Gretchen Osgood Warren

Gretchen Osgood Warren (March 19, 1868 – September 13, 1961) was an American actress, singer, and poet. She was the wife of Fiske Warren. The daughter of Dr. Hamilton Osgood and Margaret Cushing Osgood of Beacon Hill, Boston, Massachusetts, her younger sister was Mary Alden Childers, the wife of writer and Irish nationalist Erskine Childers. Her nephew Erskine Hamilton Childers served as the fourth President of Ireland from 1973 to 1974.

Gretchen Osgood Warren
Born(1868-03-19)March 19, 1868
DiedSeptember 13, 1961(1961-09-13) (aged 93)
Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.
NationalityAmerican
Occupations
  • Actress
  • singer
  • poet
SpouseFiske Warren
Relatives

Early life

She could sing perfectly in pitch, write like an adult and recite poetry on command.[1] Her upbringing in the affluent environment that was turn of the century Beacon Hill, Boston, Massachusetts allowed her to pursue music and drama to an extremely high level.[2]

Just down the street from the Osgood home was the Boston Athenaeum, where a long line of Osgoods, namely Frances Sargent Osgood and Samuel Stillman Osgood, are all listed on the "Register of the Proprietors" for the institution.[3] Gretchen went on to study at Oxford and graduated with honors.[2]

Artistic muse
Mrs. Fiske Warren (Gretchen Osgood) and Her Daughter Rachel, John Singer Sargent, 1903.

John Singer Sargent, the famed portraitist of Boston's elite, was commissioned by Warren's husband, Fiske Warren to paint her portrait in April 1903.[4] The sitting was done in Fenway Court, then the home of legendary Boston fine arts czar; Isabella Stewart Gardner. Warren is seen seated in a chair with her daughter, Rachel Warren. The painting is often considered to be one of Sargent's prime portraits and usually appears in Sargent Estate calendars and postcards.[5][6][7] Later she was also photographed by portrait photographer Arnold Genthe.[8]

She died at her home in Boston in 1961.[9] Her daughter Rachel married the American archaeologist Samuel K. Lothrop and later the Irish nationalist Robert Childers Barton.[10]

Awards

Works
  • Harriet Monroe, ed. (1916). "The Wild Bird". Poetry. Modern Poetry Association.
  • "The Pilgrim's Way". Poet lore. Writer's Center. 1915.
  • Humanity, by Gretchen Osgood Warren, (Basil Blackwell, Oxford) 1953 (A Selection of Poems)

References
  1. Private Papers of Robert Erskine Chidlers, Trinity College Library, Cambridge
  2. "The Mount Vernon Street Warrens" Martin Green, Simon & Schuster, 1989 ISBN 0-684-19109-1, pp. 150-156.
  3. Register of the Proprietors of the Boston Athenaeum , The Boston Athenaeum, 1898
  4. Martin Green. "The Mount Vernon Street Warrens", Simon & Schuster, 1989; ISBN 0-684-19109-1, p. 151
  5. John Singer Sargent's Mrs. Fiske Warren (Gretchen Osgood) and Her Daughter Rachel
  6. "MFA Boston: Collections Search Results". Archived from the original on March 7, 2007. Retrieved April 18, 2008.
  7. "The Mount Vernon Street Warrens" Martin Green, Simon & Schuster, 1989 ISBN 0-684-19109-1, pp. 150-156
  8. Genthe's portraits in the Library of Congress, loc.gov; accessed 18 January 2016.
  9. "Deaths". The Boston Globe. September 15, 1961. p. 25. Retrieved January 18, 2020.
  10. Murphy, Seán (December 5, 2018). "The Childers and Barton families: Bordeaux, war and 'the first spy novel'". Wicklow People.

Sources
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