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Genève Rixford Sargeant
(1868-1957)
Genève Rixford was born on July 14, 1868, in San Francisco, California. She was the sister of the artist Caroline P. Rixford, artist/architect Loring P. Rixford, and noted physician Emmett Rixford. Genève began her art studies at the San Francisco Art Association’s California School of Design under Emil Carlsen; she then studied at the Art Students League in New York under William Merritt Chase. Returning to San Francisco in 1891, she established her own studio and two years later on February 10, 1893, she married Winthrop W. Sargeant and had three sons.
Around 1900, the family spent several years living in Chicago, Illinois, where she exhibited and was awarded the Martin B. Cahn prize in 1903 from the Chicago Art Institute. They returned to California in 1904 and settled in Monterey. From 1906 to 1911, she lived in Southern Californiawher she managed an orange ranch in the San Fernando Valley; during this period she painted many scenes of her young boys playing outside . After 1911, the family returned to San Francisco and then around 1925 moved to Paris, France. During the next five-year period, she studied with the artist André Lhote and her work was included in the Salon exhibitions of the Société des Artistes Français, the Salon d’Automne, the Salon du Printemps, and the newly formed Salon des Indépendants. Upon her return to California, she exhibited her lithographs for the first time with exhibitions at the Braxton Gallery and at Jake Zeitlin’s Bookshop and Gallery, both in Los Angeles.
After her return to San Francisco in the 1930s, she established a studio and then taught at the School of Fine Arts and served as the director of the SF Art Association for six years. Her work includes portraits, landscapes,, still lifes, and figures in watercolor, oils, pastel, and lithography.
Genève exhibited her work extensively in many venues throughout her lifetime in California and nationally. A retrospective of her work from 1887 to 1947 was seen in the exhibition Sixty Years of Painting: A Retrospective Exhibition of the Work of Genève Rixford Sargeant, which was held at the M. H. de Young Memorial Museum in San Francisco in 1948.
Genève Rixford Sargeant was a highly respected artist in the San Francisco art scene until her death. She passed away on August 10, 1957, in Palo Alto, California.
Exhibited: San Francisco Art Association, 1893-1927 (1st prize); Sketch Club, San Francisco, 1894-1914; California State Fair, 1899, 1930; Art Institute of Chicago, 1903 (prize); Pan-Pacific International Exposition, 1915; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1919; Paris Salon, 1919; Beaux Arts Gallery, San Francisco, 1927; Santa Cruz Art League, 1932 (1st prize); Gump's, San Francisco, 1932; California Palace of the Legion of Honor, 1933, 1934 (solo); Delphic Studio, New York, 1932, 1936; San Francisco Museum of Art, 1935, 1939 (solo); California-Pacific Exposition, San Diego, 1935; Golden Gate International Exposition, 1939; De Young Museum, 1948 (solo).
Works held: San Francisco Museum of Art; California Palace of the Legion of Honor, SF; Mills College, Oakland; de Young Museum; San Diego Museum of Art; the Neville-Strass Collection, Florida; and the Virginia Museum of Fine Art, Richmond, Virginia.
Sources:
American Art Annual 1919; California Art Research; Who's Who in American Art 1938-53.
St. Gaudens, Maurine. Emerging from the Shadows: A Survey of Women Artists Working in California, 1860-1960. Vol. 4. 2015. Print.
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