Philbrook Museum of Art (Tulsa, OK) recently acquired How to be happy though single by Julia Bracewell Folkard (1849-1933) from the Maas Gallery.
Folkard exhibited several paintings of modern young women at Suffolk Street, the Society of Lady (later, Women) Artists and at the Royal Academy within a few years of our painting, which was shown at the Royal Academy in 1891. An Aesthetic Movement interior is furnished with an Edo period ‘byobu’ (gilded Japanese screen), Morris-style wallpaper and rush upholstered chairs. The young woman wears a plain dress with her hair up and no jewellery, and prefers to finish her drawing than to take her spaniel for a walk. She is an independent person. An article about Folkard in The Queen in 1889 asserted that ‘her particular forte in art appears to lie in reading character, and that character, be it man, woman, or child, she can reproduce pictorially with an earnestness, truth, and dignity doing credit to her ever-improving natural talents.’ She lived with her younger sister Mary, who was an actress, novelist and journalist who wrote under the name of ‘Mary Tennyson’. Another sister, Elizabeth, was also an artist. All three were unmarried.