WOMAN IN ART
her design as the work of a professional architect, as shown in its comprehensive departments, the whole fitting admirably the environment of its assigined location and use.
For the decorative, as for the structural scheme, designs were invited among women qualified for such work throughout the United States, and after eager and close competition the prize was awarded to Alice Rideout, of San Francisco. The pediment and symbolic groups of the roof-garden were her work. On the roof were winged groups typical of feminine characteristics and virtues, in choicest symbolism. One of the central figures represented the spirituality of woman, and at her feet a pelican, emblem of love and sacrifice. In the same group charity was side by side with virtue, and sacrifice was further symbolized by a nun, placing her jewels on the altar. Another group represented the genius of civilization, a student at her right and a woman at her left struggling through darkness for the light. All these and other groups represent the genius and labor of Miss Alice Rideout. The center of the pediment was occupied by Minerva with Wisdom's owl at her feet, and on either side, women's work in the progress of civilization was typified by literature, art, and home life.
The caryatids supporting the entablature on the second story balcony were modeled by Miss Enid Yandell of Louisville, Ky.
Designs for the frieze in various rooms, for windows from different states, the actual carving of tables and newel posts, were all the handiwork of American women.
There is no more cosmopolitan nation under the sun than America, and no more cosmopolitan art to be found anywhere, because art is individual.
Because of this we find an influence for art was exerted in our Southern states by a woman not native to America, except in her broad mind and free spirit.
Elizabet Ney was born in the quaint old town of Munster in Westphalia, in 1834, but although born in Germany, her mother was of a family of wealth and culture that had escaped from Poland at the time of its most tragic upheaval, with merely such things as they could carry with them. The father of the future artist was French, a nephew of Marshal Ney of Napoleon's army.
When a girl in her teen years, Elizabet Ney found herself. Her mother was reading to her the romantic story of the life of Sabina von Steinbach,
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