Dwight - "Fish" One color lithograph of a crowd staring at orange fish in an aquarium

Mabel Dwight • American (1876-1955)

Fish C: 1928 • Lithograph on Paper 19-1/4" x 10-5/8"

Mabel Dwight put her career on hold for a man. She was married for about 11 years to artist Eugene Patrick Higgins, but you’d never know it from Higgins’ biographies, where she is never mentioned. He preferred the pretense he first married at age 50 and lived a blissful life ever after. Well, two can play the “Found-Myself-Late-In-Life” game. Mabel restarted her artistic career after separating from Higgins. She became one of America’s “best living printmakers” according to Prints Magazine, although she didn’t return to lithographs until the age of 52.

Though never financially stable, she traveled to Paris in 1926 to study lithography at the Atelier Duchatel. Back in New York, she produced a steady stream of lithographic prints that, mostly, took a humorous look at ordinary life.

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01 1932 Self-Portrait lithograph 0n stone 26.9 x 21 cm Edition of 50 printed by George Miller.jpg

We can only wonder how Dwight must have chafed in the role of housewife to an artist who shared her radical politics, but apparently not her wicked sense of humor. He portrayed the world in a dark, humorless style. Despite being deaf for most of her life, she became a keen “observer of the human comedy,” bringing sharp observation and wry humor to her work. She must have viewed their separation as a rebirth since she gave herself a new name, rather than revert to her maiden name (Williamson) or maintain her married name. She became a Dwight, a name not shared with anyone she knew. After the separation, she fell in love with a much younger fellow socialist, Roderick Seidenberg. They lived together, a scandalous arrangement in 1920s America, but he eventually married another woman. When Dwight was ill later in life, Seidenberg and his wife took her into their home to care for her.

In Fish, the wide-eyed fish appear to be as enthralled with the people as the people are with them. Virtually the same scene, from the New York City Aquarium in Battery Park, was repeated in Dwight’s best selling lithograph, Queer Fish, completed eight years later. With Mabel Dwight, you never knew who was the actor and who was the audience.

Canton Museum of Art Permanent Collection • Purchased by the Canton Museum of Art, 2010.7

4 Ways to Sound Smart When Viewing at The Canton Museum of Art

1.
“Although biographies vary, she was apparently quite deaf most of her life, giving her a profound sense of empathy for others. One door closes and another opens.”

2.
“She is well-known for her lithographs of the ‘Comidie Humaire’, better known as the human condition. She had a sharp eye for human foibles and a soft heart when portraying them.”

3.
“Her maiden name was Williamson, and her married name was Higgins. After divorcing her husband she took the name Dwight, for absolutely no good reason, cause ‘Why Not?’”

4.
“Known as one of America’s great printmakers, she did not begin to produce professional lithographs until the age of 52. Better late than never.”

Dwight Timeline. Scroll over images to see timeline.

1876

Apparently she gave various dates of birth during the course of her adult life. However, 1876 seems most likely. She was born in Cincinnati to farmer, Paul Houston Williamson and his wife, Adelaide. While Mabel was still a child, the family moved to New Orleans where she attended a convent school.

1890s

The Williamson family moved again, this time to San Francisco where Mabel graduated from high school and studied art at the Mark Hopkins Institute (California School of Design) under the instruction of famed painter, Arthur Mathews. Mathews, a trained architect, was one of the founders of the Arts and Crafts Movement in America, combining his skills as a furniture maker and painter.

1900

Traveled extensively through the Middle East and Far East.

1903

Upon returning from the Far East, she settled with her family in Greenwich Village, New York, already a teeming artist’s haven. There she met Eugene Patrick Higgins, a young painter who shared her radical socialist beliefs. They married in 1906.

1917

After suspending her artistic career for 14 years while being a housewife and helpmate to Higgins, the pair separated, eventually divorcing in 1921. A devoted Catholic, the divorce must not have been easy for Mabel. After the separation, she resumed her career as a professional artist.

1920s

She fell in love with a fellow socialist, Roderick Seidenberg, an architectural draftsman. He was 14 years younger than Mabel. They lived together for a number of years in an arrangement that must have been scandalous at the time.

1926-28

Mabel spent two years studying lithography in Paris at the Atelier Duchatel. This reinvigorated an interest in printmaking she first explored when a student in San Francisco.

1930

Traveled to New Mexico. Upon her return she moved from Greenwich Village to Staten Island. The decade of the 1930s was her most productive time as an artist. However, later in the decade and into the 1940s, her health began to fail. For a time she moved in with former lover, Seidenberg and his wife Catherine who cared for her.

1936

Prints magazine listed her as one of America’s best printmakers. In the same year she executed a number of lithographs taken from scenes at the New York City Aquarium in Battery Park. Included was Queer Fish, her best selling lithograph. She also began executing lithographs for federal arts projects.

1940s

Although increasingly sickly, she continued to show in a number of major New York Print Shows, including the Weyhe Gallery, American Fine Arts Building and National Academy of Design. But after 1942, health issues slowed her work to a trickle.

1955

After spending her final years confined to a nursing home in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, she died after suffering a stroke.