Portrait of Frances Lloyd

Augusta Payne Rathbone

An image of a customer who, according to a note written on the verso of the color print, Augusta Rathbone met at City of Paris department store in San Francisco, California. Rathbone had built a reputation as a leading printmaker in the Bay Area by the time she made “Portrait of Frances Lloyd,” having been introduced to etching by Chicago printmaker Norah Hamilton just over a decade prior. She dedicated much of her time to the medium while living between Paris and her native San Francisco, and had been hired by the department store to create portraits of clientele. The same year this was created, she was given a solo exhibition at the San Francisco Museum of Art.

Rathbone was known especially for her pared-down Modernist etchings of cityscapes and landscapes of the French Riviera, San Francisco, and the Sierra Nevada mountain range. However, her oeuvre included oil paintings, watercolors, drawings, and more. She was active in various women artists groups and was a member of the California Society of Etchers and the San Francisco Art Association.