Hadfield Fine Arts, LTD

 

 

Winterham Plantation Bed and Breakfast in Amelia County (11441 Grub Hill Church Rd.) is also a gallery for Hadfield Fine Arts, Ltd.  The fine Italianate Jefferson family home was built about 1855.  It has been restored by Dr. M. Gary Hadfield and his wife, Kathleen, and was opened in 2003 for bed and breakfast lodging, weddings and special events.

 

The walls are hung with paintings and prints from around the world, but principally American and Euorpean works from mid 19th to mid 20th centuries.  The collection ranges from traditional to modern and from obscure to well known artists.  There are also beautiful photographs and textiles, sculptures and objects d'art. The full inventory consists of about 600 items.

 

Kathleen holds a BA degree in anthropology from the University of Utah and has done post-graduate work in art history and archeology at Columbia University and Hunter College in New York City.  She was a staff member of the American Archeological Expedition to Hebron (Jordan) during the summer of 1966.

 

Besides her postgraduate studies in N.Y., two opportunities stimulated Kathleen's interest in Art and Art History.  Kathleen catalogued the private collection of Mr. Charles Bolles Rogers, which was housed in his Ritz Tower apartment at Park Avenue and 57th Street in Manhattan.  As a young mother, she worked for Spanierman Gallery, off Madison Avenue, and since moving to Virginia in 1972, has continued her work as an art dealer--first scouting out exceptional paintings for Ira Spanierman, and eventually establishing her own business.

 

Kathleen has worked to promote historic preservation in Amelia.  Dykeland, the Hadfield residence for almost 40 years, and Winterham are both on the National Register of Historic Places, as is a third home in Provo, Utah.  Mrs. Hadfield authored Amelia County Buildings Survey in 1979 as a major preservation effort to help prevent the historic homes from being torched and bulldozed.  The county history, Historic Notes on Amelia County, VA (1982), which she co-edited, concludes with a chapter pleading for preservation.

 

In Kathleen's view, art is an indispensable part of life that should be accessible to all, from the new collector to the connoisseur.  Accordingly, prices range from under $100 on up to several thousand dollars.  Her gallery provides a resource for students, collectors and decorators.

 

Hadfield Fine Arts Gallery at Winterham Plantation sponsors occasional shows for the public but may also be visited by appointment.  Please call Kathleen Hadfield at (804) 561-3492 or (804) 3102914 (cell) to arrange an appointment. 

 

The women artists represented at Winterham Plantation lived in towns and cities from the East Coast to California and from Texas to Canada.  They represent every decade of the "American Century."  Some were born in the 19th century and were practicing their artistry during the desperate years between the World Wars.

 

The needlework pictures hearken back to an era when a yonng woman's samplers were put on proud display for her suitors to admire.  These meticulously wrought images, sometimes incorporating wise sayings, are as calming to our 21st century sensibilities as they were to their creators.  Many of the paintings are small in scale and were probably done for family and friends when the commodification of art had not yet become pervasive.

 

Although some women were able to devote their full time and energies to art--for example, the incomparable Georgia O'Keefe--most women artists had other commitments to fulfill.  They were wives and mothers and oftentimes teachers.  One of our artists, Blanche Emily Colman, was a founder/director of the art department at Boston University, from 1919--1932.  Our featured artist, Kathy Stewart, is presently principal of the Amelia County Elementary School.  Edith Purer was unique in that she was an ecologist and artist, as well.  Her learned papers address the scientific realitites of the desert, and her paintings evoke her love of the dramatic Califnornia desertscapes.

 

In this art show, representational images predominate: landscapes, still lifes, flowers and portraits, but there are also charming naive works, Native American works--and at the opposite end of the spectrum, the very sophisticated modernist works by Pearl Hardaway, a student of Hans Hoffman.  The "Casbah" painting by California artist, Cornelia Hart (1927), the "Lacemaker" photography be Beverly Schwartz and the Venetian Canal oil by Diane Cannon, remind us that some of the artists were well traveled.

 

We feel it is unfailingly interesting to contemplate how the artistic impulse has been called forth in such divers and winning ways by women from all across America.  Enjoy!

 

Kathleen Halverson Hadfield

Amelia, VA--June, 2010

 

 

 

LIST OF ARTISTS

 

Anderson, Betsy

Anderson, Winnie

Blaine, Nell

Blanton, Lucy

Bradley, Ruth

Briggs, Shirley

Bright, P.J.M.

Brown, Mary Bolling

Candler, Marilyn

Cannon, Diane

Cassat, Mary

Cole, Ann

Collins, Linna

Colman, Blanche Emily

Cramer, Margret

Dietz Marilyn J.

Dowden, Anne Ophelia Todd

Dudley, Mary Herron

Elasky, Gloria

Fairbanks, Delma

Ferguson, Gloria

Ferguson, Lillian Prest

Ford, L.W. Neilson

Forsberg, Norma

Frazer, Mabel Pearl, attributed to

Gandee, Kathleen

Green, Mildred

Guillot, Ann

Hadfield, Laura

Hart, Cornelia

Hardaway, Pearl

Hermann, Eva

Holcroft, Lorna

Hungerford, Julia

Irwin, Mary

Lindquist, M.L.

Palmer, Ruth Ellen

Sarah

Schultz, Beverly

Steele, Sandra

Swartz, Elisabeth

Tave, Georgette

Taylor, Dorothy

Terbush, Ann

Trimble, Leigh Lewis

Tullock, Harriet, E.E.

Ulley, Jane

Wakeham, Susan

Walker, M. Mulford

Warren, Elizabeth Boardman

Wyeth, Henrietta

Weiser, Hannah Jeter

West, Anne Warner

Zada-Folz Evans