Robbins Hunter, Jr., called this painting his most important piece. Looking at her, it is easy to understand why. The strong pyramidal shape, with the lighting focused on her neck and shoulders, the vivid blue of her wrap and the delicate lace of her dress, all against a dark background, Emma Stewart gazes directly and intently at the viewer and, by extension, the artist. Her complexion, with a delicate, feminine blush on her cheeks, suggests her youth and recalls the first blush of love. That the subject was the bride of the artist, and it was painted shortly after their marriage, makes the viewer feel an intimate sense of the couple’s affection for one another.
Mary Emma Stewart (1835-1889), known throughout her life as Emma, was the first wife of an artist with the wonderful name of Eliphalet Frazer Andrews. The couple was married in 1857, when they were both 22 years old: Emma was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in 1835 and Andrews was born in Steubenville, Ohio in 1835. He graduated from Marietta College and the Royal Prussian Academy in Berlin and finished his studies at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris before returning to Ohio where the couple married.
Following the election of Andrews’ friend Rutherford B. Hayes to the presidency in 1877, the couple moved to Washington, D.C.
Most noted as a portrait painter, several of his images are now in the White House, including posthumous full-length portraits of Martha Washington, Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Johnson. Other portraits hang in the Capitol Building. Andrews did not limit himself to portraits, and fourteen of his paintings, including interior and nature studies, as well as landscapes, are held by the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, D.C. The images came to the Smithsonian’s Renwick Gallery (formerly the Corcoran Gallery of Art) after the Corcoran was dissolved in 2014 by court order.
Andrews’ connection to the Corcoran came about in 1878 when he was hired by William Wilson Corcoran to establish what would become the Corcoran School of Art and design, a post he held until 1902. Originally, Andrews taught students visiting the Corcoran Gallery. Corcoran, realizing the importance of what Andrews was doing, donated the funding to formally establish the school which was to be associated with the gallery. The school was founded for the purpose of “encouraging American Genius.” After Corcoran’s death in 1888, a small building was built for the expressed purpose of housing the school. Under Andrews’ tenure, the school greatly expanded the scope of the Corcoran Gallery of Art, the oldest and largest non-federal art museum in Washington, through the encouragement of young, talented artists. Many of the “new” artists’ paintings were accessioned into the collections of the Gallery.
In 1902, Andrews then became the director of the Corcoran Gallery of Art, which had become a major center of American art, both historic and contemporary. With its extensive collection of 18th, 19th, and early 20th century American art, the Gallery represented the most significant American artists but it also had a fine collection of European art. Andrews continued Corcoran’s philosophy of encouraging modern and American artists by showing and purchasing their work. Andrews began the Corcoran’s “Biennial” exhibitions, which highlighted young artists.
You can enjoy seeing Emma Stewart beginning in April when the museum will open the exhibition “A Collection of Treasures.” Interestingly, another painting will hang in the exhibition that has a direct relationship to Andrews and the Corcoran. It is the museum’s Carl Springer untitled snow scene. This painting was exhibited at the Corcoran Gallery Biennial in 1916, a year after Andrews’ death. Whether the two men knew one another is a puzzle currently being researched.
Plaque on back of Carl Springer snow scene
Emma Stewart Andrews died in 1889 and was buried in Steubenville. E.F. Andrews died in 1915, his body was returned to Ohio, where he was buried in Steubenville beside Emma.