Lilla Cabot Perry - Career

Career

She completed what is considered to be her earliest known painting, Portrait of an Infant (Margaret Perry) dating from 1877–78. This work draws on the inspiration that would occupy much of her artwork throughout her career – her children. Perry had three children, Margaret (1876), Edith (1880), and Alice (1884).

In 1884 Perry began her formal artistic training with the portrait painter Alfred Quentin Collins. Collins had studied at the Académie Julian in Paris under the guidance of Leon Bonnat. Bonnat’s other students included Thomas Eakins, John Singer Sargent, Walter Gay, and Frederic Vinton. Perry’s The Beginner, ca. 1885–86, represents the first work she completed under formal guidance. The Beginner echoes Collins’ influences with the sitter’s serious gaze, dark background, and emphasis on dramatic lighting.

While Perry learned the more formal aspects of art-making with Collins, it was not until 1885 that she finally found an artist who truly inspired her personal style. In that year Perry worked with Robert Vonnoh, an artist who worked in the Impressionist’s plein-air style at Grez-Sur-Loing in France. Vonnoh’s work represented a distinct departure from the formal style Perry had been exposed to and it was this experience that planted the seeds for Perry’s lifelong dedication to Impressionism.

The year 1885 was significant in the development of Perry’s personal artistic style. In addition to her exposure to Vonnoh’s unorthodox artistic style, during that same year she also took classes with instructor Dennis Bunker at the prestigious Cowles Art School in Boston. Cowles taught its students “liberal theories” in the creation of realist art – theories that Perry greatly responded to.