Out of the Crate, Manchester Art Gallery’s latest sculpture exhibition, currently on display in Gallery 12, has brought into the light several pieces from our collection about which we know very little. These are the so-called Cold Cases. One piece by Maria Petrie piqued my curiosity enough to delve further. The only evidence is Exhibit A; Portrait Study (1911) by Maria Petrie. This bust is the silent witness to Maria Petrie’s life.
Portrait Study (1911) by Marie Petrie (C) Manchester Art Galleries 2019
So, who was Maria Petrie? Where did she come from, who were her friends? If you look in the artist file, it contains nothing but a black and white photo of the bust. Nothing else. Nada. Nowt. Zip. Zilch. No condition reports, nor biographical notes, no reviews or associated articles, faded faxes, correspondence or badly photocopied extracts from books. We have no information about her at all.
Considering that this bust is being acknowledged as the first sculpture knowingly acquired by the gallery from a woman artist that a little disappointing, to say the least.
There is precious little online. A rare books site has the only biography of her I could find;
Maria Sophia Zimmern was born in Frankfurt, Germany in August 14th 1887 She studied sculpture at the Staedel Art Institute in Frankfurt for three years, and then became a pupil of Aristide Maillol in Paris. Her sculpture was exhibited in Paris and Brussels before the outbreak of World War One, but after her marriage to British schoolmaster F. Eric Petrie in 1913, she shifted focus to painting, lecturing and writing. There is a nice photo of Maria working on her portrait bust of G. K. Chesterton in her studio present in the national Portrait Gallery Collection. Marie Petrie wrote a book published in 1946 titled Art and Regeneration, on the subject of art as therapy.
Maria Petrie in her studio working on a bust of G. K. Chesterton (1926?) © National Portrait Gallery NPGx12725
So that’s a start. Her bust of G. K. Chesterton, above, ended up in the National Portrait Gallery.
Chesterton (1926) by Maria Petrie © NPG 2019 NPG 3240
We now know she studied in Paris under Aristide Maillol. The bust we have in our collection is dated 1911. Maria would have been 24 years old then. Perfect student age.
There are two portraits of Maria Petrie, nee Zimmern, from around this time, presumably from her time studying in Paris. One by Roger de la Fresnaye and another by Theo van Rysselberghe.
La femme aux chrysanthèmes (Portrait de Mlle Maria Zimmern) (1909) by Roger de la Fresnaye credit: Centre Pompidou 2019
Maria Petrie Zimmern, 1912 (1912) by Théo van Rysselberghe credit: Artnet.com 2019
In 1913, she married a Yorkshire man of German heritage, Francis Eric Steinthal (known as Eric), a school teacher and English International rugby player. The potted biography said she married an F. E. Petrie. We’ll come to that shortly. Anyway, they married in Neubronn church in Baden-Württemberg;
Marriage Register Neubronn Church 1913
Now that we know her married name was originally Steinthal, that opens up a whole new and interesting area of her life. How interesting?
Well. By 1916 F. Eric Steinthal had signed up for the army and joined the Royal Fusiliers. Maria, having just given birth to their only son, Martin Albert, was living at 21 St Bernard’s Crescent, Edinburgh with another couple; Leonard Gray, a local munitions manufacturer and his wife Maidie, or Mary.
The house was at the heart of the Scottish equivalent of the Bloomsbury set, a Scottish Bohemia. Across the road lived the artist John Duncan. Eric Harald Macbeth Robertson and Cecile Walton, daughter of Glasgow Boys artist Edward Arthur Walton and an artist in her own right, were regular visitors. And for a short time, so was the war poet Wilfred Owen who, in 1917, was in Edinburgh at Craiglockhart Hospice for Neurasthenic Officers, being treated for shell-shock.
Owen mentions both Francis Eric and Maria Steinthal in his letters. He said that “Maria Steinthal [was ] a ‘mighty clever German sculptress who had studied under Maillol and other modern masters”. He also enjoyed dinners and parties at St Bernard’s Crescent. Maria taught him German and painted his portrait ‘in an impressionist style’, which Owen liked. Sadly however, the painting is no longer with us as it was apparently destroyed by Owen’s mother.
Maria’s time at St Bernard’s Crescent was cut short abruptly. Leonard and Maidie Gray had a ‘complicated’ relationship rife with infidelity, as was the relationship between Eric Robertson and Cecile Walton, with Maria caught in the middle. Maidie confessed to Cecile that Leonard was in love with Maria ‘but it is all quite spiritual with no sex about it’. Cecile however knew that Maidie had two young officers courting her and was just looking for an excuse. When Maria’s husband returned on leave and discovered the situation he immediately moved Maria and his son into a hotel.
It was then, during the war, that F. Eric Steinthal took his mother’s maiden name Petrie, as Steinthal was considered too German.
After the war, Eric and Maria Petrie returned to Yorkshire and Eric went back to teaching.
Christmas card (1922) designed by Maria Petrie credit: Maggs.com
In 1923, Maria Petrie was still exhibiting locally.
“ILKLEY ARTS EXHIBITION. …pottery by Miss Elsie Lawrence, of Leeds; paintings in the modern school and some particularly interesting sculpture by Mrs. F. E. Petrie, Ilkley…”
- Leeds Mercury, Monday 9th July 1923
The author G. K. Chesterton, creator of the Father Brown mystery novels, among other things, was a family friend of the Steinthals, which would account for Maria’s bust of him, created in 1926.
In 1930, Maria Petrie exhibited her 1911 Portrait Study bronze bust in the Modern Painters Exhibition at the Salon Club Gallery in Manchester, which is where we come in. It’s from this exhibition that Manchester Art Gallery purchased her work;
Manchester Guardian 21st February 1930
Things get a little woolly here, but at some point Maria Petrie followed her husband into teaching. She became an art teacher and in 1936 published a book called Modelling for Children.
During the Second World War, it was her son Martin’s turn to join up and fight. In the summer of 1940 he married Barbara Spells. By January 1941 he had died in action in Kenya and in the summer of 1941 his son, Brian Martin, was born.
At this time, Maria and her husband were working at Abbotsholme School on the Derbyshire-Staffordshire border.
Death notice for Martin Alfred Petrie, Newspaper Index cards
By 1946, Maria was still at Abbotsholme and had written another book, Art and Regeneration, this time on the emerging new field of Art Therapy;
“Art therapy is a form of expressive therapy, in which clients, facilitated by an art therapist, use the creative process of making art to explore their feelings. Art therapists use the process of self-expression, and the resulting artwork to help clients understand their emotional conflicts, develop social skills, improve self-esteem, manage addictions, reduce anxiety, and restore normal function to their lives.”
-Careers in Psychology.org
The book was dedicated to her grandson Brian who, at aged three, did the painting that was used for the cover.
Here the trail goes a little cold. At some point over the next few years Maria and Eric emigrate to the United States, because by 1949 they had become naturalised citizens and were living in Santa Barbara, California.
Maria was still active as an artist. In 1959 she produced a bust of the author Aldous Huxley that is now in the National Portrait Gallery.
Aldous Huxley (1959) by Maria Petrie © National Portrait Gallery, 2019 - NPG 5282
Although Maria Petrie’s early life was dominated by the practice of art, the latter part of her life left us with a very different legacy. When she wrote Art and Regeneration, art therapy was in its infancy and Maria became a pioneering and influential practitioner and lecturer, mentioned in books on the history of art therapy and still cited in articles today.
She died in Santa Barbara, California in 1972 at the age of 85, two years before her husband.
And although most people haven’t heard of her, some out there still know of her. Someone from England queried the Santa Barbara TripAdvisor page, asking if it was possible to find a specific grave. They were looking for the grave of Maria Petrie, a German artist and sculptor who was buried there.
So. That’s more information on Maria Petrie than we had at the start of the exhibition, but there are still a lot of unanswered questions. I suppose, fittingly for a sculptor, that despite all the information that’s been uncovered, there is a lot of negative space where her art career should be.
But the answers are there. How do I know? Because of one frustrating comment on Maria Petrie’s sparse National Portrait Gallery page, where someone commented;
24 July 2016, 18:46
Having one of her portrait paintings I researched her background and eventually found her own hand written account of her life, a full length book held by a distant family member in Cambridge, full of references to many well known artists and celebrities whom she knew in Paris, London and later in California. absolutely fascinating insight into this epoch and the life of a woman artist.
Somewhere out there is a complete, unpublished autobiography that could tell us everything we want to know about Maria Petrie.
So who was Maria Petrie? She was an artist, a teacher, a writer, a lecturer and an art therapist and although we only have one piece of work by her in our collection, I’m glad that we do. As a Mindful Museum with a thriving Mental Health and Wellbeing programme, I can’t think of a better home for Maria Petrie’s Portrait Study.