Edith Emerson

Career

In 1916, while still studying at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia, Emerson was awarded the commission of designing the mural decorations for the Plays and Players Theatre, then known as The Little Theatre, at 17th and Delancey Streets in Center City, Philadelphia. She chose as her subjects a Greek myth, in which King Minos' daughter Ariadne, after being deserted by Theseus, is discovered by the god of wine, Dionysus.

In the murals, Emerson combined aspects of Greek and Minoan painting with eastern styles including China and Japan. Tempera studies for the work were shown in the sixteenth annual exhibition of water colors at The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in 1918. Emerson was awarded the Fellowship Prize by the Academy in 1918 for her mural decorations. When they were unveiled at The Little Theatre, Violet Oakley praised both the quality of the murals and the artist.

A prolific painter, Emerson exhibited at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts from 1918 to 1927 and later from 1932 to 1945.

Emerson served as curator and director of Woodmere Art Gallery (now Art Museum) from 1940 to 1978.

Legacy Emerson has been described as a competent administrator of Woodmere Art Museum partly because of her thorough record keeping. She actively researched items in the permanent collection and organized the paperwork associated with each piece of art; she also solicited information from visiting artists. The studio was opened to the public as a kind of museum, and Emerson organized various activities there, including concerts, exhibitions, poetry readings, and lectures on American art and illustration. Following Emerson's death, the foundation dispersed the contents, sold the house, and disbanded.

In 1979, Emerson was instrumental in mounting an Oakley revival as an exhibition at the Philadelphia Museum of Art.