Introduction

Anne Estelle Rice was born in 18791 in Conshohocken, Pennsylvania, to a large family, growing up in industrial Pottstown next to the Philadelphia– Reading railway line. She graduated from the School of Industrial Art of the Pennsylvania Museum (now the Philadelphia Museum of Art) with a diploma before undertaking further studies in sculpture and life drawing at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. Rice illustrated for a variety of publications including Harper’s Bazaar, Metropolitan Magazine and The Saturday Evening Post before leaving for Paris in 1905, sent by the Philadelphia-based North American magazine to observe and represent the latest fashions, usually with full-page illustrations. It was there that she was exposed to post-Impressionism and Fauvism, also meeting the Scottish post-Impressionist and Fauvist painter J. D. Fergusson at the Paris- Plage resort in 1907, who encouraged her to become a painter herself. She exhibited her paintings at the Salon d’Automne the following year (and did so until 1913, also becoming a Sociétaire and serving on its jury), and at the Salon des Indépendants in 1911-12, developing a bold and energetic style which gave daring emphasis to form and colour. Rice’s The Egyptian Dancers (1910, now part of the Brooklyn Museum holdings), inspired by the Ballets Russes’s performance of Cleopatra in Paris the previous year, gained her some notoriety – it was spat upon at the Salon d’Automne and attracted lively and complimentary critical commentary, including that by Huntley Carter in The New Age.

Fergusson and Rice had a relationship that lasted six years. It was through Fergusson that Rice met JMM, under whose editorship they together contributed to Rhythm magazine from its first issues in 1911. Rice became a key illustrator for Rhythm and produced a wide range of material for the publication, including kinetic designs from the Ballets Russes (and accompanying article); deft sketches of natural phenomena in charcoal; striking, stylised life drawings of female figures; and block prints used as headers and footers. It was effectively through Rhythm that KM and Rice met, via JMM, in the year that KM became a fellow contributor and partner to JMM. On their ‘honeymoon’ to Paris in 1912, KM was introduced to the Rhythm set, and was particularly taken with both Fergusson and Rice. Rice had been commissioned to produce decorative murals for a Philadelphian department store by John Wannamaker, which she would work on between 1909 and 1913.