This groundbreaking exhibition is the first major solo show on Margaret Ralston Gest (1900-1965), an artist who exhibited with the Philadelphia Ten, a group of professional women artists who organized regional and national exhibitions from 1917 to 1945. Featuring approximately 50 artworks, the show will bring together for the first time paintings and drawings from Saint Joseph’s University's permanent collection and other private and public collections in the region, including the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the Barnes Foundation, Woodmere Art Museum, Bryn Mawr College, and Haverford College.
Gest worked at the threshold of modernism in Philadelphia–a period in the first half of the 20th century when artists increasingly engaged with abstraction and a variety of European avant-garde approaches and styles. Her distinctive style, marked by rich, saturated color, contrasting textures, and patterns of line and form, attracted significant recognition and acclaim. Gest studied under Hugh H. Breckenridge and Arthur B. Carles, and her extensive body of work – which includes landscapes, still lifes, genre scenes, female nudes, and abstract pieces – conveys her eclectic artistic interests, as well as the impact of her training at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts.
Despite her achievements and wide recognition, Gest fell into obscurity after her death in 1965. This exhibition, which commemorates the 60th anniversary of the artist’s death, will reestablish Gest’s position as a Philadelphia modernist, drawing attention to her exceptional body of work, and elucidating her role in the close-knit network of artists, intellectuals, and professionals that enabled women to break into and find success in the male-dominated art world. The exhibition also emphasizes Philadelphia’s importance as a center for avant-garde art during this period, revising the traditional narrative that tends to focus on only New York City. Finally, it will highlight the significance of Gest for the history of Saint Joseph’s University. Gest–who also was a bibliophile and an author–worked closely with Jesuit scholars at the university, especially in her translation of The Odes of Horace (published posthumously in 1973). Her estate is now an integral part of the university’s Hawk Hill campus. Many of her artworks were donated to the university following her death by her companion, Miriam Thrall.
Accompanying the exhibition will be a catalog that has been generously funded by the Wyeth Foundation for American Art.
Erin Downey, M.A., Ph.D., Assistant Curator at the Frances M. Maguire Art Museum, is the curator.
