Viewing page 70 of 73

This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.

GERTRUDE VANDERBILT WHITNEY
(from National Cyclopedia of American Biography)

Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney, Sculptor, was born in New York City, daughter of Cornelius and Alice Claypoole (Gwynne) Vanderbilt and granddaughter of "Commodore" Cornelius Vanderbilt (q.v.), founder of the Vanderbilt fortune, and member of a family that has been established in America for nearly three centuries. Mrs. Whitney was educated by private tutors and at the Brearley school in New York and received her early training in sculpture under Hendrik C. Anderson and James E. Fraser and at the Art Students' League in New York City. Later she was a pupil of Andrew O'Connor and Rodin, in Paris. For ten years she devoted herself quietly, but intensively to her art without thought of exhibitions or possible commissions during which she perfected her technique and developed a style peculiarly her own. When she first began to exhibit, public appreciation of her craftsmanship came slowly, her wealth and social standing seeming to prevent serious and unbiased consideration of her work, but this condition gave way to a widespread admiration for her creative genius. She won her first recognition in 1908 in the competition known as the "project of the three arts," in which a prize, awarded by the Architectural League is given for the best design made in cooperation by an architect, a mural painter and a sculptor. In this instance the grouping was for an outdoor swimming pool, the general design being by Grosvenor Atterbury and the decorative panels by Hugo Ballin, while Mrs. Whitney's Sculpture

Transcription Notes:
per SI instructions truncated word completed on this page