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The McClelland Collection
21
Anne Estelle Rice (1877-1959)
THE VILLAGE BEYOND
oil on board
signed and titled on reverse
12 x 15½in. (30.48 x 39.37cm)
Provenance:
Collection of George and Maura McClelland
Born to Irish-American parents in Conshohocken, Pennsylvania in 1877 Rice studied at the School of
Industrial Art and at the Academy of Fine Arts, both in her native city. During these early years she
contributed illustrations to a number of magazines, including Collier’s, Harper’s and the Saturday Evening
Post.
In 1905 Rice travelled to Paris to illustrate the latest fashions for Philadelphia’s North American magazine.
Two years later she met the Scottish artist John Duncan Fergusson who encouraged her to become a
painter. Her exposure in Paris to Post-Impressionism and Fauvism influenced her vivid palette and from
1910 she began to use pure primary and secondary colours.
In 1909, Rice garnered an important commission from American merchant John Wannamaker to provide
decorative murals for a new store in Philadelphia. Together with Fergusson and other members of his
circle - she exhibited at the Ashnur Gallery in Paris, the Salon d’Automne (1908-1913) and the Salon des
Independents (1911-1912). London’s progressive Baillie Gallery gave Rice major exhibitions (1911 & 1913)
and her work was also included in salons of the Allied Artists Association in England.
In 1912 Rice met English art and theatre critic Raymond Drey and they were married in 1913 settling
in England. During WWI her American patronage dwindled but by the 1920s she was painting still lifes
and exhibiting at the Leicester Galleries and the Wildenstein Gallery in England. Rice continued to travel
during this period to France, and sold paintings to collectors there and in the Netherlands, Denmark
and Germany. In the 1930s her interest in theatre lead to work with London operatic and dramatic
productions for whom she designed sets and costumes.
Rice’s work is represented in numerous private collections in the United States and the United Kingdom,
as well as in University of Hull Art Collection; Te Papa, Wellington, New Zealand; and the Government Art
Collection, England.
€3000-€5000 (£2560-£4270 approx.)
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