May Hallowell Loud - profile portrait of young woman, 1887

Maria "May" Mott Hallowell Loud (August 22, 1860 - February 1, 1916) was an American artist, suffragist, and member of the Hallowell family.

Family and personal life

Maria Mott Hallowell, known as "May", was born in 1860 in

Medford, Massachusetts Medford is a city northwest of downtown Boston on the Mystic River in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. At the time of the 2020 U.S. Census, Medford's population was 59,659. It is home to Tufts University, which has its campus alo ...

, to

Richard Price Hallowell Richard is a male given name. It originates, via Old French, from Old Frankish and is a compound of the words descending from Proto-Germanic ''*rīk-'' 'ruler, leader, king' and ''*hardu-'' 'strong, brave, hardy', and it therefore means 'stron ...

and Anna Coffin (Davis) Hallowell. Two of her uncles fought in the Civil War, Edward Needles Hallowell and

Norwood Penrose Hallowell Norwood Penrose "Pen" Hallowell (April 13, 1839 – April 11, 1914) was an officer in the Union Army during the American Civil War. One of three brothers to serve with distinction during the war, he and his brother Edward Needles Hallowell bot ...

, and her great-grandmother was the abolitionist and suffragist Lucretia Mott. May married architect Joseph Prince Loud in 1901.

Art education

Loud received some early art training from her mother, who was an amateur artist. In 1871, they went to Paris together to study art for a few months. In 1879, she enrolled at the

School of the Museum of Fine Arts The School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts University (Museum School, SMFA at Tufts, or SMFA; formerly the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston) is the art school of Tufts University, a private research university in Boston, Massachus ...

in Boston, where she studied with painter

Otto Grundmann Professor Emil Otto Grundmann (1844 in Meissen – 27 August 1890 in Dresden), was a German painter who studied in Antwerp under Baron Hendrik Leys, and in Düsseldorf before moving to America where he became a noted painter. He was the fir ...

and became a friend of fellow student

Frank Weston Benson Frank Weston Benson, frequently referred to as Frank W. Benson, (March 24, 1862 – November 15, 1951) was an American artist from Salem, Massachusetts known for his Realism (arts), Realistic portraits, American Impressionism, American Impressio ...

. Together, she, Benson, and Robert Reid edited the school's publication, ''The Art Student''. After four years, Loud left the school and returned to France for further training, spending 1883–84 at the

Académie Julien An academy (Attic Greek: Ἀκαδήμεια; Koine Greek Ἀκαδημία) is an institution of secondary or tertiary higher learning (and generally also research or honorary membership). The name traces back to Plato's school of philosophy, f ...

in Paris, studying with under Tony Robert-Fleury and others. On her return to the United States, she continued her training at the Cowles Art School in Boston. She also took private lessons with Abbott Thayer and Denman W. Ross.

Art career

Loud worked mainly in oil, watercolor, and pastel and is best known for her portraits. Beginning in the late 1880s, she exhibited regularly for a quarter century, showing at the Paris Salon, 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 1893

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 ...

in Chicago, Illinois., the National Academy of Design, the Art Institute of Chicago, and other venues. She was active in arts organizations, sitting on the council of the School of the Museum of Fine Arts and joining the Boston Water Color Club, the Copley Society, and other organizations. In 1901, she worked as a designer for the Boston Society of Arts and Crafts. Later in her career, she took up photography, set up her own

darkroom A darkroom is used to process photographic film, to make prints and to carry out other associated tasks. It is a room that can be made completely dark to allow the processing of the light-sensitive photographic materials, including film and ph ...

, and began exhibiting photographs as well as paintings. The Boston Museum of Fine Arts held a memorial exhibition of her work in late 1916.

Public service

Loud and other members of her

Quaker Quakers are people who belong to a historically Protestant Christian set of Christian denomination, denominations known formally as the Religious Society of Friends. Members of these movements ("theFriends") are generally united by a belie ...

family were founding members of the Boston branch of the

National Association for the Advancement of Colored People The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) is a civil rights organization in the United States, formed in 1909 as an interracial endeavor to advance justice for African Americans by a group including W. E. ...

(NAACP). She sat on the branch's board of directors and was considered one of its key members. She also fund-raised for the Calhoun Colored School in Alabama.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Loud, Maria Mott Hallowell 1860 births 1916 deaths Hallowell family American women painters 19th-century American painters People from Medford, Massachusetts American Quakers School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts alumni Académie Julian alumni 19th-century American women artists