Biography
Camille Andrene Kauffman was born into an artistic family in Chicago, IL. Her father was a dress designer, his father had een a furniture designer, and her brother became a cartoonist and illustrator. Andrene's career leaned heavily into teaching, but she was also a very productive and broad-ranging artist.
Kauffman graduated from the Art Institute in 1926, having been awarded the John Quincy Adams Fellowship for study abroad. This took her to work with André Lhote in Paris and travel around Europe in 1927. Lhote was a Cubist painter and an influential educator, having founded the Academy André Lhote in 1922. In the 1920s and 1930s Lhote contributed articles on art theory to the Nouvelle Revue Française, which he had co-founded in 1918.
Returning from Paris, Kauffman joined the faculty of the Art Institute, where she was to teach for another 40 years. Her first position was part-time, and she simultaneously held a teaching post at Valparaiso University. In 1933 she joined the WPA Federal Art Project, for which she produced 50 easel paintings, 25 murals and 7 sculptures through the rest of the decade. Not many examples of her prodigious output from this period have survived, although Kauffman's murals for the Luther Burbank School (1937-1938) are still on display.
At the end of the 1930s Kauffman completed work for her bachelor's degree (1939) and a Master of Fine Arts degree (1941). Her sole Post Office mural for Ida Grove, IA was painted in 1940. In 1943 Kauffman resumed her position at Valparaiso University and worked as an aircraft engineering drafter in a war plant. Following the war she became chair of the art department at Rockford College, while still teaching at the Art Institute.
In 1951 Kauffman took a sabbatical leave to study ceramics at the Art Institute. There followed several notable ceramic murals: 2 at Rockford (1952) and an amibitious set of 24 murals for the Third Unitarian Church (1955-1969) on the subject of "Liberal Saints."
Kauffman retired from the Art Institute in 1967. She had a one-woman show at the Vanderpoel Art Gallery in 1971 and completed a mural for the Forest Park Library in 1972. She was part of a 3-artist show at Loyola University in 1985, and her work was selected for display in the State of Illinois Building in Chicago in 1990. She died in Chicago in 1993.
Critical Analysis
Andrene Kauffman is remembered fondly by the many students who worked with her at the Art Institute. She was not a stern instructor, but praised all of her students' work. Her own work was remarkable for the number of pieces she completed and the range of media in which she worked.
Murals
- Chicago, Illinois - Burbank School: Circus
- Chicago, Illinois - Burbank School: Incidents in the Life of Luther Burbank
- Ida Grove, Iowa - Post Office: Preparation for the First County Fair in Ida Grove -- 1872
References
- Andrene Kauffman (Wikipedia).
- Andrene Kauffman (askART).
- Chicago Tribune, Artist, Teacher Andrene Kauffman, 88, Chicago Tribune July 6 (1993).
- Jean Van Rensselar, Quiet Resident Makes Noise in Art World, Press Publications March 7 (1986).