M. Jean McLane (also known as Jean Johansen) (September 14, 1878 – January 23, 1964), was an
American portraitist. Her works were exhibited and won awards in the United States and in Europe. She made portrait paintings of women and children. McLane also made portrait paintings of a Greek and Australian Premiers and
Elisabeth, Queen of the Belgians.
Personal life
Myrtle Jean McLane was born in
Chicago,
Illinois on September 14, 1878.[1]
While a student at the
School of the Art Institute of Chicago she met
John Christen Johansen and later became his wife.[2] She then had a studio and lived in New York.[3] They had a son John and daughter Margaret.[4] The family spent their summers at Weyborne Hill in Stockbridge, Massachusetts and sometimes traveled to Europe. Their winters were spent in Greenwich Village.[5]
In 1912, she was elected an associate to the
National Academy of Design and a full academician in 1926.[7] She was a member of the National Society of Portrait Painters.[1]
Her Portrait of Virginia and Stanton Arnold (Brother and Sister) was awarded the 1913 Third
Hallgarten Prize at the
National Academy of Design,[11] and also won the 1914 Lippincott Prize at the
Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts as the best figurative piece by an American artist in oil.[12] Her painting "Portrait Mrs. Edmund D. Libby" was included in the Fourth Annual Exhibition of Selected Paintings by American Artists[13] and "The Baby" was included in the Fifth Annual Exhibition of Selected Paintings by American Artists held at the
Detroit Museum of Art April 16 to May 31, 1919.[14]
She made portraits of
Elisabeth, Queen of the Belgians,
Premier Hughes of Australia, and
Premier Eleftherios Venizelos.[15] She and her husband were among artists who were commissioned by the National Portrait Gallery committee to create portraits of World War I soldiers and statesmen. Another woman artist was
Cecilia Beaux. The exhibition of 20 portraits, including Johansen's Signing the Peace Treaty, June 28, 1919, circulated among American cities.[16]
^Jean and John Johansen, New York. Fourteenth Census of the United States, 1920. (NARA microfilm publication T625, 2076 rolls). Records of the Bureau of the Census, Record Group 29. National Archives, Washington, D.C.