Miss Wilson has been accorded the largest commission given any woman sculptor for the decoration of the buildings of the St. Louis Exposition.  She is to design eight spandrils for Machinery Hall, each one being twenty-eight by fifteen feet in size, with figures larger than life.  The design represents the wheelwright and boiler-making trades.  Reclining nude figures, of colossal size, bend toward the keystone of the arch, each holding a tool of a machinist.  Interlaced cog-wheels form the background.

WIRTH, ANNA MARIE. Member of the Munich Art Association.  Born in St. Petersburg, 1846.  Studied in Vienna under Straschiripka—­commonly known as Johann Canon—­and in Paris, although her year’s work in the latter city seems to have left no trace upon her manner of painting.  The genre pictures, in which she excels, clearly show the influence of the old Dutch school.  A writer in “Moderne Kunst” says, in general, that she shows us real human beings under the “precieuses ridicules,” the languishing gallants and the pedant, and often succeeds in individualizing all these with the sharpness of a Chodowiecki, though at times she is merely good-natured, and therefore weak.

Sometimes, like Terborch, by her anecdotical treatment, she can set a whole romantic story before you; again, in the manner of Gerard Dow, she gives you a penetrating glimpse into old burgher life—­work that is quite out of touch with the dilettantism that largely pervades modern art.

The admirers of this unusual artist seek out her genre pictures in the exhibitions of to-day, much as one turns to an idyl of Heinrich Voss, after a dose of the “storm and stress” poets.  Most of her works are in private galleries.

One of her best pictures will be seen at the St. Louis Exposition.

WISINGER-FLORIAN, OLGA. Bavarian Ludwig medal, 1891; medal at Chicago, 1893.  Born in Vienna, 1844.  Pupil of Schaeffer and Schwindler.  She has an excellent reputation as a painter of flowers.  In the New Gallery, Munich, is one of her pictures of this sort; and at Munich, 1893, her flower pieces were especially praised in the reports of the exhibition.

She also paints landscapes, in which she gains power each year; her color grows finer and her design or modelling stronger.  At Vienna, 1890, it was said that her picture of the “Bauernhofe” was, by its excellent color, a disadvantage to the pictures near it, and the shore motive in “Abbazia” was full of artistic charm.  At Vienna, 1893, she exhibited a cycle, “The Months,” which bore witness to her admirable mastery of her art.

Among her works are some excellent Venetian subjects:  “On the Rialto”; “Morning on the Shore”; and “In Venice.”

WOLFF, BETTY. Honorable mention, Berlin, 1890.  Member of the Association of Women Artists and Friends of Art; also of the German Art Association.  Born in Berlin, where she was a pupil of Karl Stauffer-Bern; she also studied in Munich under Karl Marr.