Picture of the Week: Katherine Faville, First Dean of WSU College of Nursing by Patricia Hill Burnett
December 11, 2021
Patricia Hill Burnett was a renowned portrait painter. She was born in Brooklyn in 1920 and moved to Detroit when her mother married a doctor from Henry Ford Hospital. Burnett received her BFA from Goucher College in Baltimore, Maryland and attended Instituto Allende in Mexico and Wayne State University for graduate school. Her work has been featured in galleries all over the world. She painted portraits of Betty Ford, Indira Gandhi, Joyce Carol Oates, Margaret Thatcher, Ruth Bader Ginsberg, former Michigan Governors William Milliken and John Engler, among many other notable figures. In addition to being a gifted artist, Burnett was a feminist who advocated for women’s rights internationally. She became one of the first women to have a full membership at the Scarab Club, which was originally an all-male artists club, in 1962. Burnett was “a woman who knew what she wanted and often got it.”
Katherine Faville was the first Dean of Wayne State University’s College of Nursing in 1945. Burnett composed her portrait of Faville in 1965. Wayne State University “is the first American college to offer a BSN degree covering nursing fundamentals, medical-surgical, maternity, pediatric, psychiatric, public health, principles and methods of teaching, and fundamentals of administration.” Faville was not only an important figure for the WSU College of Nursing, she also was an advocate for Civil Rights. She had befriended Charles H. Wright when she participated in efforts to desegregate Detroit hospitals in the 1950s and 1960s.
Burnett employs naturalism to create a realistic rendering of Faville. As mentioned previously, the portrait was made during the 1960s, when feminist art was on the rise. As a feminist herself, Burnett chose to showcase Faville as a notable woman in the history of the WSU College of Nursing. Burnett depicts Faville in her element: working in her office. She sits upright, hands folded in her lap, as she gazes directly at the viewer with a subtle yet confident grin. Burnett paints Faville in a blue dress and she is seated in a blue chair at her desk. Blue is often associated with royalty and intelligence. By adorning Faville in a color with such a positive connotation, Burnett further emphasizes her importance in the history of the WSU College of Nursing as well as the city of Detroit as a whole. Faville’s symmetrical, crown-like hairstyle exudes an essence of royalty as well. Burnett places a bouquet of flowers on the desk to the left of the composition; Perhaps this is a symbol of the beauty and strength within femininity that Faville exhibits in her demeanor in her portrait and throughout her career.
Written by Angela Athnasios
Sources: Emma Ockerman, "Artist, feminist Patricia Hill Burnett dies at 94," Detroit Free Press, "History-College of Nursing," nursing.wayne.edu, "Negro Building: Black Americans in the World of Fairs and Museums" by Mabel O. Wilson