Untitled (Woman at Writing Desk)
From the small Midwestern town of Zanesville, Ohio, Edgar Rupprecht studied at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Among the distinguished faculty, he received instruction from Karl Albert Buehr, a vehemently traditional artist whose works are also in the Union League Collection. Rupprecht’s success was swift. He exhibited widely and became a professor at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, as well as a founding faculty member at Oxbow, the School’s summer program established in Saugatuck Michigan.
Rupprecht served as a private during World War I and was wounded in August 1918, but to what extent is unknown. The local newspapers reported him simply as "wounded." Returning to the United States, he assumed the position of assistant to Frederick Fursman, the Director of Ox Bow. In 1920, he met and married Ox Bow student Isobel Steele MacKinnon. With his reputation at its height, in 1925 he and Isobel left Chicago for Munich, where he fell under the influence of the famous painter Hans Hofmann at the Schule für Bildenes Kunst (School for Modern Art). The two worked closely together. Outside of Munich, Rupprecht expanded his relationship with Hofman by both teaching summer school in Capri and Saint Tropez. In 1929, Edgar and Isobel lived in Paris, and enjoyed the lively artistic society. Bourgeoning financial troubles forced them to return home to Chicago, where they rekindled their artistic life and successful careers.
The provenance of Woman at a Writing Desk reads like a detective story. When it arrived at the Union League Club in the late 1930s, no one knew it existed because it had been hidden underneath the canvas of another painting of his in the Union League Collection: The Summer Visitor. In 1987, the Summer Visitor required restoration and was removed from its stretcher. The Conservator was stunned to discover another painting beneath the canvas---the Woman at the Writing Desk! According to Rupprecht’s daughter Elizabeth, her father, absent-minded and frugal, on occasion re-purposed stretchers by wrapping another piece of canvas over the first, thereby saving to buy another stretcher. Interestingly, Elizabeth (Betsy) was also an artist. She was born in Paris and became professor at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and directed the Ox Bow Summer School from 1958-1963.
The Woman at the Writing Desk offers an intimate view into Rupprecht’s life. It shows his wife Isobel sketching her cat Ghosty, who seems to watch his portrait in progress. Rupprecht reveals Isobel’s creamy white shoulders by the seductive low drape of her silk dressing gown. He interspersed the scene with quotidian yet personal objects such as the small oval picture resting on the window ledge. Upon closer look, a female figure appears within the frame. A bright orange-plumed quill pen inserted into an ink well sits on Isobel’s desk. A dark orange lamp, a candelabra, and wall of windows provide required light for an artist at work. The sun-filled room is the Rupprecht apartment at the famed Tree Studios, an artist’s colony located at 4 East Ohio Street in Chicago.
