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St. Theresa

Little is known about Hildreth Meière’s painting of St. Theresa, except that it was commissioned by the National Council of Catholic Women of Menlo Park. An inscription on the frame reads as follows:

Ad Majorum Deum Gloriam
To the Memory of Noelie Christine Parrott Donohue - January 6, 1926
National Council of Catholic Women of Menlo Park

A comparison of the right angel from Meière’s painting of St. Theresa with the Two Angels on the Remembrance Shrine at Saint Thomas Church in Manhattan painted a decade later suggests the St. Theresa angel as a starting point from which Meière’s Art Deco treatment of angels developed. The angels holding St. Theresa’s cape are more corporeal than the Two Angels decorating the Remembrance Shrine. Meière based the later angels on medieval prototypes and then gave them an Art Deco twist. She painted the hair of the right St. Theresa angel in ridges that develop into a fully Art Deco rendering of angels’ hair on the Remembrance Shrine. Finally, the St. Theresa angels’ wings suggest the shape of Meière’s Art Deco treatment of angels’ wings that was to come in the later commission.

Right angel from St.Theresa

Right angel from Remembrance Shrine

All that remains of the St. Theresa painting are photographs of the finished work and of a preparatory charcoal sketch:

Study for St. Theresa in charcoal