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Peggy Bacon
American (1895-1987)
Peggy Bacon was born in Ridgefield, Connecticut in 1895 to two painters: Charles Rosewell Bacon and Elizabeth Chase. As a result of her parents' occupations, much of Peggy's childhood revolved around the constant hunt for new painting locations in Nassau, France, New Hampshire and London, all the while being exposed to other painters and members of the art community.
By 1914 Peggy Bacon had begun to pursue a professional career in art, joining the Art Student's League, a group to which she would belong for the next six years. By 1919 she began to make drypoints that often reflected realist influence of her teachers George Bellows and John Sloan but her flattened forms and hardened contours indicated a more modern and abstract approach to art.
After marrying fellow Art Student's League member Alexander Brook, Bacon and Brook split their time between Provincetown, Rhode Island and Greenwich Village in New York City where they became valued members of the Woodstock art colony.
During the 1920s, Bacon held several one-woman shows in New York while also illustrating children's books. Much of her work was satirical and lighthearted and frequently commented on the New York art world. She also illustrated many ordinary events in the lives of city people, frequently giving these pieces a wry twist. Her satirical work culminated in 1934 with the Guggenheim Museum sponsoring her publishing a book entitled, "Off with Their Heads" that featured caricatures of prominent individuals. The great success of the book rocketed her to the forefront of modern satiric art but she ignored the increase in demand for her caricatures as she found them to be a hurtful theme.
Bacon remained successful for the rest of her career, eventually joining a group of New York artists under the aegis of Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney. Although she divorced her husband in 1940, Bacon continued to paint and took up writing. In 1953 she won the Edgar Allen Poe Mystery Award, given in recognition of the novel of the year, for her work The Inward Eye. Bacon retired to Cape Porpoise, Maine, and spent the rest of her days near her son, Alexander.
Information courtesy of: www.askart.com
The Columbus Museum of Art, Georgia
