League of Nations Portraits
“I believe there exists, spiritually, a great suspension bridge, ‘made without hands, eternal, in the heavens,’ a bridge connecting Philadelphia, Penn’s city of Brotherly Love,—and the city of Geneva,” wrote Violet Oakley.1 Although the United States had officially rejected membership in the League of Nations, Oakley remained committed to the idea of international government. Believing that the league was the fulfillment of William Penn’s vision of a “Parliament of Nations” in 1693, she felt compelled to be a part of and to record the momentous development in world history on behalf of the United States. To obtain permission to attend the league, she asked Pennsylvania Governor Gifford Pinchot to present a copy of her portfolio The Holy Experiment: A Message to the World from Pennsylvania (1922) to the league’s library to serve as an introduction.2 With The Holy Experiment as her calling card, she gained admittance to the eighth, ninth, and tenth sessions of the assembly.
Accompanied by Edith Emerson, she set up a studio in an apartment in Geneva, where she drew portraits of the international community assembled there from 1927 to 1929. Twenty-five delegates agreed to pose for Oakley as well as sixteen members of the Secretariat and International Labor Office, and thirteen observers and visitors. The artist’s mastery of drawing made it possible for her to quickly render an expressive likeness with combinations of red, black, and white chalk on toned paper. In her eyes the diversity of delegates from all over the world formed a beautiful human tapestry: “To the Imaginative Observer they seemed to be weaving an intricate and gorgeous pattern made up of all the colours of the world, and of all the creeds.”3
Oakley’s League of Nations portraits were exhibited in Geneva, Florence, London, Rome, and Toronto and in cities on the East Coast of the United States. In 1930, Emerson and Oakley showed their “Geneva Drawings” together at the Philadelphia Art Alliance. After having the delegate portraits reproduced as collotypes, Oakley donated the originals to the Library of the League of Nations.4 In 1933, she published the collotypes and her Journal of Geneva, with reproductions of her murals in the Supreme Court Chamber in the portfolio Law Triumphant: Containing the Opening of the Book of the Law and The Miracle of Geneva.
1 The internal quote is from 2 Corinthians 5:1. Violet Oakley, Law Triumphant: Containing the Opening of the Book of the Law and the Miracle of Geneva (Philadelphia: privately printed, 1933): 14. Oakley’s metaphor corresponded to the construction of the suspension bridge across the Delaware River from 1922 to 1926. Supervised by architect Paul Cret, the concept was originally sketched by Pennsylvania Capitol architect Joseph M. Huston in 1913.
2 Ibid. 45. Gifford Pinchot, a Republican and a Progressive, was governor of Pennsylvania from 1923 to 1927 and 1931 to 1935.
3 Ibid. 40.
4 The Geneva Drawings exhibitions were held at Galerie Moos, Geneva, 15 Sept. – 2 Oct., 1928; The Lyceum Club, Florence, Italy, June, 1929; American Women’s Club, London, 18-22 July, 1929; The Art Alliance, Philadelphia, January, 1930;Grand Central Art Galleries, New York, February, 1930;The Corcoran Gallery, Washington, D.C., April, 1930; Art Gallery of Toronto, Canada, May, 1930; Grace Horne’s Gallery, Boston, 4-18 June, 1930; Vassar College, August, 1930; Wilmington Society of Fine Arts, Delaware, 18-28 Oct., 1930; Yale University, 19-31 January, 1931; Syracuse Museum of Fine Arts, New York, February, 1932;Palm Beach Art Center, Florida, 25 Feb. – 5 Mar., 1936; Palazzo Antici Matti, Rome, Italy, 1937.
Works in Woodmere's Collection
Princess Radziwill, member of the Information Section, later member of Section of Social Questions, of League of Nations
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"France speaks." Portrait of Aristide Briand, delegate from France to the League of Nations and Minister for Foreign Affairs
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Aristide Briand, delegate from France to the League of Nations and Minister for Foreign Affairs
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Portrait study of Madam Marta Hakimi (née Szostakowski), wife of Abolhassan Hakimi, member of League of Nations Secretariat from Persia
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Portrait study of Madam Marta Hakimi (née Szostakowski), wife of Abolhassan Hakimi, a member of League of Nations Secretariat
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Portrait study of Princess Gabrielle Radziwill, member of the Information Section, later member of Section of Social Questions, of League of Nations
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"Japan listens…and talks with Switzerland" [delegates from Japan and Switzerland to the League of Nations]
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Portrait head studies of Sir Austen Chamberlain, delegate from Great Britain to the League of Nations
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Portrait head studies of Gustav Stresemann, Vittorio Scialoja, Joseph Paul-Boncour and unidentified man (possibly Cuban delegate) at the League of Nations
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Bust portraits of Joseph Paul-Boncour [addressing the Assembly of the League of Nations]
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Portrait of man in profile, head of League of Nations Association, Chicago
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"Switzerland speaks." Portrait of Giuseppe Motta, delegate from Switzerland to the League of Nations
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Portrait study of Robert Cecil, 1st Viscount Cecil of Chelwood, delegate from Great Britain to the League of Nations, addressing a group
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Portrait study of Robert Cecil, 1st Viscount Cecil of Chelwood, delegate from Great Britain to the League of Nations
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Portrait study of Edvard Beneš, delegate from Czechoslovakia to the League of Nations
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Portrait study of Edvard Beneš, delegate from Czechoslovakia to the League of Nations
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Portrait head study of Count Albert Apponyi, delegate from Hungary to the League of Nations
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Portrait studies of Sir Eric Drummond, Secretary-General of the League of Nations
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Portrait study of Count Albert Apponyi, delegate from Hungary to the League of Nations, addressing the assembly
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Study for the "Three Fates" (American visitors to the League of Nations, including Anna Pennypacker [Mrs. Percy Pennypacker]
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Robert Cecil, 1st Viscount Cecil of Chelwood, delegate from Great Britain to the League of Nations
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Maksim Litvinov, delegate from the Soviet Union, speaking at the League of Nations
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Portrait study of Alice Church Bartlett, Assistant Librarian, League of Nations
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Illustration study detail of "[Drafting of the Covenant of] A League of Nations…" for Christian Science Monitor (May 1934)
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Portrait studies of Count Albert Apponyi, delegate from Hungary to the League of Nations, and other figure
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"Canada speaks (in French)." Portrait study of the delegate from Canada to the League of Nations
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Portrait study of William Ralph Inge delivering sermon at League of Nations opening service, Cathedral of St. Pierre, Geneva
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Portrait head study of Gen. Jan Christiaan Smuts, former delegate from South Africa to the League of Nations
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Studies of Aristide Briand, delegate from France, speaking and of the packed galleries at the League of Nations Assembly, Geneva
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The Council of Peace: portrait study of three seated men at League of Nations
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Studies of two men conversing and group of three doing same at League of Nations
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"Australia rises to say..." [Study of man standing before a group of men seated around table] at League of Nations
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Portrait study of seated man with figures in background at League of Nations
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Portrait head study of Alexandra Kollontai and a study of "International Solidarity" [circle of men embracing] with thumbnail sketch of head in profile, at League of Nations
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Portrait study of Robert Cecil, 1st Viscount Cecil of Chelwood, delegate from Great Britain to the League of Nations
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Portrait study of Robert Cecil, 1st Viscount Cecil of Chelwood, delegate from Great Britain to the League of Nations
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"The President presides!" (possibly portrait study of Alberto Guani, delegate from Uruguay and President of the 1927-1928 Assembly, League of Nations)
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Study of unidentified woman addressing an Assembly of the League of Nations
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Unidentified study of man standing in front of seated crowd (possibly League of Nations or Moral Re-Armament)
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Study of unidentified woman addressing an Assembly of the League of Nations
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Portrait study of Hjalmar J. Procope, delegate from Findland to the League of Nations, Minister for Foreign Affairs, and President of the Council of the League of Nations
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Portrait studies of Joseph Paul-Boncour, delegate from France, Lord Robert Cecil, delegate from Great Britain, and an unidentified man at the League of Nations
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Portrait study of Aristide Briand, delegate from France to the League of Nations and Minister for Foreign Affairs
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Portrait study of Aristide Briand, delegate from France to the League of Nations and Minister for Foreign Affairs
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Portrait study of Albert Thomas, Director of the International Labor Office, League of Nations
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Portrait study of Albert Thomas, Director of the International Labor Office, League of Nations
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Portrait study of Sir Cecil James Barrington Hurst, delegate from Great Britian to the League of Nations and Elected Judge of the International Court of Justice
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Portrait study of Alice Church Bartlett, Assistant Librarian, League of Nations
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