![Musée No:379.019](http://www.museehome.co.uk/cdn/shop/products/379.019_{width}x.jpg?v=1605202582)
Musée No:379.019
Regular price £25.00Self Portrait
Artist: Alice Pike Barney
Date:1895
Alice Pike Barney (1857-1931) is an absolutely fascinating American artist and her life far too interesting to be squeezed into a couple of paragraphs, so unusually I have split it up between several paintings (379.005, 379.018, 379.019, 379.020, 379.021 & 325.185). If you would like to find out more pop the number or her name in the search box at the top of the page, I hope you enjoy discovering more about her fascinating life.
PART 6/6
In 1911, when she was 53 she married, Christian Hemmick, garnering worldwide attention as he was a mere 23 and one of the 1909 "most eligible bachelors". Christian was soon jealous of her success and started drinking heavily. He fell in love with the leading actor of one of her plays, Paul Swan, and had other affairs too. Their marriage was over by early 1920, an event that made the headlines of The Washington Post - ``How Mrs. Hemmick Astonished Washington Society.'' The subheading said: ``She Sent out `At Home' Cards for a Big Reception at her Rhode Island Avenue Home and Eliminated Her Husband's Name from the Invitations - Divorced? Oh, No, Just Her Way to Announce Her Estrangement.'' The story, which covered the entire front page, concluded, ``Alice certainly does do things differently.''
She wrote ballets, operas and plays, she set up theatres and art galleries, studios and pageants. She had solo exhibitions at important galleries and invented and patented mechanical devices. She supported the suffragettes and supplied them with a house for their headquarters, she was a member of the Women’s Peace Party and campaigned against the US entering the first world war. She died on the 12th October 1931 decked out in her finery and diamonds at a concert hall – on her gravestone it reads “Alice Pike Barney,1857-1931, ``The Talented One''