“Mary Augusta Mullikin is an American artist who was born in 1874. “ (1)
“Mary's formal art training was at the Cincinnati Art Academy, followed by studies in Paris under James Whistler and London under Walter Crane.” (2)
“[S]he left Boston for a six months visit to China in 1920. It was a desire to see her sister, whose husband, Edward K. Lowry, was in the export-import business in Tientsin, that took her there.” (3)
“Mary's six months stay in Tianjin eventually extended to 26 years.” (2)
“She toured and painted China's geological and historical wonders.” (4)
“In 1931 she made the first of two visits to the Yungang caves in Shanxi province in the west of China, and returned there the following year with Anna [Hotchkins]. Together they prepared their small book on the early Buddhist sculptures of the caves. After failing to find publishers in the UK and the US, the book was finally published by the Librairie française, a Peking publishing firm owned by Henri Vetch. It was Vetch who suggested the subject of a second, much more ambitious, book about the sacred Daoist and Buddhist mountains, which would involve visiting nine mountains in all corners of China.” (2)
“Just a month before Pearl Harbor, her niece, Mrs. Robert M. Taylor, and Mr. Taylor, who is in the United States consular service, were returning from China to the States, and brought with them a number of her pictures. Others, which she managed to keep despite the hardships of the Japanese occupation, have finally reached America safely also.” (3)
“She would survive Japanese house arrest in Tientsin, but see both her sister Katherine and her husband Edward succumb to the stresses. After being turned out of her home by the Japanese, she was dependent on the kindness of other foreign locals from neutral countries.” (4)
“It was long weeks after the liberation before arrangements were finally made to return the British residents of Tientsin to England and Miss Millikin (Mullikin) had permission to leave at the same time. American Marines escorted the party of nearly 1200, protecting them from possible bandit attacks, from Tientsin to the North China port of Chin Wang Tao. They boarded a ship of normal 150-passenger capacity for the six and a half weeks passage to Southhampton.” (3)
“From there, she returned with them to the United States. And in 1947 they set off for Africa, where Mr. Taylor served as consul general in Nairobi, Kenya Colony, East Africa. After two years he transferred back to Washington, so Mary, now 75, accompanied her niece and nephew-in-law to make her home in America.” (2)
“While in Nairobi, she added to her collection of some 200 paintings done in China, interesting pictures of native African villages, and a few of the natives themselves. Because of their primitive superstitions about having their pictures made, she could not do many of the native people, she says. It was hard to persuade them to pose.” (3)
“[She] was published in National Geographic Magazine in March 1938, and again in June 1945.” (4)
“Mary died in Austin, Texas in February 1964 and was buried in Cincinnati.
After her death Anna Hotchkis undertook to see to the publication of their book The Nine Sacred Mountains of China. Their publisher, Henri Vetch, had moved to Hong Kong during the war and was preoccupied with publishing books for the Hong Kong University. However the book finally appeared under his imprint in 1973.” (2)
Reference:
1.
Mutual Art Staff. Mary Augusta Mullikin Biography [internet]. 2019 [cited 2019 Nov 20]. Available from: https://www.mutualart.com/Artist/Mary-Augusta-Mullikin/A655D7BC8970B8AB/Biography
2.
Academic Staff. Mary Augusta Mullikin Interpretation [internet]. 2010 [cited 2019 Nov 20]. Available from: https://enacademic.com/dic.nsf/enwiki/11705478/Mary_Augusta_Mullikin
3.
Brown, DW. Biography from the Archives of askArt [internet]. Christian Science Monitor: 2009 Jul 25 [cited 2019 Nov 20]. Available from: https://www.askart.com/artist_bio/Mary_Augusta_Mullikin/113517/Mary_Augusta_Mullikin.aspx
4.
Findagrave Contributor 46987065. Mary Augusta Mullikin [internet]. [cited 2019 Nov 20]. Available from: https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/42795488/mary-augusta-mullikin