MARGUERITE KIRMSE
Connecticut/United Kingdom, 1885-1954
Portrait of a spaniel. Signed and dated lower right "Marguerite Kirmse 1925".
Pastel on paper, 11.5" x 13.5" sight. Framed 18" x 20".
Provenance:
Arthur Acklerman & Sons, New York (label verso).

Marguerite Kirmse displayed an early talent for music and studied the harp at the Royal Academy of Music in London. She was also fond of animals, spending a lot of her free time at the London Zoo, and she adeptly captured their likenesses on paper.
In the summer of 1910 she moved to the U.S. to establish her music career, but while she never made it as a professional harpist, her artwork was discovered by noted New York dealer Arthur Harlow, who organized a show of her etchings and drawings of dogs and horses. Kirmse would go on to become one of the most popular artists of her time, executing pencil sketches, pastels, oils, sculptures and at least 82 etchings. In 1935 Derrydale Press published Kirme’s study of sporting dogs, Dogs in the Field.

Light toning to edges.