Claude Raguet Hirst

Claude Raguet Hirst adopted the masculine version of her name early in her career in order to conceal her femininity and be taken seriously in a male-dominated art world. Born in Cincinnati, Ohio, Hirst studied at the Cincinnati School of Design (1874–78) and exhibited at the city’s Industrial Expositions before moving to New York in 1878. There she studied privately with Agnes Dean Abbatt and George Smillie, established a studio on East 14th Street, and debuted at the National Academy of Design in 1882 with two still lifes. Initially known for flower paintings, she shifted in the 1890s to books, pipes, and other objects. Hirst was the only woman of her generation to embrace this highly illusionistic style—at the time considered a masculine pursuit reserved for exclusively for male artists—and she reframed it to appeal to refined female audiences and her own cultural milieu.[1]

Hirst’s still lifes, rendered with exceptional clarity and legibility, secured her a long and successful career spanning seventy years. She exhibited regularly at the National Academy of Design, the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, and the National Association of Women Artists. Today her work is represented in major collections, including the National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, D.C.; the Butler Institute of American Art, Youngstown, Ohio; and the Montclair Museum of Art, New Jersey.

[1] Martha M. Evans, Claude Raguet Hirst: Transforming the American Still Life (Ohio: Columbus Museum of Art, 2004), 11.