Lot 362: Della Frances Dryer Still Life Painting, Alabama Artist

Della Frances Dryer (Alabama, 1867-1951) watercolor on paper impressionist still life painting depicting a copper pitcher or vase filled with pink and white roses. Signed D. Dryer lower left. Silver gilt wood frame. Sight: 17 1/2 in. H x 23 1/2 in. W. Frame: 23 1/2 in. H x 29 1/2 in. W. Biography: Della Dryer was born shortly after the end of the Civil War in Tuskegee, Alabama to Thomas B. Dryer and Nannie Chambless Dryer. She studied at Huntington College in Montgomery, Alabama in 1900. She was in New York by 1904, where she studied with William Merritt Chase, Robert Henri, Lawton Parker, Francis Luis Mora, Lucius Wolcott Hitchcock, Clifford Carlton, and Edward Penfield. In 1907 she opened a studio at Five Points in Birmingham, Alabama, and in 1908 she founded the Birmingham Art Club with fellow female artists Alice Rumph and Mrs. J.H. Montgomery. Dryer went on study at the Academie Julian in Paris 1910-1912, with several well-known artists during her career including Charles Hawthorne in 1910, George Elmer Browne in 1926-1927, and with John Kelly Fitzpatrick at the Dixie Art Colony in 1933. She died in Birmingham in 1951. Her work has been exhibited at the Mary Brogan Museum of Art in Tallahassee (“Sunlight and Shadow: American Impressionism 1885-1945), and the Birmingham Historical Society, and is featured in the book “Art of the New South: Women Artists of Birmingham 1890-1950” by Vicki Leigh Ingham.

CONDITION: A few scattered dark inclusions to background; light toning and fading, overall good condition.