Style Imitating Art | “The Lovers” by Maude Kaufman Eggemeyer

vintage shawl, floral prairie dress, riding boots, bohemian style, thrifted style, preloved fashion, Shelbee on the Edge

About Style Imitating Art

Style Imitating Art is hosted by Salazar of 14 Shades of Grey, Shelbee of Shelbee on the Edge, and Marsha of Marsha in the Middle. Style Imitating Art challenges us to draw style inspiration from pieces of art. Every other Monday, one of the hosts, acting as presenter, selects an inspiration image that they will each post on their blogs. The following Monday, each host shares her art inspired outfit. Participants are invited to submit their art inspired outfits to the presenter by 10:00 p.m. EST on the Tuesday following the hosts’ art inspired outfit posts. The following day, Wednesday, the presenter will share all of the submissions on her blog.

You don’t have to be a blogger to join either! In fact, you don’t even have to join but you can still use the art to inspire an outfit just for the sake of trying something different. If you want to share your inspired outfit, we invite you do so on Instagram or any other social media platform that you prefer. Just be sure to tag Salazar, Shelbee, or Marsha or use #TeamLOTSStyle and #StyleImitatingArt so the hosts know you have joined. Go have some fun in your closets and join the SIA challenge next week!

This Week’s Presenter

Marsha chose this week’s artwork for the ethereal quality of the painting and she just loves the clothing from this era, too! In the 1960s, Marsha’s father-in-law bought an old trunk at auction which contained these two prints inside beautifully intricate wooden frames that have since crumbled away. But Marsha still has the prints and she is sharing them with us to inspire our sartorial interpretations this week.

The Artwork

“The Lovers” by Maude Kaufman Eggemeyer

About the Artist: Maude Kaufman Eggemeyer

Maude Lucretia Kaufman Eggemeyer was born in Newcastle, Indiana, on December 9, 1877, the daughter of architect William S. Kaufman. Maude first began her studies under her father’s instruction, eventually moving onto Earlham College and the Art Academy of Cincinnati, where she was the first woman to earn a scholarship in 1904. She studied a variety of disciplines under different artists including architecture, figure and portrait painting, Impressionist and landscape painting, and pottery.

Eggemeyer eventually became a versatile artist who is well known for her oil paintings of backyard gardens, landscapes, and still lifes as well as portrait painting. It became a common practice for Maude to travel to the homes of well known families in neighboring Ohio to paint their gardens. She first exhibited her works at the Richmond Art Association in 1906 and continued showing her art there every year through 1924. In 1910 and 1914, Eggemeyer was awarded the highly coveted Richmond Prize.

Maude was married to Elmer Eggemeyer, the postmaster of Richmond, Indiana. The couple shared a large bungalow house, which was designed by Maude and her father, on the northeast corner of South 18th and A Streets in Richmond. The home was designed with an attached studio where Maude painted. They also had a summer vacation home in Provincetown, Massachusetts, where Maude also enjoyed practicing her craft.

Following her husband’s suicide in 1931, Eggemeyer abruptly stopped painting and moved to her sister’s home in Asheville, North Carolina. In her later years, she did complete a series of charcoal drawings featuring men and women in colonial styles. These drawings were reproduced as hand-colored prints and became commercially successful. In 1959, Maude Eggemeyer died in Asheville, North Carolina, at the age of 81. Her body is interred in the Kaufman family plot at Earlham Cemetery in Richmond, Indiana.

Many of Maude Kaufman Eggemeyer’s surviving works are held in private collections and museums, mostly in the area of Indiana.

About the Art: “The Lovers”

I could not find very much information about these particular prints online. However, I do think they might be the result of Eggemeyer’s later in life charcoal drawings that were reproduced as hand-colored prints. The little information that I could dig up indicate that these were created in the 1930s. I am guessing probably the late 1930s since she grief quit painting in 1931.

In my search, I also discovered that this set of prints has many different names including “The Lovers”, “Fancy Couple”, “Courting Couple”, and “Couple Flirting”. I have also seen it in a variety of different color palettes. In our version, the woman’s dress appears pale blue while the man’s outfit includes a brown jacket with a yellow waistcoat and white trousers. I have seen other versions where the woman’s dress is pink or yellow and the man is wearing yellow pants or an orange jacket.

Marsha’s particular prints are mounted on paper which has discolored over the years. Her actual prints measure 8.5 x 13.25 in (21.6 x 33.7 cm).

References/Resources

About My Outfit

When I first saw Marsha’s choice of artwork, it immediately reminded me of these vintage prints by Besse Pease Gutmann. This set of hand-colored prints, which feature a little girl sharing her ice cream cone with her dog and getting reprimanded for it, hung in my grandmother’s living room when I was a little girl. I always loved these pictures and I was lucky enough to inherit them. Now they hang on my living room wall still in their original oval frames. They are from the same era as our Lovers, circa 1930s, and also by a female American painter. So the connection makes sense to me.

Because today’s artwork reminded me of the prints I inherited from my grandmother, I decided to start my outfit with the beautiful Wedgwood blue wool shawl that I also inherited from my grandmother. She made it herself and whenever I wear it I have such beautifully fond childhood memories. I always have to share this photo of Grammy wearing her shawl outside of church about 48 years ago. Yes, that’s toddler Shelbee holding her hand wearing another one of her handmade creations, a bright orange and white poncho.

Gahhh. I really do love that photo. It is one of my favorites ever. I also inherited the most amazing hat collection from my grandmother. She loved hats almost as much as I do. I guess I inherited my hat obsession from her. Sadly, her collection has been lost to time and space and I know not where it ended up for eternity. It makes me a little sad, but I have much more than overcompensated for the loss with my own very extensive personal hat collection which has been carefully curated over decades.

Speaking of hats. Of course, I was going to style a hat with this outfit for a number of reasons. One being that I almost always wear a hat. But also if there is the image of a person wearing a hat in the chosen artwork, I will most definitely also be wearing a hat. Before I even figured out my dress, I knew that my white cloche hat with the purple ribbon was the perfect way to represent the woman’s bonnet.

Next I scoured my dress collection hoping that something would magically appear. And it did. I can’t remember when I bought this floral prairie dress, I think it was rather recently, but I had forgotten about it as often happens when you have too many clothes. When I look the prints of “The Lovers”, I see lots of pale greens and light blues and the colors and style of this dress really felt right for this artwork.

I draped this thrifted scarf around my neck and I chose my earrings and necklace simply because the colors coordinated well. The scarf’s tan gauzy fabric with the red and pink embroidered flowers reminded me of the bow detail along the hem of the woman’s dress. Finally, I added a brown belt and brown riding boots to pay some respect to the gentleman half of this fancy couple.

I was really happy to rediscover this new dress and was quite pleased with my outfit. I hope you have enjoyed my sartorial interpretation of these vintage prints and feel inspired to play along! Be sure to check out Marsha’s interpretation of the artwork as well as Salazar’s take on it.

If you want to participate in this challenge and create your own outfit inspired by “The Lovers”, please submit your photos to Marsha (mlrbanks57@gmail.com) by 10:00 p.m. EST on Tuesday, October 22, 2024, and she will feature your outfit in her style gallery on Wednesday, October 23, 2024.

Until then, happy styling!