Mary Lizzie Macomber (August 21, 1861 – February 4, 1916) was an American artist who painted in the

Pre-Raphaelite The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood (later known as the Pre-Raphaelites) was a group of English painters, poets, and art critics, founded in 1848 by William Holman Hunt, John Everett Millais, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, William Michael Rossetti, James ...

style.

Life and work

Macomber was born in

Fall River, Massachusetts Fall River is a city in Bristol County, Massachusetts, United States. The City of Fall River's population was 94,000 at the 2020 United States Census, making it the tenth-largest city in the state. Located along the eastern shore of Mount H ...

, the daughter of Frederick William and Mary White Poor Macomber. Her father was a jeweler and her family was of Quaker and Pilgrim descent. As a young woman she took painting lessons with Robert S. Dunning, a prominent still life painter. After about three years with Dunning she began studying at the school of the

Boston Museum of Fine Arts The Museum of Fine Arts (often abbreviated as MFA Boston or MFA) is an art museum in Boston, Massachusetts. It is the 20th-largest art museum in the world, measured by public gallery area. It contains 8,161 paintings and more than 450,000 works ...

. In 1883 she had to discontinue her studies due to illness. After recovering she studied with

Frank Duveneck Frank Duveneck (né Decker; October 9, 1848 – January 3, 1919) was an American figure and portrait painter. Early life Duveneck was born in Covington, Kentucky, the son of German immigrant Bernhard Decker. Decker died in a cholera epidemic whe ...

. Around 1885 Macomber started her own studio in Boston. After initially having painted still lifes she began to concentrate on allegorical works. Her first painting to be exhibited, ''Ruth'', was shown at the

National Academy A national academy is an organizational body, usually operating with state financial support and approval, that co-ordinates scholarly research activities and standards for academic disciplines, most frequently in the sciences but also the humanit ...

exhibition of 1889. In total for the next 13 years she exhibited more than 25 works at the National Academy. In 1893 two of her works ''Love Awakening Memory'', and ''The Annunciation'' were exhibited in the

Palace of Fine Arts The Palace of Fine Arts is a monumental structure located in the Marina District of San Francisco, California, originally constructed for the 1915 Panama–Pacific International Exposition to exhibit works of art. Completely rebuilt from 1964 to ...

at the

World's Columbian Exposition The World's Columbian Exposition (also known as the Chicago World's Fair) was a world's fair held in Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordi ...

. ''St. Catherine'' (1897) won the Dodge prize at the National Academy exhibition in New York. Some of her best-known works are: ''Love's Lament'' (1893), ''The Hour Glass'' (1900), ''The Lace Jabot'' (1900), ''Night and Her Daughter Sleep'' (1903), and ''Memory Comforting Sorrow'' (1905). She also worked as a poet and published a book of her poetry in 1914. Much of her work was lost during a fire in her studio in 1903. She died at the Back Bay Hospital in Boston in 1916, at the age of 54. Her paintings are held in the Smithsonian and the

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston The Museum of Fine Arts (often abbreviated as MFA Boston or MFA) is an art museum in Boston, Massachusetts. It is the 20th-largest art museum in the world, measured by public gallery area. It contains 8,161 paintings and more than 450,000 works ...

Selected work

File:Mary Lizzie Macomber - Saint Catherine - 98.622 - Museum of Fine Arts.jpg, ''Saint Catherine'' (1896) File:Night and Sleep 1902, Mary Macomber.jpg, ''Night and Sleep'' (1902) File:Macomber young woman in a white dress with a lily.jpg, ''Young Woman in a White Dress with a Lily'' File:Mary Lizzie Macomber - Isabella - 22.645 - Museum of Fine Arts.jpg, ''Isabella'' (1908)

References

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Macomber, Mary Lizzie 1861 births 1916 deaths 19th-century American painters 20th-century American painters 20th-century American women artists 19th-century American women artists Artists from Massachusetts People from Fall River, Massachusetts Pre-Raphaelite painters Female Pre-Raphaelite painters