Lot 126: ETHEL EASTON PAXSON (1885-1892) PORTRAIT

Ethel Easton Paxson (1885-1982), Portrait of a Young Girl, oil on artist board C. 1920. Signed lower right. In Oval Gilt Wood Frame. In frame measures 17 1/4"x20 1/2"x 1 1/2". Weight 2 pds. Ethel Paxson received her first art instruction at the age of 15 from Charlotte Yale, a student of William Merritt Chase. At the age of 20 and newly married, she moved to Washington, D.C. and enrolled at the Corcoran School of Art. In 1909 she and her husband moved to Philadelphia where she continued her studies at the Academy of Fine Arts under Cecilia Beaux,Thomas Anschutz, Hugh Breckenridge and Henry Rankin Poore. She was also able to spend summers with Willliam Merritt Chase at his school at Schinnecock, Long Island, New York. Returning from a four year trip to Brazil in 1920, the couple settled in Connecticut. She was a lecturer and instructor at the National Academy of Design and held positions at the Frick Museum in New York and the Nassau Institute of Art. She became an active member of many organizations and professional artist's groups available to her at the time. Paxson was also to exhibit frequently with the National Academy of Design, the National Association of Women Artists, the Allied Artists of America, and the Society of Independent Artists. Her work is held in the permanent collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the New Britain Museum of American Art, the Florence Griswold Museum in Old Lyme among many others.

good