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Resources
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Carol Buck Curator, The State Museum of Pennsylvania Red Rose Girls Social Media Content Curator
Carol concluded her Master’s Degree in American Studies, from The Pennsylvania State University, with a thesis entitled Violet Oakley, American Artist, Modern Day Activist. Her talks include No Man’s Land: The Question of Gender in Punk Music 1973-1977 for the American Culture Association Conference in Boston 2008, Late-Renaissance Women as Patrons of Architecture for Lebanon Valley College in Annville, Pennsylvania 2007, and Concepts of the Female and Notions of Power in African Art for Lebanon Valley College in 2006.
While at The State Museum, Carol has been involved with inventory of the collections, exhibit installations, leading various artist conversations in the annual Art of the State exhibit as well as exhibit tours including Pennsylvania Modern: A Juried Photography Exhibition of Midcentury Modern Architecture, Art of the Diorama-Windows on Our Natural World and the Inaugural Exhibit of Pennsylvania Arts, which recognized the inauguration of Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf. For this special exhibition, The State Museum displayed artwork by Thomas Eakins, Cecelia Beaux, Andrew Wyeth and of course Violet Oakley. In 2017, Carol was asked to speak at The Historical Society of Pennsylvania where she presented Girl Power: How the Red Rose Girls Made Their Own Way. Her continued scholarship on this pioneering group of artists has brought the most current opportunity, Content Curator for Social Media for the Red Rose Girls.
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Violet Oakley: An Artist's Life By Bailey Van Hook
Violet Oakley: An Artist's Life is the first full-length biography of Violet Oakley (1874–1961). There is much human interest here: a young woman who suddenly finds herself forced to make a living in illustration to support her parents; a sensitive and idealistic young woman who, in a desperate attempt to save her neurasthenic father, embraces Christian Science, a religion derided by her family and friends; a 28 year old woman who receives one of the plum commissions of the era, a mural cycle in the Pennsylvania State Capitol, in a field dominated by much older and predominantly male artists; the tireless self-promoter who traveled abroad to become the unofficial visual historian of the League of Nations yet who ironically was increasingly regarded as a local artist.
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The Red Rose Girls: An Uncommon Story of Art and Love By Alice Carter
The true story of three women artists - Jessie Willcox Smith, Elizabeth Shippen Green, and Violet Oakley - who captivated early-twentieth-century Philadelphia with their brilliant careers and uncommon lifestyle. Nicknamed by their mentor, the famous illustrator Howard Pyle, "The Red Rose Girls" took over the Red Rose Inn, a picturesque estate on the city's venerable Main Line, and set up an unconventional household. Joined by their friend Henrietta Cozens, the women forged an intense emotional bond and made a pact to live together forever. At a time when women were prohibited from taking life-drawing classes at most art schools and generally received inferior art education, Smith, Green, and Oakley - who attended the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and met as Pyle's students at Drexel Institute - were encouraged in their pursuits and celebrated for their talents. The women enjoyed public recognition and success, and enriched their professional lives with a fluid exchange of ideas. It was an idyllic, romantic life - until one woman left the fold to marry, a breach from which the tightly intertwined group never fully recovered. |
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A Sacred Challenge: Violet Oakley and the Pennsylvania Capitol Murals By Patricia Likos Ricci
Published by the Pennsylvania Capitol Preservation Committee, A Sacred Challenge: Violet Oakley and the Pennsylvania Capitol Murals is the first book to tell the story of how the work of this immensely talented female artist came to adorn the walls of one of America's great public buildings. A Sacred Challenge contains over 200 photographs and gives insight into Oakley's entire life's work. It contains a foreword by Philadelphia Museum of Art Curator Emeritus, Beatrice B. Garvan, information about the 1992 Capitol Preservation Committee's conservation of the Capitol murals, a listing of awards and honors held by Oakley, bibliographic information, and an index.
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Photo by Don Giles
