Hattie Felton was the first person to catalog the works of 19th-century artist Anna Maria von Phul with the release of her book, More Than Ordinary, in 2021. This month, Felton, Missouri Historical Society director of curatorial affairs and curator of fine and decorative arts, continues cementing the legacy of the Missouri Territory’s earliest-known working woman artist with Painting Creole St. Louis, a new exhibition of von Phul’s art.
“I wanted to know that collection and that story inside and out. I read her letters and the newspaper clippings that I could find,” Felton says. “For me, it was just about immersing myself in the subject, and then the exhibition started to fall into place.”
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The exhibit, open May 7–January 8, 2023, at the Missouri History Museum, illustrates von Phul’s life and her experiences with the Creole population in early 19th-century St. Louis.
Von Phul spent the later years of her short life visiting siblings in St. Louis and Edwardsville, painting much of what she saw in the area. Though her works were once described as “cute” and “amateur,” today von Phul is finally being celebrated for her sketches and watercolors depicting landscapes, architecture, fashion, and social life in the lower Midwest.
“She had to know that she would never be a professional artist, that she would likely never make money off of her art in a big way, and yet that never held her back,” Felton says. “She just didn’t stop, and I find that so inspiring, to think that 200 years ago she was really being a groundbreaker in her own right.”
Felton believes that, when aided by this imagery, viewers can clearly envision a vivid landscape of what St. Louis was like during its shift from a simple territory to a cultural hub.
“I think we sometimes picture the 19th century as being sort of dusty or not colorful and vibrant, and her artwork really shows us that is far from the truth,” Felton says. “Her watercolors bring so much color and vibrancy to the world of early St. Louis. It’s one thing to read about it in written word; it’s another thing entirely to be able to look into the eyes of the people who walked the streets.”
More to See
Find more works by women in these museum collections.
Anna Maria von Phul is just one woman whose art has been overlooked. “It’s so important for us to know and acknowledge and pay tribute to the life and the experiences of women artists,” Felton says. “For so much of history, women artists have not gotten the same attention, study, or respect that their male counterparts have received, and there’s a movement now.” There are, however, several art spaces around the city where you can view works by female artists, past and present. At the Saint Louis Art Museum, visitors can find pieces from artists such as Rachel Whiteread, Edmonia Lewis, Anni Albers, Julie Mehretu, and Helen Frankenthaler, among others. For new and recent works, the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum will house Nicole Miller’s immersive installation A Sound, a Signal, the Circus through July 25, and the Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis is currently hosting three women-led exhibitions of works by Gala Porras-Kim, Martine Gutierrez, and Alia Farid.
