n her movie “Little Women,” director Greta Gerwig brings Amy March, the youngest of the four girls, more into the foreground than she was in any previous production—or in the book itself. By following the opening scene of Jo March in New York City, negotiating for a story to be accepted for publication, with a scene of Amy at her easel in Paris, Gerwig is doubling the point of how hard it was for a 19th-century woman to persist in an artistic career and to earn a living from her work. In both the book and the movie, Amy gives up her dream of being an artist, saying, “I want to be great or nothing,” and she marries a wealthy young man.
In life, Abigail May Alcott, the model for the fictional Amy March, did not give up her painting and marry young, and she was furious at her sister Louisa for suggesting she would do that. Instead, May struggled to pursue her desire to be an artist into her 40th year. Though historians cannot know for sure, the consensus is that she was on the verge of greatness when she died from complications of childbirth in 1879. That year her painting “La Négresse,” considered her masterpiece, was accepted into the Paris Salon.
“Orchard House,” graphite on paper by May Alcott Nieriker.
(Courtesy of Fruitlands Museum)
Fruitlands Museum pays tribute to May Alcott in an exhibit of her works, on display in the corridor of the art gallery now through March 22. There are several small drawings and watercolors and one large oil from Fruitlands’ permanent collection. Most of May’s work is at the Orchard House in Concord—much of it on the walls and doors themselves—or in private collections and with the family of her husband in Europe. The paintings are undated; presumably the scenes in Europe were done during May’s time abroad, visits during 1870 to 1879. Her first trip in 1870 was in the role of companion to a wealthy friend, and Louisa went along. Through the generosity of Louisa, who was flush with money from “Little Women,” May stayed on after the other two women returned and went back again in 1873. Later, after May had returned to help nurse their mother at the end of her life, Louisa sent her back to Europe.
Influenced by Turner
On the left side of the hallway are three scenes of Venice, a watercolor on paper titled “Venetian St.,” and two pieces in watercolor and graphite on paper: “Venetian Scene I” and “Venetian Scene II.” The paintings are very small and show a great delicacy in execution. Further down is a miniature oval in watercolor and pencil on paper called “Loch Lomand after Turner.” May was greatly influenced by J.M.W. Turner’s use of light and his early impressionism. This influence is also seen in the large oil on canvas hanging on the opposite wall, “Venetian Seascape after Turner.” The title of the Turner work itself is “St. Benedetto, Looking Toward Fusina,” which hangs in London’s Tate Gallery. May’s painting was given to Fruitlands by Mrs. Bronson Alcott Pratt, the daughter-in-law of May’s oldest sister, Anna Alcott Pratt.
The other works were most likely done during May’s years in Concord from 1855 to 1877. “Amos Bronson Alcott” is a drawing of her father seated at a table with a large open book on the table in front of him, looking ready for a conversation—a posture that seems to characterize him perfectly. “Woman With Four Children” is in sepia on paper and is perhaps an inspiration for the iconic image of Marmee with the four little women draped affectionately around her. May did some illustrations for the first several chapters of Louisa’s “Little Women.” These were not well received by the critics, and May’s work did not appear in further chapters or in subsequent editions.
Always drawing
An ink drawing of “Emerson House” attests to the fondness for their Concord neighbor and benefactor, Ralph Waldo Emerson, shared by all the girls. Although the family moved innumerable times, seeking lower rent and work for the girls and Mrs. Alcott, they finally settled at the Orchard House in Concord in 1858, where Louisa wrote her most famous work 10 years later. In “Orchard House,” May depicts the old house in a romanticized way, surrounded by bushes and large trees with lacy foliage. This was her style at the time and it is also perhaps a projection of the happiness the family must have felt at having their own home at last.
Always drawing, even as a young girl, Abigail May Alcott, who was called Abba or Abby by her family until she asserted herself as May in her early 20s, seized every opportunity to further herself as an artist. She took classes at the MFA and studied with painters in Boston. She taught art at a Concord school, where one of her young pupils was Daniel Chester French, whose work with clay May encouraged. He later became a famous sculptor who did the Lincoln Memorial and the Minuteman statue at the Old North Bridge. As a woman, she could go only so far, prohibited from studying the human figure (which may account for the “unauthentic” drawings to illustrate “Little Women”) and not having access to the works of the old masters. The opportunity to study in Europe was exactly what she needed to keep going.
She succeeded in having a still life hung in the 1877 Paris Salon, the only painting by an American woman to be exhibited, selected over the work of Mary Cassatt, whom May most likely knew. At the age of 39, May married Ernest Nieriker, who was 16 years her junior. She declared she had no intention of giving up her art. Sadly, she died from an infection incurred during childbirth. Her daughter was sent to America and Louisa raised her until Louisa herself died, whereupon her aunt, Anna, took the 10-year-old child back to her father.
More to May than pickled limes
A book of historical fiction about the life of May Alcott, called “Little Woman in Blue,” is on a table in the gallery and is available at the museum store. The author, Jeannine Atkins, wrote in an afterword that even as a girl, she thought there was more to the youngest sister in “Little Women” than competing for pickled limes and worrying about the broadness of her nose. As an adult studying art history, Atkins saw May’s name appear along with other 19th-century women artists. Curiosity about May led her to old diaries, letters, memoirs, fiction, and biographies about the Alcotts and their Concord friends. Her research, along with her imagination, gives us a fuller picture of not only May but of the entire Alcott family.
Also in the art gallery is a looping video of the movie crew on site at Fruitlands, transforming the Shaker Gallery into Meg’s “Dovecote Cottage” where she lived after her marriage to John Brooke. In the Wayside Gallery are some “behind the scenes” pictures from the Gerwig movie.
The art gallery, Wayside gallery, and museum store are open weekends from 1 to 5 p.m. during the winter season.
