Woman defied odds as artist
By Bob Cudmore, Focus on History, for 2-05-05
In the years before World War One, Mary Van der Veer smoked cigarettes, bobbed her blonde hair and traveled on crutches and in wheel chairs between Holland and Paris, where she studied with the artist James Whistler.
Born on a farm near Fort Hunter in 1865, Mary painted numerous oils, pastels and water colors in her remarkable life. Many of these paintings are prized possessions in private collections in the Mohawk Valley and elsewhere. She primarily painted flowers, portraits and landscapes.
The daughter of John and Jennue Van der Veer, Mary was stricken with polio at age three. Her legs were paralyzed and her hands and back were deformed. The family moved to Crane’s Hollow Road in the town of Amsterdam where an accident threatened Mary’s sight when she was eight.
The late historian Katherine Strobeck wrote in her book Mohawk Valley Happenings, “Mary’s father was painting a wall with a type of whitewash known as muresco. Mary tipped the solution down on her head into her eyes. A family member rushed to the milk house and threw a pan of milk into Mary’s eyes, saving her sight.”
Artistic talent was valued by the Van der Veer family. Mary attended the National Academy of Design in New York City and her pictures were displayed at the Chicago World’s Fair and the Paris Exhibition. She left for Paris and studied with Whistler. Her self portrait was chosen for a show Whistler held for his students in 1900. She also spent time back in Amsterdam and elsewhere in America, for example holding a one-woman show in Philadelphia.
Mary’s father was a contractor who built houses on Market Hill. He converted a barn on Arnold Avenue into a house and studio for Mary, using the services of architect P.P. Cassidy. The dwelling was the subject of a House Beautiful article in 1915 entitled “How ‘barneo’ became ‘little house.’”
“At the back of ‘little house,’ on either side of her door, Mary had a small garden plot of her own—cultivated flowers on one side and wild flowers on the other,” wrote Helen Ireland Hays of Johnstown in a monograph about the artist. Hays said that young people found Mary “sympathetic and helpful.”
After World War One, Mary lived for a time in Veere, Holland where her ancestors had resided. Back on Arnold Avenue in Amsterdam, according to Strobeck, Mary painted flowers and portraits and also Sacandaga Reservoir scenes.
She went to Philadelphia to do a portrait but fell and hurt her back. “She was never again able to do large pieces,” Strobeck said. A later back injury hurt her hands and she stopped painting.
In 1932, 85 of her paintings were displayed at the home of Elliott Boice on Guy Park Avenue in Amsterdam in a benefit for the Y.M.C.A. That home became the Boice Funeral Home. A newspaper review in The Recorder stated, “The pastels, which Miss Van der Veer handles as well as any contemporary artist, were the source of special interest to many.”
Mary Van der Veer died in 1945 at the age of 79. In a 1964 essay, her niece Marie L. Gilbert wrote, “In a competitive masculine field, not noted in the past for its financial remunerations, Miss V. was able to support herself and to travel.” Gilbert, who posed for a Van der Veer portrait as a young “wiggling” child, added that her aunt’s blue eyes twinkled and she had “a tongue sometimes peppery and a merry laugh.”
Several of the artist’s paintings are in the collection of the Walter Elwood Museum in Amsterdam. Museum board member Tom Foster provided materials for this story and is interested in acquiring a Van der Veer painting. He can be reached at 843-2765.
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The attached picture is courtesy of the Walter Elwood Museum. A 1926 portrait of 7-year old Gardiner H. Kuhn, painted by Amsterdam artist Mary Van der Veer,
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