Paulette Van Roekens was a Belgian-American painter and educator, who lived most of her life in the Philadelphia area. She had a long career as an artist, and is considered one of the Pennsylvania Impressionists.
Early life and education She was born on New Year's Eve 1895, in a farmhouse outside of Château-Thierry, France. Her Belgian parents, Victor and Jeanne van Roekens, emigrated to the United States when she was an infant. The family settled just outside Philadelphia, in Glenside, Pennsylvania, where her father operated a tree farm and nursery.
Van Roekens enrolled in the Philadelphia School of Design for Women (now Moore College of Art and Design) in 1915, intending to study sculpture. At the end of her first year she was awarded the 1916 John Sartain Fellowship.
Following the sinking of three American merchant ships, the United States declared war on Germany in April 1917. With the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts's male students enlisting or being drafted, Van Roekens was able to attend classes at PAFA, 1917-18. She also led a student effort to knit socks and sweaters for Americans being shipped overseas.David R. Brigham, "Forward," World War I and American Art (Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press & Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, 2016), p. 8.
While a student, she was invited to participate in PAFA's 116th Annual Exhibition (January 1918), showing City Hall and The New Boulevard.Peter Hastings Falk, ed. The Annual Exhibition Record of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Volume 3, 1914-1968 (Madison, CT: Sound View Press, 1989), pp. 465-466 Among her teachers were Samuel Murray, Henry B. Snell, Leopold Seyffert, Joseph Thurman Pearson Jr., and Charles Grafly.
Career Van Roekens's first teaching job was at the Graphic Sketch Club in South Philadelphia, 1920 – 1927. "Unlike other institutions and museums at the time, the Graphic Sketch Club was open in the evening, with working people in mind. Classes were offered to people of all ages in mediums ranging from drawing and painting to sculpture ..."Graphic Sketch Club, from Fleisher Art Memorial.
In 1923, Van Roekens was hired as an assistant professor of drawing and painting at her alma mater, the Philadelphia School of Design for Women, a position she held for thirty-seven years. The school was renamed the Moore College of Art and Design in the late 1950s, and presented her with an honorary doctorate upon her retirement in 1961.
Van Roekens worked in a variety of media and was well known for her oils and pastels. Still lifes were prominent in her early work, but as her career developed she turned more and more to landscapes. She called herself a “sometimes impressionist,” because while she was strongly influenced by impressionism she found it difficult to completely break with academic drawing.
She exhibited throughout her career, with fourteen solo exhibitions (her first was in 1920 at age 24), and two joint retrospective exhibitions with her husband. Her final solo exhibition was mounted by the Woodmere Art Gallery in 1987, only a few months prior to her death on January 11, 1988.
Van Roekens's work is represented at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, the Corcoran Gallery of Art, the National Academy of Design, the Carnegie Institute, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Mint Museum (Charlotte, N.C.), the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, and the Detroit Institute of Art.Who Was Who in American Art; Who's Who in American Art." American Art Annuals (1930, 1942) She was a member of the Art Alliance of America, and the National Association of Women Painters and Sculptors.
Selected works Cityscapes The New Boulevard, oil on canvas, 1917, Palmer Museum of Art, Pennsylvania State University, State College, Pennsylvania 116th Annual Exhibition of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (January 1918), no. 13 "Paulette Van Roekiens has a bit of interesting direct handling in a little canvas of The New Boulevard, as the Parkway is now called.""Philadelphia," American Art News (New York), vol. 16, no. 32 (May 18, 1918), p. 5. Treat 'Em Rough, oil on canvas, 1918, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Acquired by PAFA, 1919.Treat 'Em Rough, from PAFA. 117th Annual Exhibition of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (January 1919), no. 70 Victory Loan on Chestnut Street, oil on canvas, 1918, private collectionVictory Loan on Chestnut Street, from SIRIS.Victory Loan on Chestnut Street, from James A. Michener Art Museum. "Paulette Van Roekens has two paintings in the summer exhibition at the Corcoran Gallery in Washington, including Victory, a colorful view of the corner of Broad and Chestnut streets during the Victory Loan drive, a painting which won much favorable comment here during Artists' Week.""Philadelphia," American Art News (New York), vol. 20, no. 36 (June 17, 1922), p. 9. Girard Trust Building: Third Liberty Loan, oil on canvas, 1919, private collectionGirard Bank, from SIRIS.Girard Bank, from James A. Michener Art Museum. Auctioned at Freeman's | Hindman, 29 April 2018, Lot 35. Realized $46,875, an auction record for a painting by Van Roekens."Hamilton Sale at Freeman's Is Fit for a Queen," Antiques and the Arts Weekly, 8 May 2018. Calico Row, Newport, Rhode Island, oil on canvas, 1920, private collectionCalico Row, Newport, RI, from SIRIS. Annual Exhibition of the National Academy of Design, 1922, no. 15Peter Hastings Falk, ed. The Annual Exhibition Record of the National Academy of Design, 1901-1950 (Madison, CT: Sound View Press, 1990), pp. 515-16. Twenty-Ninth Annual Exhibition of American Art, Cincinnati Museum, 1922, no. 120. Auctioned at Rago, 10 November 2018, Lot 135Newport, from Rago Auctions. 15th Street from Broad Street Station, oil on canvas, 1920, Philadelphia Sketch Club Independence Hall, Philadelphia, oil on canvas, 1923 First Honorable Mention, 1923 Annual Exhibition of the National Association of Women Painters and Sculptors, Fine Arts Building, New York City.Ida Clyde Clarke, ed., Women of 1924 – International (New York City: Women's News Service, Inc.), p. 163. 122nd Annual Exhibition of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (January 1924), no. 5 First Pan-American Exhibition of Oil Paintings, November 27, 1925 - February 28, 1926, Los Angeles Museum, no. 117.Independence Hall, Philadelphia. Auctioned at Freeman's | Hindman, 3 December 2023, Lot 85, Unsold.Independence Hall, from Freeman's | Hindman. Towers in the Mist, oil on canvas, 1925, Reading Public Museum, Reading, PennsylvaniaTowers in the Mist, from Reading Public Museum. 125th Annual Exhibition of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (January 1927), no. 192 City Hall Towers, oil on canvas, 1928, private collectionCity Hall Towers, from SIRIS.City Hall Towers, from James A. Michener Art Museum. Gray Towers
Landscapes and outdoor scenes On the Beach at Bass Rocks, oil on canvas, 1920 1921 Fellowship of the Academy of Fine Arts Exhibition, Philadelphia. "[A]n admirable bit of direct painting, true in notation of sunlight on figures and sand ..."American Art News, vol. 19, no. 20 (February 26, 1921), p. 5 Gray Day in Newport, Rhode Island, oil on canvas, n.d. Twenty-First Annual International Exhibition of Paintings, 1922, Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, no. 154 Floating Logs, oil on canvas, 1922 Exhibited at the 1923 Philadelphia Art Alliance Exhibition at the Academy of Music"Philadelphia," American Art News, vol. 21, no. 18 (February 10, 1923), p. 10 Auctioned at Rago, 10 November 2022, Lot 204Floating Logs, from Rago Auctions. At the Horse Show, oil on canvas, 1923, private collection 117th Annual Exhibition, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, 1923, no. 432 The Carousel, oil on canvas, 1938 Auctioned at Freeman's | Hindman, 8 December 2019, Lot 113 The Horse with the Lavender Eye, oil on canvas, 1939, James A. Michener Art Museum, Doylestown, PennsylvaniaHorse with the Lavender Eye, from James A. Michener Art Museum. Midsummer Dreams, oil on canvas, n.d., private collectionMidsummer Dreams, from SIRIS. 124th Annual Exhibition, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, 1939, no. 122Midsummer Dreams, from James A. Michener Art Museum. Sawdust and Spangles, oil on canvas, n.d., Woodmere Art Museum, Chestnut Hill, Philadelphia, PennsylvaniaSawdust and Spangles, from Woodmere Art Museum.Sawdust and Spangles, from SIRIS. Holiday on the Beach, oil on canvas, n.d.Holiday on the Beach, from Alderfer Auctions. Cape May Beach, oil on canvas, n.d.Cape May Beach, from SIRIS.
Ballet, opera, theater, circus In 1951, the Sadler Wells Theatre Ballet of London began a year-long tour of the United States, which included a month performing at Philadelphia's Academy of Music.P. W. Manchester, "Sadler Wells After a Year," Ballet (magazine), (London: published for the Shenval Press by Faber & Faber limited), vol. 12, no. 8 (August 1952), pp. 13-16. Van Roekens obtained permission to sketch the troupe during rehearsals, which resulted in a series of ballet paintings: Dress Rehearsal (Sadler Wells) Red Curtains Light and Shadow Harlequinn Ladies The Music Room White Ballet Entering the Ballet The Swan Ballet She later obtained similar permission to sketch opera productions, theater productions, and other ballet troupes. “Paulette Van Roekens enjoys painting still life and in oils, but her favorites are the ballet and the circus.”The Kutztown Patriot, 17 January 1957, p. 6. Royal Danish Ballet, oil on canvas, 1978Royal Danish Ballet, from ARTNET. Under the Spotlight, n.d.
Still lifes Poppies and Old China, oil on canvas, 1920American Art News, vol. 18, no. 38 (August 14, 1920), p. 7 Exhibited at National Academy of Design, 1921, no. 142 Satsuma Rose Jar and Lilies, oil on canvas, n.d. Exhibited at the City Art Museum of St. Louis, 1921 118th Annual Exhibition of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, 1923, no. 48 Ninth Exhibition of Oil Paintings, 1923, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., no. 289 Seventh Annual Exhibition, 1923, Concord [Massachusetts] Art Association, no. 40 Eighteenth Annual Exhibition, Albright-Knox Art Gallery, 1924, Buffalo, NY. Catalogue, p. 58 Arrangement with Citron, oil on canvas, 1936, Woodmere Art Museum, Chestnut Hill, Philadelphia, PennsylvaniaArrangement with Citron, from Woodmere Art Museum. 132nd Annual Exhibition of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, 1937, no. 121
Other subjects Crystal Bar, Virginia City, Nevada, oil on canvas, 1946, ex coll. Gratz Gallery 142nd Annual Exhibition of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, 1947, no. 615
Awards and honors Gold medal, Plastic Club, 1920 – for Gold medal, Philadelphia Sketch Club, 1922 – for Treat 'Em Rough First Honorable Mention, National Association of Women Painters and Sculptors, 33rd Annual Exhibition, New York City, October 1923 – for Independence Hall Fellowship of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts Prize, 1928“Honor for Art Instructor,” The Art Digest, Hopewell, NJ: vol. 2, no. 12 (March 1928), p. 25. – for Exhibition prize, Woodmere Art Gallery, 1946 – for Exhibition prize, Woodmere Art Gallery, 1956 – for Mary T. Mason Prize, Woodmere Art Gallery, 1965 – for
Joint exhibition (with husband, Arthur Meltzer), Woodmere Art Gallery, 1944 Solo exhibition, McClees Gallery, Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, 1946The Art Digest, Hopewell, NJ: vol. 20, no. 6 (October 1946), p. 35. Honorary doctorate, Moore College of Art and Design, 1961 Lifetime retrospective exhibition, Woodmere Art Gallery, 1966An Exhibition of Paintings by Paulette Van Roekens, from Google Books. Joint exhibition (with Elizabeth S. Conseur), Hazelton (Pennsylvania) Art League, September 1969E. Ruth Howe, Meeting the Challenge: The Hazelton Art League Story (1996), p. xv.