SACRAMENTO, CA.- The Crocker Art Museum announced the January 28 opening of E. Charlton Fortune: The Colorful Spirit, an exhibition of work by one of California's most progressive female artists. This exhibition brings together approximately 85 of Fortune's portrait drawings, her most important impressionist and modern landscapes, and ecclesiastical paintings and furnishings made for the Catholic Church.
Euphemia Charlton Fortune (1885–1969), who went by Effie and signed her paintings E. Charlton Fortune, was born in Sausalito, California, and came of age during a time when women began to redefine their expected roles in society. She studied at San Francisco’s Mark Hopkins Institute of Art and continued her training at the Art Students League in New York. After travelling abroad, Fortune returned to California in 1912, and spent that summer painting in Carmel-by-the-Sea. She generally spent summers on the Monterey Peninsula making art and teaching, returning to San Francisco in the winter to complete unfinished paintings, exhibit them, and produce charcoal portraits.
Unmarried and of independent spirit, she often rode her bicycle to find the perfect setting to paint in plein air. The resulting landscapes were not delicate, soft, or feminine but bold and vigorous — and often thought to have been painted by a man. Because Fortune’s paintings were daring, many reviewers described them as masculine, attributing their success to a perceived virility — then one of the most highly regarded qualities in art, especially in California.
“Fortune’s strong personality and progressive spirit are manifest in her work,” said Crocker Art Museum Chief Curator, Scott A. Shields. “Though her paintings are frequently labeled Impressionist, she often moved beyond the style, a fact recognized even in her own time,” he added. “Commentators were happiest when they could bestow adjectives like powerful, vigorous, forceful, and direct — especially on paintings by men, but also on those made by women. They found these qualities in strong color, boldly developed structure and composition, and confident, assured brushstrokes, all of which characterized Fortune’s mature paintings.”
In the 1910s, many critics began to express the opinion that no female artist in California had a brighter future than Fortune. “She hit her stride,” Shields said, “around 1915, the year of San Francisco’s Panama-Pacific International Exposition, where she won a silver medal.” Fortune ultimately became best known in California for views of Monterey and its wharf, which featured architecture, people, and other elements of modern life; she was drawn to similar scenes abroad and was especially interested in humanity’s impact on the environment. One of her most important contributions lay in her ability to combine multiple subjects — landscape, architecture, people, and boats — while most other California artists prioritized land, coast, and sea. Fortune saw herself as part of a new era and aimed to accord as much attention to the formal qualities of her art as to her subjects.
In March 1921, Fortune travelled to Europe with her mother, where she pursued an even bolder, more colorful style. In Cornwall, England, she primarily painted local activities with boats, people, and architecture. Her Summer Morning, St. Ives (St. Ives Harbor) won a silver medal at the Société des Artistes Français Salon of 1924—the award going to “Monsieur Fortune (Charlton).”
In Saint-Tropez, France, Fortune continued to pursue subjects like those she had rendered in St. Ives, but with even brighter color than before. Fortune returned to Monterey in 1927, but new opportunities, the onset of the Great Depression, and, for the first time, unenthusiastic reviews of her work conspired to change her course. Her foray into ecclesiastical design began at St. Angela Merici church in Pacific Grove, not far from her home, when Father Charles T. Kerfs asked her to decorate its sanctuary. The project led Fortune to found the Monterey Guild, which she, as director, envisioned as a modern version of a medieval craft guild. The venture was cooperative, with Fortune producing designs and overseeing the work of Guild members, who made devotional furnishings in wood, metal, and the needle arts.
During this time, Fortune essentially gave up easel painting, though she continued to limn religious works for the Catholic church, eventually transforming more than 70 Catholic church interiors in 16 states. In Kansas City, for example, Fortune’s work included a bishop’s private chapel; the creation of an altar, furnishings, and monumental reredos in St. Peter’s Catholic Church; and a tabernacle, liturgical objects, and a large mosaic for the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception. For the latter, in 1955, Pope Pius XII granted her the Pro Ecclesia et Pontifice (For Church and Pope) medal and certificate, the highest distinction awarded to an artist by the Vatican. Fortune even worked in Sacramento, California, accepting a commission to produce altar furnishings for Saint Rose Chapel, a project sponsored by the McClatchy family.
Fortune spent her final years in Carmel Valley, California. Never afraid to pursue her own path or push the boundaries of “her station,” she earned the admiration and respect of both genders. Few could dispute her standing as one of the West’s leading painters and, later, as an ecclesiastical designer of national importance.
“I am proud that the Crocker has a history of bringing underrecognized artists into the public eye,” said the Museum’s Director and CEO, Lial Jones. ”Ms. Fortune’s art is as bold and influential as she was. It is our pleasure to shine a light on her extraordinary life and work."
