Anne Estelle Rice

US/ UK 1877-1959

Born in 1877 in Conshohocken, Pennsylvania, Anne Estelle Rice attended the School of Industrial Art of the Pennsylvania Museum for three years, starting in 1894. She went on to study under the renowned artist William Merritt Chase at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts from 1899 to 1902. In 1905, Rice traveled to Paris to illustrate current fashion trends for American magazines.

During the summer of 1907, Rice encountered Scottish painter John Duncan Fergusson, who encouraged her to explore painting. Living in Paris, she became captivated by Post-Impressionism and Fauvism, which led her to adopt a vibrant color palette with red or blue outlines inspired by artists like Matisse and Derain, who also employed vivid colors.

Rice loved theatre and dance and created "The Egyptian Dancers" after the 1909 debut of Ballets Russes' groundbreaking production of Cleopatra . The painting remained with American author Theodore Dreiser post its European premiere in 1910 when a proposed New York exhibition was canceled due to war-related concerns. The recently rediscovered canvas is considered one of the most significant accomplishments by an American modernist or an American woman associated with the Parisian avant-garde during that period. Notably, Rice held significant exhibitions at London's avant-garde Baillie Gallery in 1911 and 1913, as well as having her artwork featured in England’s equivalent of the Salon des Independents. Rice married theater critic Raymond Dray in 1913. They lived in England where Rice became involved with designing theater costumes and sets and continued to exhibit in London galleries.Throughout the 1920s, while regularly visiting France, she continued to sell her art to collectors in both the United States and Europe.