Sadie Agnes Estelle Irvine: The Cornerstone of Newcomb College

Published by the Two Red Roses Foundation, February 17, 2016

Born in New Orleans in 1887, Sadie Irvine joined Newcomb College in 1903, where she remained until her retirement in 1952. Sadie was the best known of all Newcomb’s decorators. Her talents ranged from pottery decoration to embroidery, from block prints, pastels, pen-and-ink drawings, book illustrations, bookplates, Christmas cards, and portraits to her thoughtful and delicately sensitive watercolors. A highly skilled figurative artist accomplished in the challenging medium of watercolor, her subjects embraced the playful, dreamlike, and idyllic, as well as organic interpretations of nature. The blue tonality of many of Sadie’s images suggests a certain serene, artistic quality, as alluded to in a March 5, 1969, letter to Robert Blasberg: “I respond emotionally to subtle tones, delicate close values, rainy evenings, twilights, fogs in the park, reflected lights in wet pavements perhaps because I am an introvert…”

In the Newcomb College: Arts and Crafts Sales Exhibition catalogue (1998), author Jean Bragg describes Sadie as "a small frail woman of ninety-three pounds who was quiet and loved her garden and friends. Professor Ellsworth Woodward, founder of Newcomb College, said she took on a form of immortality – she was incapable of making a mistake in design!"

The Two Red Roses Foundation is delighted to own several of Sadie Irvine’s ceramic vases, boudoir lamps, and woodblocks, but is particularly proud to possess six of her wonderful watercolors.