In a collaborative celebration of Women’s History Month with the Marion Art Center and the Sippican Historical Society, Tabor Academy is pleased to host a gallery talk and book signing on March 1 at 2:00 pm in Tabor’s Hayden Library on Spring Street.
Wendy Todd Bidstrup will give a gallery talk and share stories of an accomplished local woman artist, Cecil Clark Davis, and her own experiences uncovering the life of this award-winning portrait artist. While she talks, guests may tour and view over 12of Davis’ portraits, the largest single collection of her work. All are welcome to this free event.
Wendy Todd Bidstrup has been fascinated with local painter Cecil Clark Davis since she first came to Marion over 40 years ago to Tabor Academy with her husband, Larry, a history teacher. In Lillard Hall, the school displayed many of Davis’ portraits of well-known people like Charles Lindberg, actor Lionel Barrymore and explorer Raold Amundsen, but no one seemed to know much of the story of the artist, or why Tabor Academy seemed to have such an extensive collection of her work. When she learned Davis was a local woman who had lived on Water Street, Bidstrup became determined to find out more and set to work on what has since become a passion to memorialize Cecil Clark Davis and celebrate her work.
Running down leads and contacts over the years, Bidstrup acquired Cecil Clark Davis’ dairies, letters, photographs, a guest book, address book and other personal effects. This treasure trove opened intriguing questions that continued to pique Bidstrup’s interest: “Who was Walter Damrosch, and why was Ethel Barrymore maid of honor at both weddings of Richard Harding Davis?” The puzzle took years to put together, but it is now complete with the publishing of her book, which Bidstrup says provides a “reflection of a time and place in American history through the eyes of Cecil and her peers in letters, diaries, and commentaries of the day.”
Pleasant Rowland, creator of the American Girl Collection and a friend of Bidstrup, had this to say, “The book is full of marvelous photographs and of original Gibson Girl illustrations which depict the life that many women of high social standing lived. But Cecil was not just a beautiful socialite. She was a portrait painter of significance, had a most unusual marriage and divorce to Richard Harding Davis, a dashingly handsome man, the model for the men in Charles Dana Gibson’s illustrations. She travelled to Africa and China with him. Her circle of friends included Ethel Barrymore, John Singer Sargent, Booker T. Washington and Teddy Roosevelt. It is a story of the self-actualization of a woman living through times of great change for women, much like the evolution of the women in Downtown Abbey over the same decades.”
We hope the public will join in this unique opportunity to see the portraits and hear the stories of the life and times of Cecil Clark Davis. Interested townspeople may also enjoy a visit to the Marion Art Center to view their permanent collection of 12 different portraits by Davis during their gallery hours: Tuesday – Friday 1:00 to 5:00 pm and Saturdays from 10:00 am to 2:00 pm.