Hannah Rose Hoffman Lee was part of a distinguished Philadelphia family that traced its roots to early America. Beaux’s impressionistic brushwork bears witness to the artist’s hand, describing the play of light across the surfaces of her subject’s dress. Yet, the sitter’s features and still introspection remain Beaux’s artistic focus; the abstract, softly rendered background reads as an extension of her interior life. Beaux’s great reputation as a portraitist derived from just this combination of brilliant execution and psychological quality that pleased clients and critics. Indeed, fellow PAFA instructor William Merritt Chase described her as “not only the greatest living woman painter, but the best that has ever lived.”
A Philadelphia native, Beaux was raised by her maternal grandparents and supported by her aunts who recognized her emerging artistic talents. She received instruction from her relative Catherine Ann Drinker, an accomplished artist who would be a lifelong inspiration. Beaux also trained with Dutch-born academic painter Francis Adolf van der Wielen. By 1875, she was working as a commercial artist, including making drawings of fossils for the U.S. Geological Survey project. Then, from 1877–79, she studied at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (PAFA). After that, she taught private art lessons at Miss Sanford’s School in Hockessin, Delaware, and trained privately with the painter William Sartain.
In 1888, after rejecting a marriage proposal from Philadelphia artist Henry Thouron, Beaux decided to devote herself to portraiture and studied in Europe for nineteen months. “I have let myself enjoy your friendship too much,” she wrote to him before leaving on her travels. She was able to hone her skills in Paris at the Académie Julian (est. 1868) and Académie Colarossi (est. 1870) in Paris, the only art academies in the city to accept women at this time. She spent much of her time in Paris visiting the Louvre, copying old masters and admiring works by Italian and Dutch artists like Titian, Rembrandt, and Peter Paul Rubens. “I have been copying at the Louvre, and I am infatuated with it,” she wrote.
Beaux was the first woman to secure a faculty position at PAFA. Among her students was the great American muralist and illustrator Violet Oakley. Beaux taught classes from portraiture to life, costume, and antique copying in the 1870s. Critics were soon describing her work as “virile” and “strong,” comparing her canvases to those of John Singer Sargent. Her work Les derniers jours d’enfance (The Last Days of Childhood) was exhibited in the Paris Salon following its debut at PAFA in 1885, as were other works at the Champ-de-Mars Salon in 1896. Beaux continued to be celebrated in Philadelphia and New York for her portraits of established families, and her talents were recognized by the leading critics and institutions of her day.
