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From Key Highway, by Amalie Rothschild, 1941. Oil on masonite. 18 3/16 x 25 53/64 in. (46.2 x 65.6 cm.) Maryland Historical Society, Baltimore City Life Museums Collection, Accession: BCLM1965-22-2.
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Out of this World, by Amalie Rothschild, not later than 1949. Paint on artist's board. 22 1/8 x 26 27/32 in. (56.2 x 68.2 cm.) Maryland Historical Society, City Life Museums Collection, Accession: MA2410.
Copyright
Druid Hill Park Boat Lake with Skaters, by Amalie Rothschild, 1941. Oil on masonite. 16 1/64 x 19 61/64 in. (40.7 x 50.7 cm.) Maryland Historical Society, Baltimore City Life Museums Collection, Accession: BCLM1988-15-1.
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Medium/Discipline: Design, Mixed Media, Painting, Sculpture, Works on Paper
Birthplace: Baltimore, Maryland
Place of Death: Baltimore, Maryland
Maryland Affiliation: Born here, Depicts Maryland subjects, Active while in residence
Prominent Theme: Modernism; Cubism; Abstract Expressionism; Abstraction; Figural
Gender: Female
Race/Ethnicity: White
Biography: Amalie Rothschild, born in Maryland in 1916, was a prolific artist who lived and worked in Baltimore throughout her long art career. Rothschild received her early training in the arts and design in fashion illustration at the Maryland Institute College of Art; she graduated from high school at the age of 16 and from the Institute at age 18. After this, she attended the New York School of Fine and Applied Art (now the Parsons School of Design, New School University). She was married at age 20 to Randolph S. Rothschild, an attorney at Baltimore's Sun Life Insurance Company of America, and worked as a commercial artist doing fashion illustration for a number of years during which she continued to paint. Rothschild completed her first self-portrait at age 23 in 1939, which shows her strong sense of design and awareness of the principles of Cubism.
Scholar Tom Haulck explains in association with a 1983 retrospective exhibition of Rothschild's work that much of the art she made between 1933 and 1966 is figurative, autobiographical in content and influenced stylistically by Cubism, Surrealism and Abstract Expressionism (Haulck, p. 65). Haulck describes Rothschild's work before 1966 as "romantic realism," or re-creations of people and places, many of which are of Baltimore's streetscapes and people, painted with a soft palette "typical of a number of Maryland artists at that time." (Haulck, p. 17) She departed from the romantic realist style between 1948 and 1950 to opt for geometrical compositions of representational subjects, and in 1951 created her first painting of complete abstraction. Haulck asserts that the majority of Rothschild's works from 1967 through 1983 manifest her most individual painting style: hard-edged abstraction.
Throughout the entire length of her career, she periodically produced work that explored her role as a woman, a mother and an artist, and more universally, the role of women in society. She also continued to draw from her experience to produce work in the various styles with which she experimented, such as in the mid-1960s when she departed some from the use of acrylics, oil, watercolor, gouache and crayon, to large-scale sculpture using industrial materials such as aluminum or bronze and a partially three-dimensional medium of assemblage, using found objects mounted on wood, for example. She traveled frequently, to Italy, France, Greece, Turkey, Israel, England, Belgium and the Netherlands, Egypt, Spain, Mallorca, Guatemala and Yucatan (Mexico). Many of the formal qualities in her work hearken to the aesthetics of these various cultures.
In 1948, Rothschild began teaching adult classes, and in 1958 taught at the Metropolitan School of Art. She also taught painting at Goucher College from 1960 through 1968. Rothschild won regional acclaim early in her career, showing her work at the Baltimore Museum of Art in a single-artist show in 1942. Her work was purchased by: Duncan Phillips, prominent DC collector and founder of the Phillips Collection museum; Corcoran Gallery of Art; The Peale Museum; and the Honolulu Academy of Arts. Several installations were done by Rothschild in Maryland institutions, including an "Ark Curtain" for the Baltimore Hebrew Congregation (1951), a mural for Town House Motor Hotel in Baltimore (1958), a wall hanging for the Sun Life Insurance Company of America home office (1968), architectural panel designs for Martin Luther King, Jr. Elementary School in Baltimore, a window design for Forest Park High School in Baltimore and a wall hanging designed for the Graham Auditorium of the Walters Art Museum.
Rothschild contributed to Baltimore culture in a number of ways, including founding the annual Druid Hill Park exhibitions in 1952 to show the work of younger artists as well as the Baltimore Sculptor Group in 1983. She also participated in the founding of Gallery One, and artists' cooperative, and selected artists to create murals for the Baltimore subway from 1980-82. Her professional associations include becoming a Member of the Artists' Union of Baltimore in 1940-41 and President of that organization from 1948-50, as well as a member of both The Baltimore Museum of Art Board of Trustees and BMA Accessions Committee. For more than 30 years, from 1953-84, Rothschild served as a volunteer art therapist at Springfield State Hospital.
Amalie Rothschild's two daughters, Amalie R. and Adrien, have also been trained and successful in art and design. Amalie R. Rothschild is a documentary filmmaker whose acclaimed film Nana, Mom and Me (1974) features her mother and deals in part with the dilemma she felt as a result of conflicting demands between her roles as artist, wife and mother. Adrien is an organic farmer and quiltmaker who has a quilt included in the White House Collection of American Crafts.
Taught By: Richard Dicus, 1937; Herman Maril, 1940-41; Max Schallinger, 1945; Frieda Sohn, 1958-9, Baltimore Museum of Art
Art-related Employment: painter; art instructor; art therapist (volunteer)
Selected References: Haulck, Tom. Amalie Rothschild: A Retrospective 1933-1983. (Baltimore), 1983.
Rothschild, Amalie. Amalie Rothschild: Drawings. Intro by Lincoln Johnson, Jr. (Baltimore: Goucher College), 1968.
Rothschild, Amalie R. Nana, Mom and Me (New York: New Day Films), 1974.
Other Publications: Giuliano, Mike. "Family Affair: Rothschild and Daughters All Together Now at Gomez Gallery," Baltimore City Paper, 2000.
Giuliano, Mike. "All in the Family: Gomez Mounts a Mother/ Daughter Exhibit: Sculptural constructions by Amalie Rothschild, photographs by Amalie R. Rothschild, and paintings by Ione Parkin, Amalie Rothschild, Gomez Gallery," Baltimore City Paper, 1998.
Towson State University. A Celebration of Maryland Artists: The Permanent Collection by Maryland Artists at Towson State University. (Towson, Maryland: The University), 1986.
Maryland Institutions Holding Artworks: Baltimore Museum of Art; Maryland Historical Society; Walters Art Museum
Single-Artist Exhibitions: Baltimore Museum of Art, 1942
Playhouse Theater, Baltimore, 1952
Ef Galleries, Ltd., Baltimore, 1952
Harriet's, Baltimore, 1957
University of Maryland Psychiatric Institute, 1957
Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, 1959
Gallery One, Inc. Baltimore, 1960
Goucher College, 1960
"Experiments in Sculpture" solo exhibition at Goucher College, 1964
Jacobs Ladder Gallery, Washington, DC, 1972
"Vestments" (19 constructions), National Academy of Sciences, Washington, DC
B. R. Kornblatt Gallery, Baltimore, 1978, 1980
Meredith Contemporary Art, Baltimore, 1982
Artscape, 1982
"Sculptural constructions by Amalie Rothschild," photographs by Amalie R. Rothschild, and paintings by Ione Parkin, Amalie Rothschild, Gomez Gallery, Baltimore, Maryland, April through May 17, 1998
"Amalie, Adrien, and Amalie R. Rothschild," Gomez Gallery, Baltimore, Maryland, 2000
Multiple-Artist Exhibitions: 7th Annual Exhibition of Maryland Artists at The Baltimore Museum of Art, 1938
7th Annual Christmas Exhibition of Phillips Gallery, Washington, DC, 1941
Peale Museum, Baltimore, Life in Baltimore Exhibition, 1948, 1949
"Three Artists from Baltimore and Washington," Corcoran Gallery of Art, 1958
Inaugural exhibition at Maryland Art Place, 1982
Tricennial celebration Sculpture/300 at Philadelphia Art Alliance, 1982
Awards: Municipal Art Society Prize, 1934
"Life in Baltimore," Peale Museum, Baltimore, 1948, 1949, 1954, 1957
"Maryland Artists Exhibition," The Baltimore Museum of Art, 1950, 1954, 2002
Regional Exhibition, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, 1957
Distinguished Alumni Award from the Maryland Institute College of Art, 1985
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