A Bohemian Life: M. Evelyn McCormick (1862-1948), American Impressionist

Weaving together material from secondary sources, novelist Hirsh (Julia du Val) assembles an absorbing portrait of Evelyn McCormick, a now-obscure West Coast artist much acclaimed in the early 20th century. A contemporary of Claude Monet and Childe Hassam, McCormick was the first female American artist to be welcomed by the Salon in Paris. After a sojourn to Giverny in 1890, she returned to her native California where she began a long association with the San Francisco Art Association. By 1893 her work was exhibited at the Chicago World%E2%80%99s Fair alongside East Coast male luminaries John Singer Sargent and Winslow Homer. She hobnobbed with Bernhardt and Steinbeck, ultimately settling in Monterey, a town that she memorialized in many paintings. A free spirit who never married, she bore two children: a son, Haviland McCormick Jones (1892-1953), who was raised by her sister Margaret Jane, and a daughter, Elizabeth Stoddard (1895-1990), whom she put up for adoption. Hirsh doesn%E2%80%99t skimp on details of McCormick%E2%80%99s private life, identifying artist Guy Rose as Haviland%E2%80%99s father and offering a list of suspects as to the paternity of Elizabeth. With her work on display in museums along the West Coast, McCormick%E2%80%99s story bears retelling. 50 color illustrations. (Mar.)