Georgine Campbell

Georgine Campbell (1861–1931) was a 19th-century American painter from Louisiana, specializing in miniature portrait painting. Trained in New Orleans and Paris, Campbell had the double distinction of being the first Southern woman who came to New York to make portrait painting a profession, and one who has earned a competency. When the work began to tell on her eyes, she was obliged to limit her time spent on miniatures and alternate it with larger pieces. In the present day, her portraits of Ulysses S. Grant and Henry Morrison Flagler are part of the Smithsonian's collection at the National Portrait Gallery.

Early years and education Georgine Campbell was born in New Orleans, Louisiana, in 1861. She was a daughter of Dr. George Washington Campbell, a descendant of the Scotch family of that name. Her father was one of the wealthiest and most influential men in the South, where the family lived and had been social leaders all the way back to the times of Osceola and President Jackson.

As a young girl, Campbell first studied with Francois Bernard, who alternated his time between New Orleans and Paris. She was his only pupil. He took her on trial for two months and kept her until she went abroad to study in Paris, under Federico de Madrazo, to whom she attributed much of her success. During her absence, her father's plantations were three times under water, and she returned to find the great estate a swamp. In the midst of this trouble, her father died.

Career

After her father's death, it became necessary for Campbell to support herself, and she turned to her art. Her first orders were from St. Louis after which she decided to come to New York, starting off with a few hundred dollars in her pocket, and three letters of introduction. The people named in the letters all died within the first year, but her income started to grow. She lived in a hotel until she bought a home on Madison Avenue from which the increasing noise drove her away. Campbell then lived with her mother and sister in an apartment overlooking Central Park where she had the space and quiet necessary for her work. Campbell received favorable mention on several occasions when her pictures were exhibited, and in the World's Fair in New Orleans in 1883 and 1884, she received the blue ribbon. When the work began to tell on her eyes, she was obliged to limit her painting in miniature and alternate it with larger pieces. Campbell died in 1931.

Gallery