Irene Weir (January 15, 1862March 22, 1944), was an American artist and art educator.
Biography
Irene Weir was born to Walter and Annie Field Weir (née Andrews) in
St. Louis
St. Louis () is the second-largest city in Missouri, United States. It sits near the confluence of the Mississippi and the Missouri Rivers. In 2020, the city proper had a population of 301,578, while the bi-state metropolitan area, which e ...
, Missouri on January 15, 1862.
Weir came from a long line of artists and educators. Her grandfather
Robert Walter Weir
Robert Walter Weir (June 18, 1803 – May 1, 1889) was an American artist and educator and is considered a painter of the Hudson River School. Weir was elected to the National Academy of Design in 1829 and was an instructor at the United States M ...
was an artist and an instructor at the U.S. Military Academy at
West Point
The United States Military Academy (USMA), also known Metonymy, metonymically as West Point or simply as Army, is a United States service academies, United States service academy in West Point, New York. It was originally established as a f ...
.
Her uncles
John Ferguson Weir was an artist and director of the School of Fine Arts at
Yale
Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the wor ...
and
Julian Alden Weir, a leading figure in New York's art world.
Weir attended Yale from 1881 to 1882 and was awarded a degree in fine arts in 1906 for cumulative artistic achievement rather than coursework.
She also studied in France, Spain, Holland, United Kingdom and Italy on two separate trips. On returning to the US Weir went on to teach art in
New Haven, Connecticut
New Haven is a city in the U.S. state of Connecticut. It is located on New Haven Harbor on the northern shore of Long Island Sound in New Haven County, Connecticut and is part of the New York City metropolitan area. With a population of 134 ...
before moving to teach in
Brookline, Massachusetts, public school system. There she went on to become the director of art instruction. Weir also served as director of the
Slater Museum School of Art in
Norwich, Connecticut.
In 1911, Weir became the director at the Ethical Teaching School and taught pottery, bookbinding, illustration, etching, illustration, sculpture, and painting. In 1917, she founded the School of Design and Liberal Arts and served as director until 1929.
As an educator, she championed the idea that art should be for everyone and not just the elite and was enmeshed in everyday life.
In 1923, she attended the
École des Beaux Arts Américaine in
Fontainebleau, France, and graduated in 1927.
Weir's own works hang at
Washington Cathedral, a prison in New York City, and Memorial hospital in New York as well as having been held in exhibitions from New York to London and Washington D.C.
Weir was both an educator and active participant of the art organizations such as the National Society of Etchers, Independent Artists of America, the
London Lyceum Club, and the Founders Group of the
Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Texas. She was also director of the Art Alliance of America. She died from cardiovascular disease in 1944 in
Yorktown Heights, New York
Yorktown Heights is a census-designated place (CDP) in the town of Yorktown in Westchester County, New York, United States. The population was 1,781 at the 2010 census.
History
Yorktown Heights is in the town of Yorktown, New York, in northern ...
.
Bibliography
*''The Greek Painters' Art'' (1905)
*''Outlines of Courses in Design, Representation and Color for High School Classes'' (1910), with Elizabeth Stone
*''Robert W. Weir, Artist (1947)''
Sources
{{DEFAULTSORT:Weir, Irene
1862 births
1944 deaths
20th-century American artists
20th-century American women artists
Yale School of Art alumni
American alumni of the École des Beaux-Arts
Founders of educational institutions
American art educators
Artists from St. Louis
Artists from New York City
Weir family