Representative women of New England/Pauline S. Jones
PAULINE SAWTELLE JONES, portrait artist, the wife of Charles Willis Jones, lawyer, of Augusta, Me., was born in Old Town, Penob.scot County, that State. Daughter of James Harvey Sawtelle and his wife, whose maiden name was Elizabeth Knowlton Chapman, she is descended on the paternal side from Richard Sawtelle of Groton, Mass. Her great, great grandparents, Jonas and Eunice (Kempt) Sawtelle, served through the Revolutionary War, he as a private, she as a nurse. Her maternal grandfather was Nathaniel Chapman, who served in the Revolutionary army from 1775 to 1780. He was at the Battle of Bunker Hill, and was also with Washington's life-guard at the crossing of the Delaware and the surprise and defeat of the Hessians at Trenton. He married Sally Gott, of Starks, Me.
The subject of this sketch very early showed a decided taste for drawing faces. The white wails of the attic, the covers of her school-books, or any surface that would take a mark, was covered by the chiklish fingers with drawings in lead-pencil, chalk, or charcoal, whichever lay nearest to hand. The old proverb, "Necessity is the mother of invention," proved true in her case when, at the age of eight, she crushed the old-fashioned flowers growing in the garden, that she might thus be enabled to give a semblance of natural coloring to the faces she delighted in. At the age of eighteen it became possible for her to begin the study of art in earnest. Going to Boston, she became a pupil of Mr: George A. Frost (who afterward accompanied Kennan to Siberia to illustrate the latter's articles on that country), and subsequently she studied with the late Harry De Merritt Young. She also received art training in Philadelphia and New York. She then opened a studio in Concord, N.H., where she painted many distinguished people. Her work soon began to attract notice, winning favorable comment from art critics, brother artists, and the general public, whenever exhibited. Since then she has advanced from high to higher planes of achievement, until now she may be said to have attained the full maturity of her powers. She prefers to work wholly from life, but her portraits from photographs show the same force of imagination, complete technical mastery of form and color, and deep and sympathetic understanding of her subject. She is absorbed in the personality of the face she is painting, thinking of it, dreaming over it, and never satisfied until she has transmitted not only the features but the very spirit of her subject to the canvas. She has received several gold medals for the excellence of her work, and numbers among her patrons" some of the most critical people of Boston and New York.
She has exhibited in New York and Springfield, at the Boston Art Club, the Portland Art Club, Poland Springs Art Club. One of her best crayons is the free-hand portrait of Maine's distinguished Senator, the Hon. James W. Brad- bury, which elicited much favorable conmient at the World's Fair in 1893. Two of her miniature portraits were accepted by the Boston Art Club for its sixty-second exhibition. One of these was of her son Frederick, the other of Mrs. Llewellyn Powers, wife of Governor Powers.
Among her pastels two — one of Dwight Carver, son of State Librarian Carver, and the other of Robert Livingstone, the little son of Rev. William F Livingstone and his wife, Margaret Vere Farrington—stand out prominently as representative of her very best work. Another fine piece of work, accurate and strong in character, is her crayon portrait of former President Geiders of the Maine Senate, which hung for a time in the capitol, but which has since been presented to Mr. Geiders by the Senate. In 1900 Mrs. Jones painted in oil the portrait of Governor Powers, which now hangs in the rotunda of the State capitol, and which has been described as a characteristic and speaking likeness.
It is, however, for her exquisite miniature work that Mrs. Jones has won the greatest praise; and it has been said that, if placed side by side with the work of the few really great artists in this line, they would not suffer by comparison. Gifted primarily with artistic talent, she possesses also in a high degree the power of concentration and a marvellous industry that, united, have compelled success. Mrs. Jones is a club woman, being a member of the Koussinoc Chapter D. A. R., of the Augusta China Decorator Club, the Cecilia Club, and the Current Events Club.
The marriage of Mr. and Mrs. Jones occurred in Bangor, March 11, 1891. They have one child, Frederick Sawtelle Jones, who was born July 6, 1892.