Indiana Historical Society - Manuscripts & Archives
User Information
Biographical Sketch
Scope and Content Note
Box and Folder Listing
Cataloguing Information
Processed by
Charles Latham
17 April 1996
VOLUME OF COLLECTION: 3 manuscript boxes, 1 oversize folder, 2 bound volumes
COLLECTION DATES: Inclusive 1878-1932; bulk 1894-1898
PROVENANCE: Charles Latham, Jr., North Thetford, VT, 10 and 26 April, 1996; 22 and 29 May 1996; and 28 October 1996
RESTRICTIONS: None
REPRODUCTION RIGHTS: Permission to reproduce or publish material from this collection must be obtained in writing from the Indiana Historical Society
ALTERNATE FORMATS: None
OTHER FINDING AIDS: None
RELATED HOLDINGS: SC 2535, Joseph K. Sharpe, Jr. (brother); SC 1793, Mary Ellen Graydon Sharpe (mother); M 464, T. C. Steele; SC 2458, Wijnant Johnston
ACCESSION NUMBER: 96.0405, 96.0418, 96.0452, 96.0466, 1997.0052
Julia Graydon Sharpe (ca 1857-1939) was born in Indianapolis, the daughter of Joseph Kinne and Mary Ellen (Graydon) Sharpe. Her father was a prosperous leather merchant and real estate operator, and for some years after the death of banker Calvin Fletcher in 1866, the family lived in the large house Fletcher had built at what is now 10th and Pennsylvania Streets (see Folder 18).
Julia Sharpe attended private schools in Indianapolis, and then Chegaray Institute in Philadelphia, where she got special instruction in voice. Returning to Indianapolis, she attended Love and Gookins' first Indiana School of Art in 1878-1880, apparently specializing in drawing.
Her artistic work then underwent a hiatus, partly because her father was a victim of the depression of the 1870s, partly because of her social activity. She was an early and longtime member of the Flower Mission (see M 71), and an active member of The Portfolio. Her activities brought her into frequent contact with James Whitcomb Riley. In 1894-1896 she was a student of William Forsyth and T. C. Steele at their second Indiana School of Art, and in 1896 she was one of a group of students who went with Forsyth on a sketching expedition to Corydon and Cedar Farm. Apparently Forsyth was a personal admirer of Sharpe, though he married someone else the next year (see Folder 5 in Box 1).
`In the winter of 1896-1897 Sharpe studied in New York at the Art Students League (with Augustus Saint Gaudens among others) and at William Merritt Chase's School of Art. In the fall of 1898 she went with her six-year-old niece on a sketching trip to the mountains of West Virginia.
In the early 1900s Sharpe had a studio on the top floor of her parents' home in Morton Place, and became well known for her studio parties. She worked also in Brown County, in Brookville, and on Traverse Bay in Michigan. She also became much interested in designing bookplates.
Julia Sharpe was a loyal member and a guardian of the history of the Second Presbyterian Church and the Home for Aged Women (now Indianapolis Retirement Home-- see M 519), and of the DAR (Caroline Scott Harrison Chapter). She was a fluent writer, and gave readings to many organizations, often in dialect in the style of J. W. Riley and Bret Harte. She never married, but lived with her parents and then with her two sisters, Ella Sharpe Duncan and Anna T. Sharpe.
Sources: Materials in collection, espectially artist's notebook.
Personal knowledge of processor.
Esther Griffin White, Indiana Bookplates (1911), unpaged
New Era, 25 May 1912, 10
This collection, filling two manuscript boxes, one visuals box, two oversize folders, and two bound volumes, contains correspondence, literary compositions, photographs, graphics, sketches, and sketchbooks, dated 1878-1932. It is arranged by category, and chronologically within category.
Box 1 contains correspondence, notes, and manuscript stories. Folders 1-3 contain biographical and historical material. Folders 4-15 contain correspondence and related material, 1879-1932. Of particular interest are two notes from Indiana painter John W. Love (Folder 4); eight notes from James Whitcomb Riley, one with a sketch of his character "Doc Sifers" (Folders 5-8); nine poems of admiration from William Forsyth (Folder 9). In folder 10 there is a copy of A Child-World by James W. Riley (1897) inscribed by William Forsyth to Julia and includes a poem by Forsyth, Oct. 1896. Folder 11 includes a speech given at the Flower Mission in 1894. Letters written by Julia Sharpe while studying at the Art Students League are in (Folders 12-14); a 1907 letter from Selma N. Steele describing the new Steele house in Brown County, and two letters of 1911 about a contested election at the Art Institute (Folder 15); and World War I letters from Indianapolis protege Winant P. Johnston and from French soldiers (Folders 16-19). Folder 20 includes general correspondence, 1922-1932, and a letter with reminiscences about studying under Wm. M. Chase, as well as letters from Henry Lane Wilson, George Ade, and Albert J. Beveridge. In Folder 21 is an informal will of 1924 referring to a shadow which passed over the artist's life in childhood. (Note: photographs of two of the J. W. Riley letters in Folder 5, and of the items in Folders 6 and 7, are found in M 240 J. W. Riley, Box 1 Folder 20.) In Folder 22 is a manuscript Valentine by Roswell M. Field author and brother of Eugene Field, to Julia G. Sharpe, Kansas City.
Box 2, Folders 1-7 contain manuscripts of dialect stories, and a notebook with short portraits of important acquaintances and some club papers. There are also two Julia Sharpe sketchbooks. One, with sharp pencil sketches dated 1878-1881, shows the meticulous technique taught at the Love-Gookins art school (Folder 11). The other, in Folder 12 and dated 1894-1896, dates from the Forsyth-Steele school and has sketches done in a much broader style. There are also three female heads, one of an old woman in spectacles dated from West Virginia in 1898, and a sketch (1902) of and note (1906) from H & M. Nodder.
In Box 3 are photographs: of Mme D'Hervilly of the Chegaray Institute; of Julia Sharpe and her studio; of her family's house in Morton Place; and two groups. Also included is an unbound album, decorated by Sharpe in Aubrey Beardsley style, with photographs of her niece, Josephine P. Sharpe, with her parents, J. K. Sharpe, Jr., and Alberta J. Sharpe. In Folder 4 are photographs of some of her paintings, with her descriptions written on the obverse. In Folder 9 is an album with photographs of the classes at the Art Students League and of sketching scenes in Brown County, at Cedar
Farm, and in West Virginia and Michigan. In Folder 10 is a small album of photographs of the studio which Sharpe maintained from 1917 to 1920 in her brother's home at 1314 North Delaware Street.
BV 3061 is a studio scrapbook, with Sharpe's tickets to different art schools, clippings, copies and original drawings of bookplates, and photographs of some paintings. BV 3062 is a scrapbook kept from 1880 on by her sister, Anna T. Sharpe. It contains mainly newspaper poetry, but also some social notices and an obituary of John W. Love, who died young in 1880.
Box 1: Biographical; Correspondence
FOLDER
1 Biographical
2 History of JGS by DAR Chapter
3 Material about Henry Ward Beecher in Indianapolis
4 Correspondence 1879-1900
5 Notes from James Whitcomb Riley 1884-1895
6 Poem from Riley n.d.
7 Sketch and poem from Riley 1900
8 Material on sketch in Folder 7
9 Poems from William Forsyth 1888-1899, n.d.
10 Poem from William Forsyth (1896) in Riley Book
11 Speech at Flower Mission 1894
12 Letters to family from New York-- Apr.-Dec. 1896
13 Letters to family from New York-- Jan.-May 1897
14 Letters to family from West Virginia-- Sept.-Oct. 1898
15 Correspondence 1902-1917
16 Letters from Winant P. Johnston (Georgia and France), Dec. 1917 - 6 Nov. 1918
17 Letters from Winant P. Johnston (France and Germany), Nov. 1918 - March 1919
18 Letters from Frances M. Ross in France 1917-1918
19 Letters from French soldiers 1917-1918
20 Correspondence 1922-1932
21 Will 1924
22 (OM 363) Valentine from Roswell M. Field, n.d.
Box 2: Manuscripts; sketchbooks and sketches
FOLDER
1 Manuscript-- Fairies then and now
2 Manuscript-- Jeff-- a desperate character
3 Manuscript-- Just an old garden
4 Manuscript-- Mammy's victory
5 Manuscript-- The pommydory man
6 Notebook on famous acquaintances
7 Club Records
8 Tributes-- Anna Nicholas, Mrs. Carrie Loveless
9 Clippings
10 Studio Scrapbook, ca. 1896-1920--See Also: BV 3061
11 Sketchbook 1878-1881
12 Sketchbook 1894-1896
13 Two heads ca. 1896
14 Old lady's head (West Virginia) 1898
15 Sketch of H. M. Nodder 1902 and Note from Nodder 1906
Box 3: Photographs and graphic
FOLDER
1 (VC) Portraits 1880-1920
2 (VC) Studio at 2111 N. Delaware St. ca 1910
3 (VC) House at 2111 N. Delaware St. ca 1910
4 (VC) Photographs of paintings, laid in BV 3061
5 (VC) Group at Flower Mission Ball ca 1910 (OVA storage); Unidentified house (OVA storage)
6 (VC) Group photograph ca 1880 (OVB storage)
7 (VC) Decorated album ca 1898 (album storage)
8 (VC) Watercolor of farmhouse in West Virginia 1898 (graphics storage)
9 (VC) Album-- art school, sketching scenes (album storage)
10 (VC) Album-- studio (1917-1920) at 1314 N. Delaware St.
(BV 3061) Studio scrapbook, ca 1896-1920
(BV 3062) Scrapbook of Anna T. Sharpe, ca 1880
MAIN ENTRY: Sharpe, Julia Graydon, ca. 1857-1939
SUBJECT ENTRIES: Sharpe, Julia Graydon, ca. 1857-1939--Notebooks, sketchbooks, etc.
Chase, William Merritt, 1849-1916
Beecher, Henry Ward, 1813-1887
Sharpe, Joseph Kinne, 1853-1920--Photographs
Latham, Josephine Sharpe, 1892-1988--Photographs
Art Students' League (New York, N.Y.)--Photographs
Indianapolis Flower Mission--Photographs
House of the Singing Winds (Ind.)
Artists--Indiana--Indianapolis
Art--Study and teaching--Indiana
Artists' studios--Indiana--Indianapolis--Photographs
Artists' writings--Indiana--Indianapolis
Bookplates, American --Indiana--Indianapolis
World War, 1914-1918--France
Drawing--Indiana--Indianapolis
ADDED ENTRIES: Riley, James Whitcomb, 1849-1916
Forsyth, William, 1854-1935
Johnston, Wijnant, b. 1890
Wilson, Henry Lane, 1857-1932
END