Mary Elizabeth Price (1877 - 1965) Works
M. Elizabeth Price (1877 – 1965)
Mary Elizabeth Price was born in West Virginia and raised on a farm in Solebury, Pennsylvania, on the outskirts of New Hope. She studied at the Pennsylvania School of Industrial Arts and the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts under Hugh Breckenridge. Additionally, she studied in New Hope with William Lathrop. Following her art studies, Price went to New York. While there, she conducted the “Baby Art School”, a children’s school for painting, in collaboration with Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney, from 1917 to 1919.
Her home and studio since the mid-1920s, which she named “Pumpkin Seed” cottage, was situated along the canal and towpath in New Hope. When asked where the name came from, Price replied, “When I first saw the original cottage it was painted such a vivid yellow that I instinctively thought of a pumpkin; it was so small that I named it Pumpkin Seed”.
Coming from a rich artistic background, her one brother was F. Newlin Price, a well-known author, art critic, and owner of Ferargil Galleries in New York City, and her other brother was R. Moore Price, the renowned local frame-maker. Artist Rae Sloan Bredin was married to Alice Price, M. Elizabeth Price’s sister.
Although she painted a variety of subjects, including beautiful impressionist landscapes, Price is best known for her paintings of flowers on backgrounds of gold leaf. She would use a sharp tool to draw her designs on a ground of gilded gesso and then add her richly blended colors with delicate charm. The result would be a breathtaking array of floral radiance. The brilliance of the gold background was varied by her method of using sixteen different tones of gold leaf.
She exhibited with “The Philadelphia Ten” from 1921 until 1945, and was one of the founders of the Phillips Mill Art Association. Price went on to show with many galleries in New York. She had solo exhibitions at Grand Central, Anderson, and the Fifty-fifth Street galleries. She was involved in exhibitions in Palm Beach in Florida, Rio de Janeiro, and Buenos Aires. She also exhibited at the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Carnegie Institute, the Corcoran Gallery of Art, the National Academy of Design, the National Association of Women Painters and Sculptors, and the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts.
Her works are hanging in the permanent collections of Swarthmore, Smith, and Dickenson colleges, as well as many other museums and institutions. Along with Fern Coppedge, M. Elizabeth Price is considered one of the most important women associated with the Pennsylvania Impressionists. She remained in New Hope until her death in 1965 at the age of eighty-seven.
Sources:
- New Hope for American Art by James Alterman
- Lambertville Record, May 22, 1930
- New York Sun, March 6, 1930