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Directory: Fine Art: Paintings: Pre 1960: Item # 1437884

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L'Enfant Gallery
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1442 Wisconsin Ave, N.W.
Washington, DC 20007
202-625-2873

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Martha Walter, a student of William Merritt Chase,1875-1976 Watercolor 10x11”, frame size 20x21” Bio: Martha Walter (1875-1976), the American impressionist artist, was a student of William Merritt Chase. Martha was born in 1875 in the city of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She attended High School in her hometown, later continued her education at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts under William Merritt Chase. During her time there she was awarded the Charles Toppan Prize (1902) and a Cresson Traveling Scholarship (1903), which enabled her to visit Europe. She attended Académie de la Grande Chaudière in Paris but, feeling restricted by the teachers classical approach, she enrolled in the Académie Julian. She eventually set up her own studio with a group of other young American women artists in Paris and learned the plein air techniques of the French Impressionists. In the time Walter was in France, she developed the characteristic style of bold, dashing brushstrokes. Her works grew more and more spontaneous, and color became of paramount importance. Cecilia Beaux said that Walter’s beach scenes seemed as if they were blown onto the canvas. In the 1930s, Walter travelled to North Africa and began to paint the market places of Tunis, Tripoli and Algiers. The African sun offered a different lighting than her usual scenes in America and France. Walter’s 1922 painting The Telegram, Detention Room (Ellis Island) was included in the inaugural exhibition of the National Museum of Women in the Arts, American Women Artists 1830-1930, in 1987. Walter continued to paint until a few years before her death in 1976 at the age of 101. Biography from the Woodmere Art Museum Provenance: L’Enfant Gallery purchased this work from the dealer who represents the Mather Walter estate collection in 2010.