“Strawberry Maple” by Dorothy Stanley Emmons Whitchurch. Oil on Canvas. Stanley Museum Collection.
We are pleased to report that the Stanley Museum has received a donation of two original oil paintings by Dorothy Stanley Emmons, daughter of Chansonetta and niece to the Stanley Brothers. The paintings were donated to the Museum by Lucille Treamer Burgess of Cape Elizabeth, Me. Mrs. Burgess, now 89, had contacted the Stanley Museum years ago about donating the paintings to the Museum as she wanted them to go back to Kingfield.
The first painting is entitled Strawberry Maple and is signed Dorothy S.E. Whitchurch, dating it between 1947-1960. Oil on canvas, measuring about 24″ x 25″, it depicts a Fall scene, thought to be Vose Mountain near Kingfield. It is a lot more colorful than the other examples of her work at the Museum.
The second of the two Dorothy Stanley Emmons paintings donated to the Museum is a city scene entitled Old Gate, Charleston, S.C. Oil on Artists’ Board, measuring
“Old Gate, Charleston, S.C.” by Dorothy Stanley Emmons. Circa 1926-7. Oil on Artists’ Board. Stanley Museum Collection.
approx. 14″ x 12″ the painting depicts a large wrought iron gate in Market Square in Charleston with a church steeple and other buildings in the background. There is an exhibition label on the back from the Spring Exhibition of 1927 of the Portland (Me.) Society of Art, which dates the painting to 1926/27 following Dorothy & Chansonetta’s Carolina trip in 1926. This painting is a particularly welcome addition to our collection, as we did not have a Carolina painting at the Museum, nor did we have any cityscapes represented.
The paintings came with a fascinating historical provenance supplied by the donor. To illustrate her tale, Mrs. Burgess pulled out a copy of the new edition of the Museum’s publication of Chansonetta’s The Old Table Chair. Lucille, it turns out, is the daughter of Nellie Gray Walker of New Portland, Me., who was photographed by Chansonetta in Old Table Chair No. 4. Nellie was the younger sister of Villa Walker True, captured by Chansonetta in Old Table Chair No. 3. Villa, known in the family as “Aunt Vi,” was a cousin of Augusta Walker Stanley. (Augusta was Mrs. F.E. Stanley. Two other cousins, Emma Walker and John Allen, were long-time Stanley employees.)
Chansonetta and Dorothy spent several summers at the True Homestead (the setting for The Old Table Chair), and Dorothy gave the paintings to “Aunt Vi.” The paintings passed down to Villa’s daughter, Hazel True Newman, who you may remember was the subject of another famous Chansonetta photo, “Feeding the Hens.” When Hazel died in Farmington, Me., the paintings went to Nellie (Lucille’s mom) who was actually Hazel’s aunt although they were nearly the same age. Nellie had married Harold W. Treamer, a WWI veteran and railroad agent, and they settled in Lynnfield, Mass. During the research for The Old Table Chair we had traced Nellie as far as Lynnfield. Lucille brought the story – and the paintings – up to the present day.
After accepting the two paintings for the Museum, I met with Cathleen Miller, the Curator of the Maine Women Writers Collection, and Stanley Museum Trustee Cally Gurley, the Director of Special Collections at the University of New England, and we spent some time looking at the Chansonetta inventory for possible other images of the Market Square gate. Cathleen and Cally came up with a Chansonetta glass lantern slide of the same gate, taken from the opposite side. Compare this view with the painting.
I also recalled a Christmas card design from a scrapbook collection of Dorothy’s that I inventoried several years ago, and found that it matched the scene in the painting almost exactly.
We at the Stanley Museum are indebted to Mrs. Burgess for these wonderful additions to Stanley art and history.
Christmas Card Design, Dorothy Stanley Emmons Whitchurch. Circa 1950.
“Market Square Gate, Charleston, S.C.” Photograph by Chansonetta Stanley Emmons, circa 1926. Hand-colored Glass Lantern Slide. Stanley Museum Collection.
Stanley Museum 