Kimberly Thompson
Catalog Number: 2019.058.01
Dacotah Carlisle, trained in costume design and illustration, had an eye for the details in the dress seen in this 1942 watercolor painting.
The dress, from the Pettingill family, was modeled by Dorothy Arneson during a meeting of the Women’s Sketch Club in La Crosse.
The Women’s Sketch Club first met on Nov. 7, 1933, in partnership with the Men’s Sketch Club founded a year earlier, and with the support of the local American Association of University Women branch.
The first leader of the group was Lillian Pettingill, an accomplished local artist who graduated from the Fine Arts College of Ingham University.
The Women’s Sketch Club was open to women and girls of all skill levels, provided they bring their own art supplies. Members created pencil sketches, charcoal drawings and watercolor paintings.
At the weekly meetings, a live model or still life was the basis for their art. Sometimes excursions were held to give members a chance to draw local landscapes. After drawing and painting, members got a chance to provide criticism for their fellow artists.
The Women’s Sketch Club maintained close connections with the Men’s Sketch Club.
They held parties together, and occasionally drew and hosted lecturers together.
Lecturers included their own members as well as nonlocal artists. The Women’s Sketch Club also shared their expertise in the arts with the community, as members Dacotah Carlisle and Jane Cilley taught a series of children’s art lessons.
The art created by club members also made it out into the community, where they held exhibitions in local businesses and at events such as the La Crosse Art Fair.
Dacotah Carlisle was a longtime member of the Women’s Sketch Club and served as its president in 1939. Before joining the club, she attended La Crosse State College and graduated from Cooper Union Women’s School of Art in Manhattan.
She moved to La Crosse in 1935 to teach at La Crosse Vocational School (now Western Technical College). She married fellow La Crosse artist Paul Stollenwerk in 1953 and passed away in 1964.
This watercolor was in the Arneson family until recently, when Dorothy’s son Dave donated it to the La Crosse County Historical Society.
This article was originally published in the La Crosse Tribune on March 14, 2020.
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