 Julia Hart Beers Kempson is primarily known as Julie Hart Beers
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Biography from AskART:
| The following biographical data about the family background of Julie
Beers was submitted January 2006 by Marianne Brush (Mrs. Walton Brush),
the great, great granddaughter of the artist, Julie Beers.
In the beginning there is Daniel Robertson, born 5-30-1769. He
had a daughter named Marion Robertson, born 10-7-1792. This
Marion Robertson married James Hart, (born 3-28-1788) on
7-16-1811. They produced ten children.....James, William
and Julia Fenn (born 12-28-1834) among them. Julia was the last
and the only one born in America. The rest were all born in
Scotland.
Julia changed the spelling of her name to Julie and dropped the Fenn
entirely because she felt it was too foreign. The family settled
first in Pittsfield, Mass. and later lived in Albany, N. Y. There Julie
Hart married, on 1-13-1853, a journalist named George Washington
Beers. They had two daughters......Marion Robertson Beers, born
12-8-1853, called "Minnie" and Kathryn Schrieber Beers, called "Kitty",
born 7-12-1856.
George W. Beers died in 1856 leaving Julie Hart Beers a very
young widow of twenty-two with two very young daughters. Julie
Hart Beers was a lively, talented and beautiful woman. We
have photographs of her from all stages of her life and she remained
lovely up until her death on 8-13-1913 at the age of 78.
Most of the photos were of her at her easel.
After the death of her husband, George Washington Beers, she moved to
New York. Her brother, William, lived in Brooklyn, but she set up
housekeeping in a studio in the Dodsworth Building with the two little
girls. It was quite Bohemian of her but apparently they had a
wonderful time. The family has many tales to tell...and they
do....of life in those days.
Julie Hart Beers supported herself and Minnie and Kitty by taking
groups of young ladies on extensive Painting Trips. They traveled
up and down the country sketching and painting. Daughter Marion
Robertson Beers (Minnie) learned to paint but Kitty never did.
Kitty was happy to clean up for all the artists though. Many
years later, when Julie was well into her forties, she married a man
named P. Tertius Kempson and settled into a sedate life in
Metuchin, New Jersey. She was still painting well into her
seventies.....as Julie Hart Beers Kempson.
She was our great-great grandmother.
There have been countless namesakes in the family ever
since. Her daughter, Kitty, never married but Marion
Robertson Beers did. She married, on 6-21-1877, Edward Fletcher
Brush and they produced fourteen children (2 sets of
twins). She painted until her death, at 91 years old, on
9-19-1945.
Marion Robertson Beers Brush was the paternal grandmother of my
husband, Walton Brush. Contrary to the information in Peter
Falk's Who Was Who in American Art, there never was a husband named Marion in this family.
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Biography from AskART:
| Born in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, Julie Beers was a younger sister of
artists James McDougal Hart and William Hart and grew up in Albany, New
York. Her school record has not been found, but it is assumed she
learned to paint from her brother James.
In the mid-1850s, she moved to
New York City with her brothers and artist husband, Marion R. Beers.
Her studio was in the Dodworth's Building on Broadway. In 1867, she
first exhibited with the National Academy of Design and became a
regular exhibitor there. In 1867 and 1868, she also exhibited at the Boston Athenaeum.
In 1877, she re-married, this time to
Peter Kempson and moved to Metuchen, New Jersey, but continued to use
the name Julia Beers.
She is basically unrecognized but William Gerdts
wrote that she is "the only woman artist of the century to specialize
in landscape."
Sources include:
Paul Sternberg, Sr., Art by American Women
William Gerdts, Women Artists of America, 1707-1964
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| ** If you discover credit omissions or have additional information to add, please let us know at registrar@AskART.com. |
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