Antique New York Theater Print - The Legendary Maude Adams - J. M. Barrie - Peter Pan - LDS Theater Superstar - Feminist History

Treasures from THE THEATER COLLECTION at The Willing Mind. By exclusive arrangement with The Grand Review.

Print size 24 x 14, and consciously formatted to work with a 24 x 14 frame, or custom framed as you see fit.


For 20 years, Maude Adams was the most beloved actress and easily one of the most treasured women in any profession in America. Born into the Mormon Church, Maude Adams acted from early childhood in the LDS theater along with her mother. Traveling endlessly with their troupe, young Maude Adams eventually was seen by and made a great impression on Charles Frohman, to this day the greatest theater producer America has ever known. He paired her with John Drew, a great and established leading man and scion of the whole Barrymore family of actors and actresses, where her star rose and eventually outshown that of her leading man.

Her importance to the whole of the LDS community as one of their own was evident by her crib being displayed by church elders in an alcove of the Salt Lake Temple as a popular tourist attraction.

Ms. Adams' importance to lesbian history should be just as enormous, though she inexplicably warrants little more than a footnote at present. I believe that will change as her legacy is embraced by those she quietly blazed a trail for.

Our personal involvement with Maude Adams goes back to when we acquired a painting of Ms. Adams presenting Peter Pan on stage at the Empire Theatre in New York. The part had been written with her in mind by J. M. Barrie as he transformed his beloved book into a theater production with Charles Frohman as producer and impresario.

The story of the painting is remarkable unto itself, but we'll save that story for later. That said, how do you reduce the mega stardom of the most beloved woman in America, now nearly unknown, into a few paragraphs?

As part of the research into our painting, we've spent a great many hours at the New York Public Library's legendary Theater Collection at Lincoln Center and deep in the vaults of the Museum of the City of New York. As joyful rather than fanatical collectors of Maude Adams photos and memorabilia, we have managed to amass a rather respectable collection of material about Maude Adams, the lion's share of which we will eventually place with a museum or library that seems a good fit.

This photograph really grabbed me, especially when we went in tight for a real close up of her face. Suddenly, after years of collecting, I had a solid view that actually captured the face loved by millions. We went with the close up and restored and now present it as a print, with the original photo from our collection shown as a thumbnail image for reference.

There are other wonderful Maude Adams photos and illustrations in our collection, and we will surely restored and offer them as prints in the future, but if we were only ever able to offer one, this would be it.

NOTE, the 2nd image is just for reference.

• Handmade item
• Materials: Art stock enhanced matte paper, archival ink
• Made to order
• Only ships within United States.

SHIPPING

All prints are shipped in a sturdy mailing tube for $8, which covers postage, tube and S & H.

BUYING MORE THAN ONE PRINT? Add a second print or any number thereafter of this or any other prints in our catalog and shipping is still just $8, total!!!

International shipping is available and reasonable. Please contact us for details.

A NOTE ON OUR PROCESS, OUR CHOICES AND THE QUALITY OF THE GRAPHIC CRAFTSMANSHIP THAT GOES INTO OUR PRINTS.

Every print we deem exciting enough to present to the public via our Etsy store or available here at our studio has gone through a number of steps. The first of those is always discovering and falling in love with an obscure image, always an original that we can hold in our hands. That image is speaking to us, sometime screaming “Don’t leave me here. See what I am, what I was, what I can be, what I SHOULD be!”

There is a real sense of excitement involved, and a great many smiles and knowing grins when we make that deal and bring that ancient print, that battered photo, that scrap of ephemera that contains some scrap of genius from an unknown commercial artist home with us, knowing already how we mean to approach its restoration.

There is the heady promise of a further hunt just as real as what drags a weekend fisherman out of bed at 3AM to work a favorite brook as we start our research, looking for that great backstory, and both ready and willing to tumble down as many rabbit holes as are revealed to us to get that story.

Then there is a meticulous digital restoration that is as often as much fun as riding a vintage Moto Guzzi on a winding coastal road. I don’t care if that sounds crazy, it really is like jumping in the saddle! So many choices, so many chances to take to subtly or spectacularly give new life to otherwise permanently obscure images.

This dedication and the ongoing rush of joy in the accomplishment of it, and the opportunity to share the results in our studio and here on Etsy, is the fire of passion that keeps these engines roaring. We make every effort to ensure our customers are not just satisfied but thrilled, and we happily stand 100% behind our work.