Allender, Nina (25 Dec. 1872–2 Apr. 1957), artist and women’s rights activist, was born Nina Evans in Auburn, Kansas to David J. Evans and Eva S. (Moore) Evans. Her father was a schoolteacher who later became a superintendent of schools; her mother had started teaching school in Kansas at the age of sixteen. Eva Evans grew dissatisfied with the marriage and took the highly unusual step of leaving her husband and moving with Nina and her younger sister, Kate, to Washington, D.C., where in ...
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Allender, Nina (25 Dec. 1872–2 Apr. 1957), artist and women’s rights activist
Allison K. Lange
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Allender, Nina (25 December 1872–April 2, 1957)
Corp author Bain News Service
In
Nina Allender, by unknown photographer
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540 USA [LC-B2- 3956-3]
Article
Bad Heart Bull, Amos (01 January 1869?–1913), folk artist
Daniel Grant
Bad Heart Bull, Amos (01 January 1869?–1913), folk artist, was born on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in what is now Wyoming, the son of Bad Heart Bull (the elder). His mother's name is unknown. Amos, also known as Eagle Lance, Amos Bad Heart Buffalo, Amos Bad Heart Buffalo Bull, and Tatanka Cante Sice, was also the nephew of Sioux chief He Dog and cousin of the renowned Sioux warrior ...
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Bean, Alan (15 March 1932–26 May 2018)
unknown
In
Alan Bean, 1971, unknown photographer
courtesy of NASA
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Bean, Alan (15 March 1932–26 May 2018), astronaut and artist
Bruce J. Evensen
Bean, Alan (15 Mar. 1932–26 May 2018), astronaut and artist, was born Alan LaVern Bean in Wheeler, Texas, the son of Frances Caroline (Murphy) Bean and Arnold Horace Bean, a scientist who worked for the U.S. Soil Conservation Service. Arnold Bean served in World War II, and his son became fascinated at an early age with combat aircraft. He made model airplanes out of balsa wood, carefully painted them, and hung them by wires from his bedroom ceiling....
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Burroughs, Margaret (1 November 1917–21 November 2010), artist, educator, and institution builder
Mary Ann Cain
Burroughs, Margaret (1 November 1917–21 November 2010), artist, educator, and institution builder, was born Victoria Margaret Taylor (later reversed to Margaret Victoria) in St. Rose Parish, Louisiana, the youngest of three daughters, to Christopher Alexander “Tooker” Taylor, a farmer and laborer, and Octavia Pierre, a teacher and domestic worker. Margaret Taylor’s first five years were idyllic, playing along Mississippi River levees, roaming fields and woods, and gaining an early education in the back of a Baptist church where her mother conducted classes. Unlike many descendants of enslaved people, the Taylors and Pierres were unusually fortunate to know their ancestry. Throughout her life, Taylor would emphasize the importance of identity and knowing one’s roots. Mae-Mae, her full-blooded Creole maternal grandmother, lived across the river in Ama and regaled Margaret with stories about their family, experiences during slavery, and African heritage. Such stories bolstered Taylor when she met her own life’s challenges....
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Chamberlain, Samuel V. (28 October 1895–10 January 1975), graphic artist, photographer, and gourmet food writer
Karen Patricia Heath
Chamberlain, Samuel V. (28 October 1895–10 January 1975), graphic artist, photographer, and gourmet food writer, was born Samuel Vance Chamberlain in Cresco, Iowa, the son of Dr. George Ellsworth Chamberlain, a surgeon, and Cora Lee Summers. In 1901 the family moved to Aberdeen, Washington, where Chamberlain undertook his early education. In ...
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Chambers, Thomas (fl. 1834–1866), folk artist
David Meschutt
Chambers, Thomas (fl. 1834–1866), folk artist, was born in London, England. He was forty-seven years old in June 1855, according to the New York state census, and thus would have been born either in 1807 or 1808. Nothing is known of his parents or family background or of his artistic training, if any. He came to the United States in 1832. At an unknown date before his departure from England he married Harriet Shellard of London, who followed him to America in 1834. Presumably Chambers wished to establish himself in this country before bringing his wife. No children are recorded in the 1855 census. Harriet Chambers died in New York City in 1864....
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Chandler, Winthrop (1747-1790), folk artist
David Meschutt
Chandler, Winthrop (06 April 1747–29 July 1790), folk artist, was born at Chandler Hill, the family farm located on the town line between Woodstock and Thompson, Connecticut, the son of William Chandler, a farmer and surveyor, and Jemima Bradbury, a descendant of Governor ...
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Cohoon, Hannah Harrison (1788-1864), Shaker artist
Jane F. Crosthwaite
Cohoon, Hannah Harrison (01 February 1788–07 January 1864), Shaker artist, was born in Williamstown, Massachusetts, the daughter of Noah B. Harrison, a revolutionary war veteran who died a year after her birth, and Huldah Bacon. She was raised in Williamstown and apparently was married there, to a man named Cohoon, but nothing is known of her husband, though she probably was widowed or abandoned. In 1817, with her five-year-old son, Harrison, and three-year-old daughter, Mariah, she entered the Hancock (Mass.) Shaker Village established twenty-six years earlier by members of the communitarian sect known formally as the United Society of Believers in Christ’s Second Appearing and more commonly as the Shakers. Cohoon remained at Hancock (just west of Pittsfield) until her death. Her son and daughter left around 1838, but the daughter, having married and presumably become widowed, returned later in life....
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De Cora, Angel (1868 or 1869–6 February 1919), artist and educator
Anne Ruggles Gere
De Cora, Angel (1868 or 1869–6 February 1919), artist and educator, was born in northeast Nebraska on the Winnebago Indian reservation to David Decora (Hagarsarechkaw), son of Winnebago chief Little Decora, and Elizabeth Lamere, daughter of a French Canadian fur trader and a Winnebago Metis woman. (De Cora is sometimes spelled DeCora or Decora.) Angel’s earliest education occurred at the reservation boarding school, and in ...
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Finster, Howard (1916-2001), preacher and folk artist
Heidi A. Strobel
Finster, Howard (02 December 1916–22 October 2001), preacher and folk artist, was one of thirteen children born in Valley Head, Alabama, to Samuel William Finster and Lula Henegar Finster, farmers. From the age of five he worked on the forty‐acre family farm. Though he described himself as a self‐taught artist and preacher, he was inspired by watching his mother paint, quilt, and make dioramas, which later influenced his own mixed‐media boxes and dioramas....
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Hampton, James (1909-1964), artist
Theresa Leininger-Miller
Hampton, James (08 April 1909–04 November 1964), artist, was born in Elloree, South Carolina, the son of James Hampton, believed to have been a gospel singer and Baptist preacher who abandoned his wife (identity unknown) and four children for his itinerant calling. A shy, thin man with little formal education, Hampton moved to Washington, D.C., around the age of nineteen. He began to have religious visions at the age of twenty-two but told few, if any, about them; nor did he belong to a congregation. Nothing is known of his activities from 1928 to 1939. He worked as a short-order cook in local cafes from 1939 to 1942, until he joined the federal labor force, then served with the 385th Aviation Squadron (a noncombatant unit) in Texas, Seattle, Hawaii, Saipan, and Guam during World War II. After receiving an honorable discharge in 1945, he returned to Washington, D.C., where in 1946 he became a janitor for the General Services Administration. He had hoped to find a holy woman to help him with his life’s ambition, but he never married....
Article
Hicks, Edward (1780-1849), folk artist
David Meschutt
Hicks, Edward (04 April 1780–23 August 1849), folk artist, was born in Attleboro (now Langhorne), Bucks County, Pennsylvania, the son of Isaac Hicks and Catherine Hicks. (His parents were first cousins; his mother’s maiden name was Hicks.) The Hicks family were Anglicans, and Isaac Hicks had sided with the British during the American Revolution. He eventually was forced to flee from Bucks County, leaving his family behind. His wife died not long after, and Edward Hicks, then eighteen months old, was taken in by family friends David and Elizabeth Twining, who raised him in the Quaker faith. When he was thirteen, Hicks was apprenticed to coachmakers William and Henry Tomlinson of Langhorne. He displayed a talent for painting, and in 1801 he became a partner of coachmaker and carriage painter Joshua Canby of Milford, Pennsylvania. In 1803 he married Sarah Worstall; they had a son and four daughters....
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Hunter, Clementine (December 1886?–01 January 1988), folk artist
Thomas N. Whitehead
Hunter, Clementine ( December 1886?–01 January 1988), folk artist, was born Clemence Reuben at Hidden Hill Plantation near Cloutierville, Louisiana, the daughter of John Reuben and Antoinette Adams, plantation workers. Her exact birth date is unknown. Most sources agree that she was born either in late December 1886 or early January 1887....
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Krummeck, Elsie Caroline (5 Dec. 1913–29 May 1999), artist and industrial designer
Jeffrey Cronin
Krummeck, Elsie Caroline (5 Dec. 1913–29 May 1999), artist and industrial designer, was born in Brooklyn, New York to German immigrants Karl Krummeck, a sign painter, and Katharina Friederich, a practical nurse. At a young age she demonstrated exceptional talent as an illustrator, and with encouragement from her parents she enrolled in art classes at Pratt Institute, the Art Students League of New York, and the National Academy Museum and School. Her peripatetic academic training ended with a year of study (...
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Lee, Doris (01 February 1904–16 June 1983), artist
Ann T. Keene
Lee, Doris (01 February 1904–16 June 1983), artist, was born Doris Elizabeth Emrick in Aledo, Illinois, to Edward E. Emrick, a prosperous banker and dry goods merchant, and Nannie Love Emrick. She and her five siblings enjoyed a comfortable upbringing in Aledo, a small town near the Mississippi River. Despite their distance of 200 miles from Chicago, the family made regular visits there to take advantage of its cultural offerings. As a child, Doris was a somewhat rebellious tomboy but showed an early aptitude for drawing and painting, and her interest in art was encouraged through visits to the Art Institute of Chicago. At fifteen she was sent to Ferry Hall, a girls’ boarding school in suburban Lake Forest, Illinois, and took lessons at the Art Institute during her teenage years....
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Martin, Maria (6 July 1796–27 Dec. 1863), natural history artist
Debra J. Lindsay
Martin, Maria (6 July 1796–27 Dec. 1863), natural history artist, was born in Charleston, South Carolina, the youngest of four daughters born to John Jacob Martin, the son of an itinerant lay Lutheran pastor whose patriotism during the Revolutionary War had earned the regard of Carolinians, and Rebecca Martin, a twice-widowed successful businesswoman. Income from her mother’s dressmaking shop and the respectability associated with her grandfather’s reputation gave Maria Martin a privileged childhood. Additionally, because Lutheranism required a literate laity, Maria and her sisters were well-educated....
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Montoya, José Ernesto (28 May 1932–25 Sept. 2013), poet, visual artist, and activist
Mauricio E. Ramirez
Montoya, José Ernesto (28 May 1932–25 Sept. 2013), poet, visual artist, and activist was born in Escobosa, near Albuquerque, New Mexico, the son of Malaquías Montoya and Lucia Montoya. In 1941 Malaquías Montoya decided to move his family to California’s Central Valley, and they arrived in Fowler, California. As a boy José Montoya picked grapes with his family in Delano and Fowler, in the blistering Central Valley heat during the Great Depression era. Malaquías and Lucia separated in ...
Article
Parsons, Betty (31 January 1900–23 July 1982)
Christina Chang
Parsons, Betty (31 January 1900–23 July 1982), artist, art dealer and collector, was born Elizabeth Bierne Pierson in New York City, the second daughter of three born to Suzanne Miles, a sugar heiress, and J. Fred Pierson, Jr., a businessman. She described her ancestry as “very American,” with intellectuals and prominent political figures on her father’s side and Southern plantation aristocracy on her mother’s, and her upbringing was typical of her social class. She and her two sisters divided their time between family homes in New York City, Newport, Rhode Island, and Palm Beach, Florida, and were often left in the care of servants by absent parents. Betty (as she was known) was an unremarkable student at Miss Chapin’s School for girls, which she began attending in 1910, and didn’t show a special aptitude for art at this early age....
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