Anne Estelle Rice (1877–1959)[1] was an American artist who was one of the chief illustrators for the British periodical Rhythm, edited by John Middleton Murry and Michael Sadleir from 1911 to 1913.
[7] In 1909, Rice was one of three artists invited by American merchant John Wanamaker to provide decorative murals for a new store that he was opening in Philadelphia.
In 1910, in the Café d'Harcourt, boulevard Saint-Michel, Rice and Fergusson met the publisher John Middleton Murry.
"Moreover, Rice and Fergusson became active collaborators in Murry's literary and arts quarterly Rhythm, in which Mansfield was assistant editor until June 1912.
According to arts historian Roger Neill:"The aesthetic concept of "rhythm" – harmony in nature, vigour and directness – provided the connective tissue, not only between two Scottish Colourists (Fergusson and Peploe, plus Rice), but also between the writers and artists involved with the magazine.
Also in Paris in 1912 Rice met her future husband, the English art and theatre critic Raymond Drey.
The First World War adversely affected Rice: many of the American art dealers and collectors who showed an interest in her work stopped buying pictures.
It's during the spring and summer 1918, when her close friend she met in Paris came to visit her at Looe in Cornwall,[1] that Rice painted her famous portrait of New Zealand short story writer Katherine Mansfield.
[11]The portrait was purchased in 1940 with T. G. Macarthy Trust funds and is now part of Te Papa's art collections in Wellington, New Zealand.