The Meeting Behind The Portrait
While looking through newspaper clippings, we came across an announcement of an exhibition by Illustrator and Diamond Point cottager Haskell Coffin on September 19, 1923 (left). It was reported by the Post Star that Marcella Sembrich was in attendance at this event.
Coffin was one of the foremost commercial artists of the early 20th century and was also one of the most highly-paid illustrators of his era. The exhibition, held at the Sagamore Hotel, drew over 100 people and featured portraits of Sembrich’s friend and colleague Madame Louise Homer, composer Sidney Homer, actress Frances Starr, and several other summer cottagers.
In December of that same year, Coffin’s newest portrait, a pastel rendering of Madame Marcella Sembrich (right), was featured on the front page of The New York Times Magazine section. Was this exhibition at The Sagamore their first meeting? Could this exhibition have been the impetus for the creation of one of our most beloved portraits of Madame Marcella Sembrich that now hangs in our museum office?
