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San Francisco Society of Women Artists
SFAI.021
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Title: San Francisco Society of Women Artists
Dates: 1895-1960
Collection Number: SFAI.021
Creator/Collector:
Sketch Club (San Francisco, Calif.)
San Francisco Society of Women Artists
San Francisco Women Artists
San Francisco Society of Artists
Extent: One document box (containing 16 folders), approximately 0.46 linear feet.
Repository:
San Francisco Art Institute Archive
San Francisco, California 94105
Abstract: This is a collection of materials related to the San Francisco Society of Women Artists (from 1946 through this writing known
as the San Francisco Women Artists). The group has its origins in the Sketch Club, founded in 1887 by nine women who were
former California School of Design students. The Sketch Club briefly merged with the San Francisco Society of Artists in 1914,
which then became part of the San Francisco Art Association in 1915. The San Francisco Society of Women Artists splintered
off as their own group in 1925. Material in this collection spans all of these eras and includes scattered catalogs from the
annual and semi-annual art exhibits of the Sketch Club and the San Francisco Society of Women Artists, as well as administrative
materials, letters, announcements, bulletins, news clippings, receipts, bank books, treasurer's reports and some scattered
membership information dating from 1895 through 1960.
Language of Material: English
The collection is open for research use.
[Identification of item]. San Francisco Society of Women Artists. Collection Number: SFAI.021. San Francisco Art Institute
Archive
Biography/Administrative History
The San Francisco Society of Women Artists (later San Francisco Women Artists) is one of California’s oldest arts organizations;
its roots originate in the 1887 founding of the Sketch Club. The Sketch Club was started as an art association for women artists
by nine former California School of Design (later the San Francisco Art Institute) students, including Josephine Hyde, Nellie
Treat, Nellie Stearns Goodloe, and Lucia Mathews. Preceding the founding of the Sketch Club, a pioneering exhibition of all-woman
artists was hosted by the California School of Design in December 1885. The San Francisco Women Artists mark this exhibition
as the beginning of their story. In her essay, “Searching for Selfhood: Women Artists of Northern California,” in Independent
Spirits: Women Artists of the American West, Susan Landauer (UC Press: 1995) describes the Sketch Club as San Francisco women
artists’ response to the all male Bohemian Club. Landauer also notes that it is fitting the West Coast, and the California
School of Design in particular, would give rise to one of the first all-women arts organizations: From the time it was opened
in 1874, the California School of Design included women as members, and of the sixty students in the first class of enrollees,
46 were women.
From its founding in 1887, the Sketch Club hosted semi-annual art exhibits featuring member art, monthly lectures, and weekly
sketching trips. The club’s headquarters was destroyed in San Francisco’s 1906 earthquake and fire, and in the aftermath the
Sketch Club merged with other organizations and began including men artists in exhibitions and as full members and officers
(previously men were limited to participating as associate members). In 1914 the membership of the Sketch Club officially
voted to merge into the San Francisco Society of Artists, which quickly then became part of the San Francisco Art Association
in 1915.
On January 8, 1925, Eleanor Treat gathered together a small group of women from the San Francisco Art Association to discuss
reforming a women-only organization in the spirit of the Sketch Club. From that meeting, they formed the San Francisco Society
of Women Artists on February 12, 1925 with Eva Almond Withrow as president and Eleanor Treat and Elizabeth Norton as vice
presidents. Other officers and directors included Florence Ingalsbe Tufts, Amy Dewing Flemming, E. Shotwell Goeller, Alice
B. Chittenden, Helen Forbes, Almira Judson, Lucia Mathews, and F. W. Vaughan. In 1931, Frida Kahlo (listed under the name
Senora Frieda Rivera) exhibited her painting “Frieda and Diego Rivera” at the "Sixth Annual Exhibition of the San Francisco
Society of Women Artists," the first public showing of Kahlo's work. In 1946, the group shortened its name to San Francisco
Women Artists (though this change is not consistently reflected in news reports about the group in the early years of the
change).
Scope and Content of Collection
The collection consists of one document box containing 16 folders, about 0.46 linear feet. The earliest item is a Sketch Club
exhibition catalog from 1895 and the most recent item is a catalog from a San Francisco Women Artists exhibition in 1960.
From the Sketch Club (1887-1914) days, the bulk of the collection includes exhibition catalogs for the years 1895, 1899, 1907-1910
and 1912 as well as administrative documents like treasurers reports, receipts, and corresponding secretary notes from 1906-1911.
There is also a folder of correspondence, postcards of special events, and members lists.
From the San Francisco Society of Artists (1914-1916) days the collection includes copies of letters and minutes from the
Art Association and from newspapers that shed light on the Sketch Club’s merger with the San Francisco Society of Artists
in 1914 and their merger with the Art Association in 1915. It also includes letters of relevance to the merger from 1916.
From the San Francisco Society of Women Artists (1925-1946) and San Francisco Women Artist (1946-) days, the collection includes
material from the founding of the San Francisco Society of Women Artists, including a copy of the constitution and by laws.
It includes exhibition catalogs from 1932, 1945, 1947-1950, 1952, 1955, and 1959-1960 and bulletins from 1930-1931 and 1947-1951.
The collection includes correspondence spanning 1931-1948, including a flurry of letters about the construction of the Bay
Bridge and another that grapples with the group's membership in the San Francisco Art Association.
All of the folders are organized by category and material is chronological within folders.
Women and the arts
Arts
–History
Art
–Societies
Art
–Exhibitions
Art
Armer, Ruth, 1896-1977
Bothwell, Dorr
Chittenden, Alice Brown, 1859 or 1860-1944
Cunningham, Imogen, 1883-1976
Dumas, Mary A. E., 1824-1901
Hyde, Helen, 1868-1919
Mathews, Lucia Kleinhans, 1870-1955
McComas, Francis John, 1874-1938
Packard, Emmy Lou, 1914-1998
Treat, Eleanor
Winthrow, Eva Almond
Sketch Club (San Francisco, Calif.)
San Francisco Society of Women Artists
San Francisco Women Artists
San Francisco Society of Artists
San Francisco (Calif.)