Marguerite KIRMSE
1885–1954, England/USA

Kirmse was born in Bournemouth, England, on 14 December 1885. She studied with Frank Calderon at the Calderon School of Animal Art while also studying the harp in London, England; she spent much of her free time sketching animals at the London Zoo. She arrived in the United States in 1910 intending to support herself as a harpist, but owing to difficulties involved in joining the musicians' union she was unable to find work. She turned to art as a source of income and found a receptive market. She first tried etching in 1921, and met with such success that most of her work thereafter was in that medium, although she continued to work in oils, watercolors, and pastels. In the late 1920s she turned her hand to sculpture, modeling Dachshund, English pointer, Sealyham terriers, English setter and Scottish terrier breeds; the scotties, in four different poses, were cast in bronze by The Gorham Company of Providence, RI.

Kirmse, S. Edwin Megargee Jr. (qv) and Adele Browning owned Tobermory Kennels at Arcady Farm near Bridgewater, CT, where they bred dogs for the show ring. The kennel partnership dissolved when Kirmse married George Cole. Cole was a field trial judge and an upland game bird shooting enthusiast. He owned a plantation in Aiken, SC, where he taught Kirmse to shoot. In Aiken Kirmse was introduced to the foxhounds of the Aiken Drag Hunt, which were depicted by a contemporary illustrator Edward King (qv) in his Derrydale Press (qv) lithograph The Aiken Drag. Kirmse subsequently executed three drypoint etchings of foxhunting subjects: Going to Cover, Full Cry and Full View. Quail shooting on her husband's plantation inspired a series of etchings depicting many aspects of that field sport. At the suggestion of Harry T. Peters, the noted sportsman and sporting art connoisseur, Eugene Connett met and hired Kirmse to work for The Derrydale Press. Kirmse's The Fox of 1931 and The Hound of 1933 were published individually as limited edition, signed and numbered, hand-colored drypoints. Her books, Marguerite Kirmse's Dogs and Dogs in the Field, were also published by the Derrydale Press in 1930 and 1935, respectively, and she illustrated Capt. Paul A. Custis's Sportsmen All in 1938 for the press. She illustrated several other books, including Rudyard Kipling's Thy Servant a Dog, Eric Knight's Lassie Come Home, and Alfred Ollivant's Bob, Son of Battle.

Kirmse was a member of the Philadelphia (PA) Paint Club and the Springfield (MA) Art Association. Her work is represented in the collections of the Pebble Hill Plantation Museum in Thomasville, GA; the Museum of Hounds & Hunting at Morven Park in Leesburg, VA; and the American Kennel Club Museum of the Dog in St. Louis, MO.

Kirmse died in Bridgewater, CT, on 13 December 1954.

Source: http://www.redfoxfineart.com