10/5/23 - Acquisition - West Palm Beach, Norton Museum of Art - It is difficult to perceive the adventuress behind this vaporous woman who poses in her elegant white dress, pearls around her neck, a large flowered hat at the end of her black-gloved arm, while the small dog she carries in one hand completes her outfit like a fashion accessory, its coat matching the colors of her toilet. Mrs. Guest had a project to cross the Atlantic by plane, only one year after the first flight of Charles Lindbergh in 1927. Daughter of a rich American industrialist, Anne T. Phipps, also known as Amy Phipps, was represented by John Singer Sargent on the occasion of her marriage in 1905 to the English captain Frederick Edward Guest, who was the grandson of John Spencer-Churchill, the seventh Duke of Marlborough and thus Winston Churchill’s cousin. Nicknamed "Freddie" Guest, he had a political career, first as a Liberal Member of Parliament, then as Secretary of State for Air in 1921 in charge of the young Royal Air Force. He owned several light aircraft himself. He was also a talented polo player, making the British team for the 1924 Olympics in Paris, which won the bronze medal.
-
- John Singer Sargent (1856-1925)
Portrait of Mrs. Frederick Guest (Amy Phipps), 1905
Oil on canvas - 150 x 97 cm
West Palm Beach, The Norton Museum of Art
Photo : The Norton Museum of Art - See the image in its page
This critically acclaimed portrait, exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1906, was donated by the sitter’s descendants to the Norton Museum of Art in Florida, which did not own a painting by the artist. Amy Phipps was a regular visitor to Palm Beach, spending winters at her Villa Artemis, built in 1916 by architect Francis Burrall Hoffman, and was a member of the Society of Four Arts founded in 1936.
Like her husband, she had a passion for aviation. She gave up crossing the Atlantic, discouraged by her family, but financed the trip and wanted another woman to participate in the flight. It was Amelia Earhart, herself a pilot, also known as Lady Lindy, who in 1928 boarded the three-engine Fokker F.VIIb/3 called "Friendship" and became the first woman to fly across the Atlantic. However, Amelia Earhart did not fly the plane and had to content herself with keeping the logbook, so much so that she declared on arrival that she had been nothing more than a "sack of potatoes" in this crossing. She made up for it in 1932 and was this time the first woman to cross the Atlantic Ocean alone. She disappeared in 1937 over the Pacific Ocean during a flight around the world.
Sargent also painted the mother and son of Amy Phipps in a single portrait exhibited at the Old Westbury Gardens. An American born in Florence who died in London, he traveled extensively and established himself as a portraitist of European society. He was honored in two exhibitions in 2006, one confronting him with Joaquín Sorolla (see article), the other with Whistler and their American contemporaries who stayed in Paris (see article).
