Hester Caldwell Oakley Ward
Datec. 1900
Artist
Violet Oakley
(American painter and illustrator, 1874–1961)
MediumOil on canvas
Dimensions17 × 14 in. (43.2 × 35.6 cm)
frame: 19 1/2 × 16 1/2 × 1 7/8 in. (49.5 × 41.9 × 4.8 cm)
frame: 19 1/2 × 16 1/2 × 1 7/8 in. (49.5 × 41.9 × 4.8 cm)
Credit LineGift of Mrs. Hester M. Lytle, 1975
Object number1975-89
On View
Not on viewClassificationsPAINTING
Label TextIllustrator and muralist Violet Oakley created this portrait of her sister Hester, a talented writer who died in 1905 at age 34. On December 22, 1898, The Ambler (PA) Gazette described the sisters: Miss Hester Oakley...and Mr. Ward, of New York City, were united in marriage... Miss Violet Oakley, a sister of the bride, was maid of honor. The bride is a novelist of some distinction and her sister has gained standing as an artist.
Hester Oakley's novel, As Having Nothing (1898), was a fictionalized version of the Oakley sisters' early years as young artists, when they both worked to support their mother. One reviewer characterized the novel's heroine as "the girl who goes out into the world to seek her fortune, and is, for all that, a lady."
