Alethea Hill Platt
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Alethea Hill Platt (December 31, 1860 – May 23, 1932) was an American artist and educator. Her paintings of rural landscapes in France, England, the Adirondacks, and New England were displayed in about 200 exhibitions[1] at venues including the National Academy of Design, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, and Louisiana Purchase Exposition.[2] The New York Times found a "quality of serenity, even a kind of nobility" in her work,[3] and American Art News placed her "in the ranks of America's leading women painters."[4]
Alethea (pronounced uh-LEE-thee-uh) Platt was one of about nine children of Laura Sherbrook Popham (1826-1905) and Lewis Canfield Platt (1818-1893), a judge in White Plains, N.Y. Laura's grandmother Mary Morris was a daughter of the judge and politician Richard Morris.[5] (The family's 18th-century ancestral homes are extant in Scarsdale at 60 Crane Road and 1015 Post Road.) Platt trained with the artists Henry B. Snell and Ben Foster and took courses at the Art Students League, Columbia University's Teachers College and the Delécluse academy in Paris.[6] As a child, she “showed a preference for drawing pictures beyond all other interests.”[7] She studied Snell's scrub technique for watercolors, “boldly smashing in the masses of color on the dry paper with bristle brushes.”[8]
Until 1898, Platt lived and worked at 41 Fifth Avenue, the Manhattan home of a relative, the philanthropist Rachel Lenox Kennedy (1827-1898), a daughter of David Sproat Kennedy.[9] Kennedy treated Platt like a daughter, and they supported charitable causes including the Presbyterian Rest for Convalescents. After Kennedy's death, a nephew maneuvered to disinherit Platt, and she moved to the Van Dyck Studios at 939 Eighth Avenue. Her circle of artist friends and neighbors included Charlotte B. Coman, Fanny Griswold Ely, Rhoda Holmes Nicholls, Clara Weaver Parrish, Helen Watson Phelps, Emily Maria Scott, C. Helen Simpson, Mary Harvey Tannahill, and Arabella Locke Wyant, the widow of Alexander Helwig Wyant.[10] Platt was considered “unusually intelligent, witty and broad-minded.”[11] At her studio, she gave classes and held open houses.[12] She summered in England (particularly Devonshire), France (frequently Brittany), Germany, and the Netherlands as well as in the Adirondacks, Maine, Woodstock, N.Y., the Berkshires, and Sharon, Conn.[13][14]
Her characteristic subject matters were cottage gardens, villagers in workshops and kitchens, sunlit woods, harbor workers, and rocky seacoasts. Sitters for her handful of portraits included her father, her brother William Popham Platt, and her nephew Stuart Dean Platt.[15] She belonged to organizations including the Allied Artists of America, American Water Color Society, Art Alliance of America, Art Workers' Club for Women (which provided support for artists' models), National Academy of Design, National Arts Club, National Association of Women Artists, New York Water Color Club, Pen and Brush Club, New York Society of Painters (which she helped run),[16] and Yonkers Art Association.[17] “Self-sufficient and resourceful,”[18] Platt remained prolific throughout her career. She died suddenly following an operation[19] (her estate was valued at $81,574).[20]
