The Artistic and Scientific Collaboration of Blanche Ames Ames and Adelbert Ames II

Abstract

During an uninterrupted period from about 1910 through 1913, Blanche Ames Ames (1878–1969), an American artist and women’s suffragist, worked closely with her brother, Adelbert Ames II (1880–1955), a lawyer, artist and optical physiologist, in a study of color, perspective and other aspects of pictorial art in the hope of using scientific findings to enhance the realism of their paintings. They made significant progress, but their close relationship ended in 1922 as a result of a disagreement about their joint authorship of a published paper.