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| Genevieve Springston Lynch c. 1912 |
The Seven was a coalition of Honolulu-based women artists who first exhibited together in 1929. Several of the group’s inaugural members — Juliette May Fraser, Genevieve Springston Lynch, Madge Tennent (founder and president), and Juanita Vitousek — would subsequently devote the bulk of their careers to Hawai‘i and painting the beauty of the islands. Female artists largely dictated the terms of 20th-century island culture, rarely encountering the sort of institutionalized sexism that often circumscribed the work of their global counterparts.
Yet, the story of women artists in Hawai‘i extends both before and beyond The Seven’s two-year existence. As early as 1880, Helen Whitney Kelley and Helen Thomas Dranga began turning out depictions of the islands’ scenery, subtly challenging the monopoly set by their renowned male contemporaries, such as D. Howard Hitchcock and Lionel Walden. By the early 20th century, kamaʻaina artists Blasingame, Fraser and Cornelia MacIntyre Foley, and Lynch had trained on the United States mainland and in Europe, returned to Hawai‘i and taken on pupils in the islands, all the while cultivating personal styles that would accelerate the advent of a localized modernism movement
Genevieve (Gene) Springston Lynch was born in Forest Grove, Oregon (26 miles west of Portland) on September 20, 1891. "Gene" Springston studied at the Pratt Institute and Art Institute of Chicago. She taught art at Punahou School in Honolulu prior to and after her marriage to L. L. Lynch. Lynch was invited to have a solo show in Paris in 1935. Because of prejudice against female artists, she shortened her professional name and signature to "Gene Lynch." She exhibited in the 1939 Society of Independent Artists show. Her later years were spent in Palo Alto, California. She died there in 1960. Her forte was stylized paintings of exotic plants.
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| Genevieve Springston Lynch Yellow Ginger c. 1940s Oil on board 20" x 16" Private Collection |
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| Genevieve Springston Lynch Cup-and-Saucer Flowers c. 1940 Oil on board 20" x 16" Honolulu Museum of Art |
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| Genevieve Springston Lynch Hawaiian Shoreline with Figures c. n.d. Oil on board 18" x 24" Private Collection  Genevieve Springston Lynch Hawaiian Plantation Scene c. n.d. Oil on canvas 27" x 32.75" Private Collection |
Lynch's pieces such as Yellow Ginger and Cup-and-Saucer are emblematic of the style of painting pioneered by Georgia O'Keefe and brought to Hawaii in 1939 during O'Keefe's assignment to create promotional imagery for the Hawaiian Pineapple Company. |
Her later years were spent in Palo Alto, California, where she died in 1960. Sources__________________________________________________________________________ Isaac's Art Center, Hawaii Preparatory Academy, Sisters of the Brush: Women Artists of Hawaii, 1880-2000. Invaluable, https://www.invaluable.com/auction-lot/painting-genevieve-springston-lynch-7268-c-5514a608bb# American Eagle Fine Art, https://www.americaneaglefineart.com/genevieve-gene-springton-lynch-1891-1960yellow-ginger-circa-1940s/ askART.com, Genevieve Springston Lynch, https://www.liveauctioneers.com/item/53197247_painting-genevieve-lynch |
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