Watercolor on wove paper, signed lower right; 287 x 390 mm; 11¼ x 15⅜ in.
Van Ness was a pioneer in art education. She often painted during her summer stays in New England, creating work enriched with careful modeling that exhibits great attention to tonality, light, and shadow. Later in her career, she would scrape the gesso medium from her canvas, allowing the bare support to play a role in portraying highlights. She studied at the Boston Museum School with Frank Benson and Edmund Tarbell. Her talent was recognized early on; one year after graduation, she received the Julia A. Shaw award from the National Academy of Design for the best painting by a woman. In 1915, earned the silver medal at the Panama-Pacific International Exposition in San Francisco. After her time teaching at the MFA, she created and ran the art department at the Beaver Country Day School in Newton, Massachusetts from 1921 to 1949. Her holistic art curriculum was later used as the basis for art programs in public schools across the nation.
