6486

Mrs Adolph Ochs, née Iphigenia Miriam Wise 1930

Seated, three-quarter length to the right and looking full-face to the viewer, wearing a black organza stole trimmed with gold over a sleeveless black dress, two jade necklaces and a matching jade bracelet

Oil on canvas, 106.7 x 73.7 cm (42 x 29 in.)

Inscribed lower right: de László / 1930. / LONDON 

Laib L16043(484) / C21(11) Mrs. Ochs

NPG Album 1929-31, p. 8

Sitters’ Book II, opp. f. 48: Effie Wise Ochs May 2 1930

The National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.

Mr Ochs commissioned this picture of his wife in April 1930, while on their European tour. The couple stayed with the de Lászlós during their time in London and the artist described her as, “such a delightful and cultured little lady…and it gave me great pleasure to paint her.”^[1] He also executed a study portrait of Mr Ochs [6480] “as a token of friendship” to be hung in the offices of the New York Times after the artist discovered that his 1926 portrait [6487] had been removed and was in the possession of the sitter’s daughter. Mr Ochs was so proud of his wife’s portrait that he offered it for the exhibition at the Knoedler Gallery in New York in January 1932 in aid of the Emergency Unemployment Relief Fund. It was not accepted, however, as the gallery felt there was “no room for another womans [sic] portrait.”

Both Mr and Mrs Ochs were very pleased with the pictures and he wrote to the artist,  “Mrs Ochs’ portrait is generally commended as a masterpiece. My daughter says that Mrs Ochs’ descendents [sic] will cherish it as a treasured possession, and can take pride in having a woman of such culture, grace and beauty as their ancestor.”^[2]

Iphigenia Miriam (‘Effie’) Wise was born 7 May 1860, in Cincinnati, Ohio, the seventh of ten children of Rabbi Isaac Mayer Wise (1819-1900), founder of Reform Judaism in America, and his first wife, Therese Bloch (d. 1874). Despite her father’s prominence in the Jewish community, she was educated at a Catholic convent school.

In 1881, as “a slender, raven-haired girl of twenty-one,” she met Adolph Ochs (1858-1935), publisher of The Chattanooga Daily Times, who often journeyed to Cincinnati to purchase newsprint.^[3] They were engaged in July 1882 and married on 28 February 1883, at the Plum Street Synagogue in her hometown. After their marriage they lived at the Ochs family home in Chattanooga, where the dominance of her mother-in-law left Effie with a diminished role both in the home and in Chattanooga society. Her husband worked long hours, and she sometimes worked at the office with him, writing book reviews for the paper. Their early married life was clouded by the birth of a stillborn child, followed by a daughter in 1888 who died aged only two and a half months. In 1892 they had another daughter, who was named Iphigene (1892-1990) after her mother.

In 1896 Adolph Ochs purchased control of The New York Times and his family moved to New York to join him. His wife did not care much for entertaining; “hers was a curiously self-centered and cocooned world that revolved almost exclusively around her husband, daughter and close relatives. Effie invariably charmed anyone who happened to enter the Ochs home, but she had no interest in entertaining people or participating in the wider world of New York. Her one domestic interest was interior design, and her taste tended toward the exotic.”^[4] 

Iphigenia Ochs also enjoyed music, and was frequently to be seen at performances at the Metropolitan Opera House and of the New York Philharmonic, and was very supportive of young musicians. She was very fond of gardening and was able to devote her time to this at two homes, Hillandale, White Plains, New York, and Abenia, a summer home at Lake George, New York.^[5]

Iphigene Ochs married Arthur Hays Sulzberger in 1917 and both the sitter and her husband were devoted to their daughter’s increasing family. “Never having had much of a childhood himself, Adolph delighted in playing with his grandchildren. . . Effie’s parlor trick was to recite Gilbert and Sullivan librettos from memory. As she had gotten older and indulged her fondness for sweets, her figure had expanded accordingly. With her white hair and ample bosom, she resembled an amusing and approachable Queen Victoria.”^[6]

Iphigenia Ochs died of a heart attack at Hillandale on 6 May 1937, one day short of her seventy-seventh birthday. She had been “a true helpmeet to her husband in the struggles and triumphs of his career,” noted The New York Times.^[7] She was buried at Temple Israel Cemetery at Mount Hope, New York, in the mausoleum in which her husband had been interred two years earlier.

PROVENANCE:

By descent in the family;

Given to the National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., by the Sulzberger family, 2011

LITERATURE:

•The New York Times, 15 June 1930

•The New York Times, 7 May 1930

•Tifft, Susan E. and Alex S. Jones, The Trust: The Private and Powerful Family Behind The New York Times, Little, Brown and Co, New York, 1999, p. 149

•DLA019-0008, letter from de László to Louis Wiley, 17 May 1930

•DLA019-0093, letter from de László to Ralph D. Blumenfeld, 19 May 1930

•DLA019-0098, letter from de László to István Bárczy, 19 May 1930

•DLA079-0097, letter from the Adolph Ochs to de László, 28 June 1930

•DLA019-0113, letter from de László to Louis Wiley, 15 August 1930

MD 2012