NELL WALKER WARNER

(American, 1891-1970)

CAPE ANN HARBOR

Oil on Canvas

16¼ x 20¼ Inches

Signed Lower Left, "Nell Walker Warner"

 

Born in Nebraska, Nell Walker Warner graduated from Lexington, Missouri, Women's College in 1910. After moving to Los Angeles, she studied painting at the Los Angeles School of Art and Design, receiving her diploma in 1916. From 1916-18, she taught art at the Hollywood School for Girls and painted backgrounds for titles of silent motion pictures. In 1919, she traveled to France where she was first introduced to the ferment of Modernist ideas then centered in Paris. After painting in Paris and the South of France, her palette brightened and her work became more suffused with light. Upon her return to the United States, she spent three summers on the East Coast in Cape Ann, MA, where she painted colorful harbor scenes of Gloucester and Rockport in a relaxed Post-Impressionist style. The present painting is an excellent example of Warner's work from this period, painted when the artist was about thirty-three years old.

 

During the 1920s, Nell Walker Warner worked as art curator of the Tuesday Afternoon Club while continuing her studies in Los Angeles with Nicolai Fechin and Paul Lauritz. Over the course of a long career, she exhibited widely and with success, including at the Laguna Beach Art Association, the Golden Gate International Exposition, the California Palace of the Legion of Honor and the Society for Sanity in Art. She was the recipient of numerous prizes, medals and juried awards including two first prizes at the Artists of the Southwest, Southern California Fair (1925, 1931). Warner served as president of Women Painters of the West (1946-48), and was a lifetime member of numerous art organizations including the California Watercolor society and the Academy of Western Painters. In 1952, she moved to Carmel where she continued to paint for the rest of her life. Nell Walker Warner is listed in all relevant art reference works including Who Was Who in American Art and Artists in California (1786-1940) and her work is held in private and public collections including the permanent collection of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA).

 

Memberships:

California Art Club; Glendale Art Association; California Watercolor Society; Laguna Beach Art Association; Artland Club; Academy of Western Painters; Pasadena Society of Artists; Women Painters of the West (pres. 1946-48); Society of Western Artists; Carmel Art Association.

 

Exhibitions:

Laguna Beach Art Association; Pasadena Art Institute; Artists of Southern California, San Diego; Arizona State Fair, Phoenix; Pasadena Society of Artists; Springville Museum of Art, UT; Golden Gate International Exposition; Carmel Art Association; Academy of Western Painters; California Watercolor Society; Gardena High School; Women Painters of the West; Ebell Club; Artists Fiesta; California Art Club, 1925-38; Wilshire Gallery, 1928; Desert Sun Gallery, Palm Springs, 1937; Golden Gate International Exposition 1940; Society for Sanity in Art, California Palace of the Legion of Honor 1945; Artists Guild of America, 1953, 1955, 1960, 1963.

 

Reference:

Artists in California 1786-1940, Third Edition, Edan Milton Hughes: Crocker Art Museum, Sheridan Books 2002, Vol. 2, p. 1165; Who Was Who in American Art 1564-1975: 400 Years of Artists in America, Peter Hastings Falk, Sound View Press 1999, Vol. 3, p. 3467; Mallett’s Index of Artists, Daniel Trowbridge Mallett, Peter Smith: New York 1948 Edition, R.R. Bowker Company 1935, p. 463; et al.