Nearing her fiftieth birthday in Spring 1873 she was elected an Associate of the National Academy of Design, joining Eliza Greatorex* as the only female members of that prestigious association. Benjamin credited her “with developing a charming and original branch of art:” watercolors in which “she composes stalks of grain or wild-flowers in combination with field birds, meadow-larks, linnets, bobolinks, sparrows, or sand-pipers.”įrom her debut at the Pennsylvania Academy in 1862, she created about a thousand pictures. In his influential book Art in America (1880), critic S.G.W. Under the tutelage of William Trost Richards she first created detailed renderings of small corners of nature in oil on canvas, and later transitioned to watercolor. A native of Salem, Massachusetts, Fidelia Bridges (1834–1923) forged an artistic career that spanned a record fifty years, longer than that of most of her male contemporaries. On this day-May 19th-in 1834 the best-selling female artist and illustrator in post-Civil War United States was born. Guest post by Katherine Manthorne, The Graduate Center, CUNY
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