Romance by Annie I. Crawford and Emma Kaan, a recent acquisition

At a time when women artists were not as celebrated as their male counterparts, Annie Isabel Crawford (1856-1942) and Charlotte “Emma” Wharton Kaan (1860-1949) were life partners who created art individually and collaboratively. This beautifully rendered portrait of a woman titled Romance was one of their co-produced paintings. Romance was featured in the exhibition catalog for their joint exhibition at the Albright Art Gallery in 1908. This was two years before Cornelia Bentley Sage (1889-1938) became the first woman to direct an art gallery in the United States; she was appointed as director of the Albright Art Gallery in 1910 and served for fourteen years.

Nancy Weekly
Head of Collections and the Charles Cary Rumsey Curator

Email Nancy at weeklyns@buffalostate.edu. Romance is currently on view in Well Crafted.

Nancy Weekly is the Head of Collections and the Charles Cary Rumsey Curator for the Burchfield Penney Art Center, the world’s only museum dedicated to American watercolor master Charles E. Burchfield and artists of the Buffalo Niagara region. She also serves as an adjunct lecturer in Museum Studies for the Department of History and Social Studies Education at Buffalo State College