Elizabeth O'Neill Verner
Elizabeth O'Neill Verner (December 21, 1883 – April 17, 1979) was an artist, author, lecturer, and preservationist who was one of the leaders of the Charleston Renaissance.[1] She has been called "the best-known woman artist of South Carolina of the twentieth century."[2]
Early life and education
Elizabeth Quale O'Neill was born Dec. 21, 1883, in Charleston, South Carolina. She first studied art with Alice Ravenel Huger Smith.[2] In 1901, she enrolled at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, where she studied for two years with Thomas Anshutz.[2]
On leaving the academy, she taught art in Aiken, South Carolina, for a time.[2] She then returned to Charleston, where she took up her art studies with Smith as well as with Gabrielle D. Clements and Ellen Day Hale.[3] Inspired by Clements and Hale, she was a founding member of the Charleston Etchers Club[4] and helped to found the Southern States Art League.[2]
In 1907, she married E. Pettigrew Verner, with whom she had two children.[2]
Art career
Verner did not become a professional artist until after her husband's death in 1925 left her the sole means of support for her children.[4] With advice from Smith, she worked to adapt her craft so that she could be self-supporting.[5] One avenue she took, like some of her contemporaries, was to publish her prints in books with titles like Prints and Impressions of Charleston that could be sold to tourists.[4] Another avenue was to seek commissions, and she came to specialize in making drawings of historic buildings in the cause of preservation.[2] Among her clients were Williamsburg Historic District, Harvard Medical School, the United States Military Academy, Princeton University, and the University of South Carolina.[2]
Verner made etchings, drypoints, drawings, and (after 1934) pastels of Charleston, favoring buildings, street scenes, and landscapes, working at a studio she kept at her residence at 38 Tradd Street. She also became a portraitist known for representing African-Americans, especially the city's flower vendors.[2] She worked occasionally as a book illustrator, illustrating DuBose Heyward's novel Porgy.[2] Stylistically, her paintings are realism with impressionist overtones, while her etchings and drawings are crisply detailed studies.
Verner traveled extensively, visiting Japan (1937), Europe, the Caribbean, and Mexico.[2] She inspired her friend Anne Taylor Nash to take up painting,[6] serving as her teacher for a time.[7]
She died on April 17, 1979. Her work is held by the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Smithsonian American Art Museum, and museums across southeastern America.[2] The South Carolina Arts Commission awards the Elizabeth O’Neill Verner Governor’s Awards for the Arts in her honor.
References
- ^ Severens, Martha (1999). William Halsey. Greenville County Museum of Art. p. 13. ISBN 096032464X.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l "Verner, Elizabeth". The Johnson Collection website.
- ^ Jules Heller; Nancy G. Heller (December 19, 2013). North American Women Artists of the Twentieth Century: A Biographical Dictionary. Taylor & Francis. pp. 1561–1563. ISBN 978-1-135-63889-4.
- ^ a b c "The Charleston Renaissance". Florence County Museum website. Retrieved Jan. 22, 2016.
- ^ "THE CHARLESTON RENAISSANCE". fineartstrader.com. Archived from the original on 11 August 2015. Retrieved 26 April 2015.
{{cite web}}: Unknown parameter|deadurl=ignored (|url-status=suggested) (help) - ^ "The Paintings of Anne Taylor Nash » Telfair Museums". 18 July 2014. Retrieved 31 January 2017.
- ^ A Southern Collection. University of Georgia Press. 1 February 1993. pp. 150–. ISBN 978-0-8203-1535-5.
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