Portrait study of Katharine Minehart as a bride (Mrs. Robert Courtleigh)
Date
1942Medium
Tempera on canvas boardCredit Line
Gift of the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, 2015Dimensions
20 x 16 in.Description & Inscriptions
[verso in blue ink, water stained]: Katharine Minehart / as a Bride (Mrs. Courtleigh); [verso label 1 of 3 in black ink]: Violet Oakley [space] OP48 [in red ink] / Catherine Minehart in / wedding dress / oil on canvas board; [verso label 2 of 3 in black ink]: P-876; [verso label 3 of 3 in black ink]: 112 [in triangle]
With a shared passion for acting, Katharine (Kitty) Minehart (1912/13 or 1917-2009) and Robert Courtleigh (1916-2004) married in 1942. Minehart literally grew up in the theatre when her mother Violet in 1932 converted the carriage house of her family’s complex at 4821 Germantown Avenue to serve as home to the Germantown Theatre Guild. Its mission at the time was to provide affordable entertainment at the height of the Depression. The Theatre Guild continued to entertain until 1997with Minehart serving as its artistic director. Courtleigh’s acting career got a later start, in the 1950s, when he was cast in a science fiction television series. By then the couple had separated and Katharine had remarried. Her second husband, Daniel Lounsbery (1909-1993), was also an actor, and award-winning television producer.
With a shared passion for acting, Katharine (Kitty) Minehart (1912/13 or 1917-2009) and Robert Courtleigh (1916-2004) married in 1942. Minehart literally grew up in the theatre when her mother Violet in 1932 converted the carriage house of her family’s complex at 4821 Germantown Avenue to serve as home to the Germantown Theatre Guild. Its mission at the time was to provide affordable entertainment at the height of the Depression. The Theatre Guild continued to entertain until 1997with Minehart serving as its artistic director. Courtleigh’s acting career got a later start, in the 1950s, when he was cast in a science fiction television series. By then the couple had separated and Katharine had remarried. Her second husband, Daniel Lounsbery (1909-1993), was also an actor, and award-winning television producer.
