Mariana Griswold Van Rensselaer

Bronze relief portrait of Mariana Griswold by Augustus Saint-Gaudens, 1888. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City.

Mariana Griswold Van Rensselaer (February 21, 1851 – January 20, 1934), usually known as Mrs. Schuyler Van Rensselaer, was an American author.

Life

She was born in New York City, the daughter of George Griswold.[1] In 1868, she moved with her family to Dresden, Germany, where she remained for five years. In 1873, she married Schuyler Van Rensselaer and lived in New Brunswick, New Jersey. They had one child, born in February 1875. She began writing in 1876.[2] The first woman architectural critic, she grew in influence in the 1880s.[3]

She was president of the Public Education Association of New York.

Awards

She was elected an honorary member of the American Institute of Architects and the American Society of Landscape Architects.[4] In 1910, she received the degree of D. Litt. from Columbia University,[4] the accomplishment being an extraordinary one for a woman at that time. She was awarded the 1924 American Academy of Arts and Letters Gold Medal.

Works

Her writings include:

Notes

  1.  Wilson, James Grant; Fiske, John, eds. (1889). "Van Rensselaer, Mariana Griswold". Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography. New York: D. Appleton.
  2. http://www.tclf.org/pioneers/profiles/Van_Rensselaer/index.htm
  3. Sarah Allaback (2008). The First American Women Architects. University of Illinois Press. ISBN 978-0-252-03321-6.
  4. 4.0 4.1 Roth, Leland M. (2011). "Van Rensselaer, Mariana Griswold". In Joan Marter. The Grove Encyclopedia of American Art. Oxford University Press.
  5. Luther S. Harris (2003). Around Washington Square. JHU Press. ISBN 978-0-8018-7341-6.

References

Further reading

External links