design, where she met John Franklin Stacey (1859-1941), one of her teachers and her future husband.[9] John was originally from Biddeford, Maine, and attended the Massachusetts Normal School, which trained people to be teachers.[10] He was known as a large man and sometimes prone to strong opinions.[11] He spent three years of study at the Académie Julian in Paris with Gustave-Clarence-Radolphe Boulanger and Jules-Joseph Lefèbvre, along with fellow Bostonians such as artists Frank Weston Benson (1862-1951) and Edmund Charles Tarbell (1862-1938).[12] The Académie Julian was regarded as a stronghold of the academic tradition.[13] When John returned to the United States, he took a teaching post at the school in Kansas City.[14]

 

The Staceys were married October 15, 1891, and moved to Chicago, where John set up a studio.[15] We do not know just how the couple earned their living but by 1898, John had taken a position teaching art at R.T. Crane Manual Training School.[16] We surmise from an early newspaper article that Anna entered the School of the Art Institute of Chicago during the 1889-1890 school-terms.[17] Records from this period are incomplete. From 1893, when records are more continuous, we know was studying at the school and completed her course work and graduated on June 11, 1896, having won several honorable mentions her last year.[18] Indicative of her standing among fellow student artists, she served as treasurer of the Art Students’ League for the 1896-1897 term.[19] She also exhibited in their annual shows from 1895 to 1897,[20] where her work was called “among the most pleasing in the collection.” The critic had noted she was already working “in a pronouncedly high key…” with her colors.[21] One critic reviewing the work of the Art Students’ League predicted:

 

“Miss Stacey has the elements of the successful artist in her, and will be heard from in the future.”[22]

 

The Art Institute regimen gave her a foundation of skills in drawing the live model and she would specialize in an idealized type of portraiture throughout her career. Her class was particularly talented as it included the future highly acclaimed Chicago artists Karl Albert Buehr (1866-1952), Pauline Palmer (1867-1938) and John Christian Johansen (1876-1964).[23] The school was the largest and arguably the best of its type in the United States.[24] Later in life Anna was to refer to this time as “among the pleasantest of my life. Partly so possibly by reason of having an artist husband that was encouraging and watching with loving interest every step I made along arts hard and arduous pathway.”[25] She believed that due to her early experiences with art in Glasgow, she had much to unlearn.[26] To the annoyance of some of the other students Anna had “learned to paint and talk at the same time,”[27] forming friendships which would last a lifetime. Quite modest, Anna would continue to discount her natural ability to paint, often noting how difficult it was for her. In a tribute to both her modesty and the gratitude she felt toward her alma mater, she said:

 

“I was more or less lucky in winning some prizes along the way – that was always encouraging. The later results of my work with which you are all familiar has come from a slow growth and assimilation of what I had acquired in the long and pleasant years spent within the walls of the Institute. I never fail to tell every one I meet away from Chicago as well as here – that I consider it one of the greatest civic Institutions in this country – possibly in the world. I am proud to claim it as my sole instructor.”[28]

 

Anna’s subject matter and style were influenced by her teachers along with events in the art world and her own natural interests. One of her early figure sketches in charcoal was illustrated by the Chicago Tribune as an example of work completed by students in their drawing classes at the Art Institute.[29] The subject was a man clothed in a fleece toga, leaning on a walking stick. It is rendered in a highly academic and very accurate fashion, reflecting the drawing foundation so prevalent in the course work at the School of the Art Institute. Impressionism is the most explanatory label to use for Anna’s style. Impressionism in the United States was promulgated by the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago. Novelist Hamlin Garland stated that the Impressionists were considered “ colorists…. They do not paint leaves,…they paint the effect of leaves upon the eye.”[30] They juxtapose raw colors on the canvas, “leaving the eye to mix them as in nature.”[31]

 

One of Anna’s teachers was Leonard Ochtman (1854-1934), highly regarded as a landscape artist.[32] Charles Henry Caffin identified Ochtman as one of the country’s artists who “study nature in the light of the open air… few can equal his refinement of observation and delicate tonality.”[33] In a review of his exhibition at the O’Brien gallery, the critic wrote, “Mr. Ochtman ranks with the greatest in America... He may be called an impressionist, pure and simple.”[34] When Ochtman’s work was shown at the Columbian Exposition, his work was placed among other pictures in the American Impressionist style. Ochtman’s influence on Anna’s work was noted by critic Arthur Merritt when he said, “…her landscapes have the same subtle charm that Ochtman casts over his.”[35]

 

Her paintings, like those of the other American Impressionists, were subjects unto themselves. They were not considered romantic nor did they have a classic formality. In one interview, Anna commented on the difficulty of painting en plein-air,” it is not an easy matter to paint out-of-doors with the changing shifting light and many reflections falling on the model.”[36] She often painted exactly what she saw, without a rearrangement of the elements of nature. One such case was Village at Twilight (location unknown). Searching for subject matter she said she was, “Looking across the river late one afternoon, [and] saw her prize picture.”[37] She painted on location using a “rapid and deft brush” to capture the line and temper of the moment. In some of her work, she made small sketches and studies in preparation for the finished painting.[38] Reviewer Lena McCauley noted she had the “power to convey great meanings directly and simply.”[39] Throughout her long career, her style and approach to painting never underwent any dramatic change. A critic wrote late in her career that her painting exhibited at the San Gabriel Artists’ Guild, Sunlight Through Haze (location unknown), was “an impressionistic’s [sic] view in quiet tonal harmony.”[40] Impressionism remained Anna’s style.

 

Early in Anna’s career, she was awarded prizes by a supportive Chicago art community. In 1897, just after her graduation she was given the first watercolor prize at the annual Chicago West End Woman’s Club Salon Day.[41] One critic described the work as “unimpeachable, so clearly and adequately presented…”[42] The next year Anna was given the Niké Club purchase prize for her painting By-Road of Janesville, Wisconsin (location unknown). The Niké had established this prize as a means of supporting local artists who entered the newly founded Exhibition of Chicago Artists at the Art Institute, and Anna was the first recipient.[43]

 

The summer of 1900 saw a mass exodus of artists from Chicago who descended upon Paris to see the Universal Exposition. All aspects of Chicago were ably represented at this world’s fair and the city’s companies and citizens were awarded more than one hundred prizes and gold medals for their exhibits, nearly one seventh of those awarded.[44] The Staceys too found themselves abroad and Anna took the opportunity to advance her training by entering the Academie Delecluse.[45] The couple later traveled the countryside and by August had stopped in Auvers-sur-Oise.[46] As a result of this trip, we see in her work a deeper exploration of tone in evening compositions. She had explored night scenes during the previous year including As Night Comes On, Twilight, Lamplight;[47] and in early 1900, she had won the Young Fortnightly honorable mention for A Gray Day on the Mystic River (location unknown).[48] Upon return, her output began to dwell on more tonal themes, aspects of darker images and a preponderance of evening subject matter.[49] We can only suppose the Exposition and recent training must have had such an effect upon her work.[50] As one critic noted shortly after her return, “she has not been insensible to the influence of old Europe on her art.”[51] Favorable press coverage, numerous prizes, and varied exhibition venues would soon become a hallmark of Anna’s career.

 

Throughout her life Anna painted the landscape, sometimes with figures, sometimes without. She also painted seascapes, portraits, as well as floral still life, but there are few scenes of the city of Chicago, despite residing in the Tree Studios in the heart of the city most of her life.[52] Anna’s subject matter was derived primarily from her travels. Early on she painted at Delavan, Wisconsin. One of her first exhibited works at the Annual Exhibition of American Artists in the Art Institute entitled An Old Homestead, Delavan, Wisconsin (location unknown), was painted on site in that city, probably while she was in attendance at John Henry Vanderpoel’s (1857-1911) summer art school there. Critic Louise Reidel wrote of the natural beauties of the area, noting that “The work of the week usually includes painting from a model posed outdoors during one-half of the day, when a subject is chosen which suggest open-air occupation… The other half the day is devoted to landscape.”[53] During summers and whenever Mr. Stacey could get leave of his teaching duties, the pair traveled, always painting as they went.[54] One writer noted that she painted all the time.[55]

 

Critic Lena Mae McCauley listed, almost annually, the travel destinations of the Staceys as well as other artists in her newspaper column “Art and Artists” in the Chicago Evening Post.[56] Harriet Monroe referred to Anna’s numerous travels as “vagabondizing.”[57] The Staceys traveled to France (1900, 1929 and 1930-1931),[58] Italy (1904-1905),[59] Spain (1906,[60] 1910,[61] 1912,[62] 1914,[63] and 1929),[64] Belgium (1910),[65] as well as various sites in the United States and Canada (1911).[66] They returned regularly to the New England area where they found Mystic and Old Lyme, Connecticut, particularly amenable. In regard to their desire to return to New England again and again she said, “There is one advantage to going back to the same place, you waste no time looking up subjects.”[67] The Staceys also frequently visited East Gloucester, Massachusetts. Anna told a reporter that in Gloucester “They had built a studio for us right on the waters’ edge. I know the people I can find for models. In winter I plan my work, and I have more themes in mind than I shall be able to carry out during the entire summer.”[68] Travel also provided the Staceys with exhibition opportunities and may have led to a wider acceptance of their work in Eastern venues.[69] John and Anna were members of the Lyme Art Association, where they exhibited for several years beginning in 1924.[70]

 

It might be argued that 1902 was the year that charged her career for life; certainly it was a smash success for the young artist. One critic summarized the events by stating:

 

“…Mrs. Anna L. Stacey, who won distinction at the recent exhibition of Chicago artists because she not only carried off prizes, but sold more pictures to Chicago Clubs than any other two artists exhibiting.”[71]

 

She exhibited thirteen oil paintings in the Annual Exhibition of Works by Chicago Artists[72] and critic Arthur Anderson Merritt succinctly summed part of her success when he said:

 

“Mrs. Anna L. Stacey came in for more than her share of honors, though it is safe to say that none of the competing artists grudged her success. Her delightful ‘Florence,’ herewith pictured, won the Young Fortnightly prize, and was almost immediately purchased by the Klio Association, and another of her canvases, ‘When All the World Seems Fair,’ depicting a girl in white with a touch of red near her throat, sitting in the broad sunlight of a garden, was purchased by the Chicago Woman’s Aid.”[73]

 

Anna had coaxed a young local from Mystic, Connecticut, described as “a small girl with wine-brown eyes and red-gold hair,” to pose for Florence (Union League Club of Chicago).[74] From the same show the Arché Club purchased her painting Twilight Reveries (current location unknown).[75] She was also awarded the Chicago Woman’s Aid Society Purchase Prize for All the World Seems Fair (current location unknown).[76]

 

Critic Henry Charles Payne did not always praise Anna’s work, but felt her painting from the Chicago artists exhibit, An Afterglow (location unknown), while not being an exact representation of the facts, nonetheless had “great purity and vividness of tint… an evident grasp of essential truth, that raises the picture well above the commonplace of most of the exhibit.”[77] In another column the same critic wrote

 

“Anna L. Stacey shows some pictures too that must appeal to any real art lover. I do not think that she has yet quite found the right compromise between individual temperament and objective truth; yet, in a number of her pictures she has come so near it, the sentiment and the execution are so good.”[78]

 

Later in the year at the Annual Exhibition of Paintings and Sculpture by American Artists she was awarded the Union League Purchase Prize for Trophies of the Field (Chicago: Union League Club of Chicago), in addition to the prestigious Martin B. Cahn prize for her painting The Village at Twilight (location unknown).[79] A critic in the Chicago Chronicle wrote that the selection of works showed an unusually high quality from women artists, stating “Were their pictures distributed freely among a proportional number of men it would be impossible to detect any prevalent trait suggestive of a special classification.”[80] Later in the same article the author commented on the handicap women faced:

 

“Disadvantages of study away from home necessarily diminished the number who, having undoubted talent, have been unable to live where instruction is obtainable. At Paris the colony of American women students is now extensive and as a whole is under competent and faithful chaperonage… For it must be admitted that while the average man in art intends to make it his sole occupation, most of the women who engage in painting or sculpture remain in it only until a deeper human interest attracts them or return to it after their domestic situation makes another than domestic duty practicable.”[81]

 

Referring in part to the somewhat unique husband and wife team he said, “Of the women exhibitors in the current exhibition three have their husbands for professional associates. Women will realize by experience that art, proverbially a jealous mistress, will require an undivided allegiance as the price of high achievement.”[82] Anna was fortunate to have a completely supportive husband. When told his wife won the Cahn prize John Stacey said, “My wife can paint far better than I.”[83]

 

Despite painting and living together, the Staceys worked in different styles. James William Pattison noted there was not the slightest resemblance in their work describing Mr. Stacey as a “literalist.”[84] While Mr. Stacey painted almost strictly landscapes, Mrs. Stacey, while painting landscapes as well, also showed the other side of life, the people.[85] Mr. Stacey’s subjects were invariably nature, painted in “…large, free, open landscapes. Mrs. Stacey studies nature nearer at hand with appropriate human figures...”[86] Writers described her work as having a “wide range of capabilities ranging from bits of Landscape at Mystic, Connecticut, and river scenes to portraits and ideal… pieces.”[87] Harriet Monroe, writing for the Chicago Tribune, said that Mrs. Stacey “tries her hand at any subject that comes along …now and then achieving a beautiful picture, a poetic interpretation of her subject rather than a statement of it.”[88] She had a broad ranging palette and could paint in high key Impressionism or the soft colors of Tonalism.[89] She was an able technician as well, one critic describing her brush work as “free and forceful.”[90] That Anna remained true to her training and style is evident in a much later review of her work, noting the soft pastel colors and that her best work “is to be found in the figures in landscape, figures enveloped in atmosphere, carefully drawn figures against a nebulous landscape.”[91]

 

[1]Henry Charles Payne, “Paintings and Sculpture to be Exhibited Tonight, Claim Admiration of All Who View Them.” Chicago Journal, 2/4/1908, p.4.

[2]Lillian Brand, “Art is a Poor Provider,” Pasadena Star-News, 2/5/1940, p.3.

3John E. Dey Family, Federal Census, Glasgow, Howard County, Missouri, 1870, p.306. Anna’s father John E. Dey, was a manufacturer of saddles and horses, and was Marshall of the city of Glasgow in 1876. Ruth Cropp King, Index of the Glasgow Journal, (Pittsburgh, PA: 1995), n.p.

[4]Op. cit., Brand, Pasadena Star-News, 2/5/1940, p.3.

[5]“An Artist and Her Work,” Chicago Daily News, 2/8/1902, p.14.

[6]Op. cit., Chicago Daily News, 2/8/1902.

7The Pritchett School Institute has erroneously been referred to as the Pritchard School Institute in many references to Anna Lee’s career. The Register and Directory of the Pritchett School Institute, 1876-1877, lists Annie Dey in the Primary School, p.29. Charles Dey is listed among those who earned their Bachelor in Arts in 1875 and 1876, p.31. He was listed as from Denver, Colorado. Sarah Dey Swayze, of South Pueblo, Colorado, is listed having earned a “Mistress in Literature” in 1876-77. We know also from the index to the Glasgow Weekly Journal that the Dey family had moved to Denver.

[8]“Mrs. Anna L. Stacey, Whose Picture ‘Florence’ Won The Young Fortnightly Prize,” Chicago Record-Herald, 2/11/1902, p.7.

[9]“Chicago Women Artists and Their Studios,” Chicago Tribune, 4/4/1909, part 7, p.6. A photo of her in her studio is included with the article. Op. cit., Branch, Pasadena Star News, 2/5/1940, p.3. Op. cit., Chicago Daily News, 2/8/1902, p.14. See also: Mazee Bush Owens and Frances S. Bush, Kansas City Art Institute and School of Design: A History of Community Achievement, 1885-1964, (Kansas City, Mo: Kansas City Art Institute and School of Design, 1964), p.8. John Franklin Stacey is listed among the early directors of the school.

[10]Francis R. Howard, Editor, American Art Annual, Vol. 20, (New York: MacMillan Company, 1923), p.227. The Massachusetts Normal School later became the Massachusetts College of Art, and had a course of study for those who wanted to become art specialists. Students attended school for a bit more then two years, taking from ten to fourteen classes, including drawing, art history and appreciation, painting, composition, anatomy and perspective. This was a tuition free school for in-state students.

[11]“Artist And Critic Clash,” Chicago Tribune, 3/3/1909, p.3.

[12]“Long Career Ends for Noted Artist,” Pasadena Star News, 2/4/1941, p.13

[13]Stuart McDonald, History and Philosophy of Art Education, (London: University of London Press, Ltd. 1970), p.289

[14]Ralph Clarkson, “Chicago Painters, Past and Present,” Art and Archeology, Vol. 12, Nos. 3 and 4, September-October 1921, p.135. Clarkson noted that most American artists on their return from Europe, “must teach or illustrate, for the demand for their output was limited,” p.135.

[15]“The Fine Arts,” Chicago Tribune, 10/25/1891, p.39, announces John Stacey’s arrival in Chicago with the intention of opening a studio.

[16]Ralph Elmer Clarkson, “Chicago Painters, Past and Present,” Art & Archeology, Vol. 12, Nos. 3 and 4, September-October 1921, p.143, and Eleanor Jewett, “Connecticut Acres,” illustration caption, “Critic Voices Praise for Art Club Exhibit,” Chicago Tribune, 4/22/1928, Part 8, p.6. Manual training schools were first established in 1876 at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in response to the industrial revolution. John D. Runkle, one of the first proponents of such a school believed manual training developed both mental discipline and cultural education. Arthur Efland, History of Art Education, (New York: Teachers College Press, 1992), p.166.

[17]“Jolly Art Students,” Chicago Times, 5/11/1890 in AIC Scrapbooks, Vol. 4, col. 1, p.~134.

[18]Student record, School of the Art Institute of Chicago, 1893-1896.

[19]“Artists Are Hosts,” Chicago Inter Ocean, 12/16/1896, p.5.

[20]“The Art Students’ League,” Arts, Vol. 6, No. 4, December 1895, pp.181-182. Catalogue. Annual [third] Exhibition of The Art Students’ League of Chicago, (Chicago: Art Students’ League, 1896), and Catalogue. Annual Exhibition of The Art Students’, League. 4th Annual Exhibit, (Chicago: Art Students’ League, 1897). Ryerson Library, Art Institute of Chicago. She also served on the juries of the annual exhibitions in 1902 and 1907-1909.

[21]“Art And Artists,” Chicago Evening Journal, 12/12/1896, p.4.

[22]“Art Students’ League Exhibition,” source unknown, c.12/15/1896, in Art Institute of Chicago scrapbooks, vol. 8, col. 4, p.31.

[23]Buehr and Palmer are subjects of essays in this book.

[24]As so proclaimed by observer Julain Ralph noted in “Art and Artists,” Chicago Tribune, 6/14/1896, p.43.

[25]Op. cit., letter from Anna Stacey to Harshe, 1922.

[26]Op. cit., letter from Anna Stacey to Harshe, 1922.

[27]Op. cit., letter from Anna Stacey to Harshe, 1922.

[28]Op. cit., letter from Anna Stacey to Harshe, 1922.

[29]“Art and Artists,” Chicago Tribune, 6/21/1896, p.43.

[30]Hamlin Garland, Crumbling Idols; Twelve Essays on Art, Dealing Chiefly with Literature, Painting and the Drama, (Cambridge: Belknap Press, Harvard University, reprint, 1960), p.99.

[31]Op. cit., Garland, Crumbling Idols, p.101.

[32]Ochtman was a visiting professor at the School of the Art Institute in 1893 when Anna began her course work. He returned again to the school in 1898. In op. cit., Chicago Daily News, 2/8/1902, p.14, the critic states “…entered the Art institute and became a pupil of Leonard Ochtman.” Visiting professors taught advanced classes only, so it is quite certain she studied with him in 1898. Ochtman’s influence upon her work was noted in Arthur Anderson Merritt, “World of Chicago Artists,” Brush and Pencil, Vol. 9, No. 6, March 1902, p.342. Merrit commented upon her work in Mystic, Connecticut, and suggested her work held the same type of “charm” as Ochtman’s.

[33]Charles Henry Caffin, The Story of American Painting; The Evolution of Painting in America, (NY: Frederick A. Stokes Company, 1907), p.345.

[34]“Art Notes,” Chicago Inter Ocean, 6/21/1896, p.31.

[35]Op. cit., Merritt, Brush and Pencil, March 1902, p.342.

[36]Op. cit., Chicago Daily News, 2/8/1902, p.14.

[37]A letter to Anna Stacey from William M. R. French, French Letters, Ryerson Library, Art Institute of Chicago, 10/29/1902, announces the award. The quotation appears in “Annual Art Show Begins,” Chicago Chronicle, 11/2/1902, p.9. Village at Twilight won the Martin B. Cahn prize in 1902, for the best painting by a Chicago artist at the annual exhibition by American artists at the Art Institute of Chicago.

[38]Lena M. McCauley, “Art and Artists,” Chicago Evening Post, 3/28/1908, p.4.

[39]Lena M. McCauley, “Art,” Chicago Evening Post, 10/5/1907, p.7.

[40]Kenneth Ross, “Anna Lee Stacey One Of Best Woman Painters,” Pasadena Star News, 4/18/1942, p.3.

[41]Mention of Stacey’s prize is made in Francis C. Bennett, editor, History of Music and Art in Illinois, ([Location unknown]: Societé Universelle Lyriquie, 1904), p. 515. It erroneously states the year was 1896; that year the prize was awarded to Sara Shewell Hayden (1862-1939) for Portrait of My Sister, illustrated with a sketch rendering in “Chicago Art On View. First Salon On The West Side,” Chicago Record, 3/7/1896, p.10. Stacey’s prize was announced in “The Arts,” Chicago Inter Ocean, 2/21/1897, Part. 3, p.27, and “Salon,” Arts For America, Central Art Association, Vol. 6, No. 7, March 1897, p.223.

[42]“Art and Artists,” Chicago Evening Post, 2/20/1897, p.10.

[43]The painting was illustrated in James S. Dickerson, “A Chicago Renaissance?,” Brush and Pencil, Vol. 1, No. 6, March 1898, p.188.

[44]“Honors Won By Chicago,” Chicago Times-Herald, 8/19/1900, part 2, p.5, and “Chicagoans Win The Lion’s Share,” Chicago American, 8/19/1900, p.42.

[45]“Celebrated Artists Engaged By The Tribune For Special Paintings of Kirmess Dancers,” “Mrs. Anna L. Stacey, Noted for Her Work,” Chicago Tribune, 1/10/1906, p.2.

[46]“1900,” Peter Hastings Falk, editor, Art Institute of Chicago, The Annual Exhibition Record, (Madison, CT: Sound View Press, 1990), pp.851, 854.

[47]All locations unknown.

[48]Op. cit., Bennett, History of Music and Art in Illinois, p.515. This prize was given at the Annual Exhibition of Chicago Artists at the Art Institute, and went to the best painting of the show, won by Adolph R. Shulz (1869-1963). The honorable mention went to the second best. Another newspaper article stated the prize was awarded the painting Ebb Tide, “Gain Shown In Art,” Daily Inter Ocean, 2/28/1900, p.4.

[49]It would be an almost certainty that that the first influence on her tonal work came from Leonard Ochtman. At the Pan-American Exposition both artist and teacher exhibited, Ochtman showing Moonlight Long Island Sound; The Solitary Road, and Early Winter in Connecticut. See Catalogue of the Exhibition of Fine Arts Pan-American Exposition, Buffalo, 1901, (Buffalo, NY: David Gray Publishers, 1901; Brewster, NY, Olana Gallery reprint, n.d.), pp.17, 37.

[50]For examples of her painting titles which reflect a new thematic exploration see op. cit., Falk, Art Institute of Chicago…, p.851, for the years 1900 through 1904.

[51]Op. cit., Chicago Record-Herald, 2/11/1902, p.7.

[52]Anna and John Franklin were among the earliest tenants at the artist residences Tree Studios. They moved in around 1898 and by 1920 when the building was sold had been there continuously for twenty-two years. Maude Martin Ellis, “Sale Of Studio Building Stirs Artists’ Colony,” Chicago Tribune, 11/29/1920, p.17. Despite threats of change, the building remained a residence for them and other artists.

[53]Louise Riedel, “Student Life at Delavan,” Brush and Pencil, Vol. 2, No.3, June 1898, pp.115-116.

[54]Op. cit., Brand, Pasadena Star-News, 2/5/1940, p.3.

[55]Op. cit., Chicago Daily News, 2/8/1902, p.14.

[56]See for example Lena M. McCauley, “Art and Artists,” Chicago Evening Post, 5/23/1903, p.14, 8/20/1904, p.9; 6/24/1905, p.8, respectively.

[57]Harriet Monroe, “One Man Shows Allow Wide Choice,” Chicago Tribune, 3/17/1912, part 2, p.5.

[58]The O’Briens Art Gallery Paintings By The Staceys, (Chicago: O’Brien Art Galleries, 1931), Ryerson Library, O’Briens Art Emporium scrapbook, pp.124-126.

[59]Lena M. McCauley, “Art and Artists,” Chicago Evening Post, 8/20/1904, p.9.

[60]“Art And Artists,” Chicago Evening Post, 2/17/1906, p.5. The Post article states they planned on being in Spain, most likely, where they were, then came back through Gloucester where they spent the remainder of the summer. Isabel McDougall, no article title, Sunday Chicago Record-Herald, 9/30/1906 in Art Institute of Chicago Scrapbooks, vol. 22, col. 3, p.60.

[61]Lena McCauley, “Art and Artists” Chicago Evening Post, 4/2/1910, p.6.

[62]Maude I. G. Oliver, “Gossip Of The Artists,” Chicago Record-Herald, 6/2/1912, sec. 5, p.4.

[63]Date taken from a 1914 painting signed and dated by the artist, in possession of the Illinois Historical Art Project.

[64]Lena M. McCauley, “Our Painters Afield,” The Chicago Evening Post Magazine of the Art World, 3/19/1929, p.10, and “Gossip,” 7/23/1929, p.2.

[65]Maude I. G. Oliver, “Among the Artists,” Chicago Record-Herald, 9/11/1910, part 7, p.4. They were in Bruges.

[66]James William Pattison, “Exhibitions In Chicago,” Fine Arts Journal, Vol. 25, February 1912, p.170.

[67]Edward G. Holden, “In the Field of Art: Bits of New England Beauty,” Chicago Tribune, 10/18/1903, p.57.

[68]Mae J. Evans, “What Chicago Artists Have Accomplished This Summer,” Sunday Inter Ocean, 9/13/1908, Magazine Section, p.2. See also Cape Ann Shore, 7/4/1908, p. 5. (The Cape Ann Shore, was a weekly newspaper that is no longer published). The Staceys “leased the house studio for another season.”

[69]For example the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts where she was accepted for the annual shows of 1908-1910, 1911, 1915, 1920, 1922, 1924, 1925; Albright-Knox Art Gallery, American Annual of 1910, and Corcoran Gallery of Art biennial 1910

[70]Lyme Historical Society, Florence Griswold Museum, exhibition brochures, 1924 through 1928.

[71]“Chicago Woman whom Three Artists are Portraying,” Chicago Sunday Tribune, 5/4/1902, Magazine section, p.2.

[72]Op. cit., Falk, The Annual Exhibition Record of the Art Institute of Chicago, p. 851.

[73]Op. cit., Merritt, Brush and Pencil, March 1902, p.341.

[74]Op. cit., Chicago Daily News, 2/8/1902, p.14.

[75]“Art and Artists,” Chicago Evening Post, 2/15/1902, p.4, and William Vernon, “Exposition Lesson for Lovers of Art,” Chicago American, 2/9/1902, p.8.

[76]Op. cit., Chicago Daily News, 2/8/1902, p.14.

[77]Henry Charles Payne, “Merits Of Pictures Shown At The Annual Exhibit By Chicago Artists,” Chicago Inter Ocean, 2/23/1902, Magazine section, p.10.

[78]Henry Charles Payne, “Pictures Good And Bad In The Chicago Artists’ Exhibit,” Chicago Inter Ocean, 3/2/1902, Magazine section, p.10. Payne later questions in the article the cause for why Anna’s work sold while other, equally good work did not.

[79]Chicago Evening News, 10/29/1902, p.4. “Annual Art Show Begins,” Chicago Chronicle, 11/2/1902, p.9. The Cahn prize award was one hundred dollars and given to the best painting by a Chicago artist. See also William Vernon, “Mrs. Anna L. Stacey Wins Martin B. Cahn Prize In Exhibition Of The Works Of Western Artists,” Chicago American, 10/29/1902, p.8.

[80]Op. cit., Chicago Chronicle, 11/2/1902, p.9.

[81]Op. cit., Chicago Chronicle, 11/2/1902, p.9.

[82]Op. cit., Chicago Chronicle, 11/2/1902, p.9.

[83]Op. cit., Chicago Chronicle, 11/2/1902, p.9.

[84]James William Pattison, “Pattison’s Art Talk,” Chicago Journal, 2/15/1902, p.4.

[85]Lena M. McCauley, “Art and Artists,” Chicago Evening Post, 2/4/1911, p.11.

[86]Op. cit., Holden, Chicago Tribune, 10/18/1903, p.57.

[87]Op. cit., Merritt, Brush and Pencil, March 1902, p.342.

[88]Op. cit., Monroe, Chicago Tribune, 3/17/1912, part 2, p.5.

[89]See the Sunday Chicago Record Herald, 3/5/1905, in Art Institute of Chicago scrapbooks, vol. 20, p.158. [Issues of the Sunday edition were not microfilmed by the Chicago Public Library]. Her one-man exhibition at the Art Institute included thirty-nine works that displayed this broad range in her palette. She painted Mount Vesuvius in “an afterglow…” and “an evening mist softens every outline.” Another painting was described as a “low-toned, tuneful canvas… veiled in [dark] purple beneath a gray sky.” Another work was described as “brilliant…with its steps of pink, red and white…” Another work was dominated by “Orange and yellow sails…” And finally, one piece “scintillates with color…” Speaking of her ability with tonalism critic George Breed Zug stated, “…there is a softness of tone, a harmony of color, a truthfulness to the mystery and the color of the hour… she gets the quality of the night, the appearance of the moonlight...” George Breed Zug, “Among the Art Galleries,” Sunday Inter Ocean, Magazine, 6/15/1913, p.5. Noted critic James Pattison aptly stated, the “twilight demands attention because of the courage with which she has painted almost no light.” James William Pattison “The Annual Exhibition of American Art,” Fine Arts Journal, Vol. 26, January 1912, p.36.

[90]Lena M. McCauley, “Art,” Chicago Evening Post, 11/16/1907, p.9 [after financial section]. This phrase was used to describe A Spanking Breeze (private collection, courtesy of Greenwich Gallery, Connecticut), which won the Marshall Field prize and was subsequently purchased by the Chicago Woman’s Club, later deaccessioned. It was also exhibited at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts.

[91]Op. cit., Ross, Pasadena Star News, 4/18/1942, p.3.