Lot 182: Clara Weaver Parrish Painting, Young Woman in Blue Dress

Clara Parrish (American/Alabama,1861-1925) watercolor on paper painting depicting a young Black woman in blue dress who holds a large bundle of white laundry atop her head with one hand and a hat in the other. Signed C.W.P. lower right. Housed under glass in a painted and silvered molded frame. Sight: 10" H x 5 1/2" W. Frame: 20" H x 17" W. Biography: Clara Weaver Parrish was born and raised on her family's plantation outside of Selma, Alabama. In the early 1880s, she went to New York City to study at the Art Students League with William Merritt Chase and to Paris, where she attended the Academy Colarossi as a student of Gustav Courtois and studied privately with Alphonse Mucha. In 1887, she was living in New York City where she married William Parrish. Tragically, the couple lost their only daughter within two years of her birth, and in 1901 William died. In the 1890s Clara Weaver Parrish began working for Louis Comfort Tiffany as a stained glass window designer. Among her designs were the windows for St. Michael's Episcopal Church in New York City and at least one mosaic mural for an Alabama church. She exhibited at the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago, the 1915 Panama-Pacific Exposition in San Francisco, the Royal Academy in London, and the Paris Salon. She was a member of the New York Watercolor Club and the National Association of Women Painters and Sculptors. Source: North American Women Artists of the Twentieth Century by Jules and Nancy Heller.

PROVENANCE: A Nashville, TN estate.

CONDITION: Some scattered foxing and toning to paper. Small, light possible dampstain lower left in background. Taped to mat along the upper edge en verso. Minor wear to frame.