Mary Park Seavey Benton
Mary Park Seavey Benton | |
|---|---|
 A View of Yosemite Valley, c. 1855 | |
| Born | August 10, 1815  Boston |
| Died | December 6, 1910 (aged 95) Oakland |
| Occupation | Painter, watercolorist, oil painter |
| Spouse(s) | John Eliot Benton |
Mary Park Seavey Benton (August 10, 1815– December 6, 1910)[1] was an American landscape painter and educator. She was one of the first significant female artists in California.[2]
Mary Park Seavey was born on August 10, 1815 in Boston, Massachusetts and grew up in New York.[1] In 1850 she married the Rev. John Eliot Benton, a Congregational clergyman.[3] In 1852, he went to found a Congregational church at the Mission Delores in San Francisco, California. She and their daughter Mary joined them there in 1855. In the 1860s, moved to Sacramento and then Oakland, where John Benton was postmaster and editor of the Oakland Evening Tribune.[1]
Mary Benton trained as an artist from an early age. She opened studios and exhibited in both New York and California, including a number of California state and local fairs. She worked as a teacher in San Francisco and Oakland. She painted numerous landscapes and portraits, including many views of California, primarily of San Francisco and Yosemite.[1][4]
Mary Park Seavey Benton died on December 6, 1910 in Oakland, California.[1]
References
[edit]- ^ a b c d e Kovinick, Phil (1998). An encyclopedia of women artists of the American West. Internet Archive. Austin : University of Texas Press. ISBN 978-0-292-79063-6.
- ^ Driscoll, John Paul (1997). All that is glorious around us : paintings from the Hudson River school. Cornell University Press. Ithaca : Cornell University Press. ISBN 978-0-8014-3489-1.
- ^ Emerson, Wilimena Hannah Eliot; Eliot, Ellsworth; Eliot, George Edwin (1905). Genealogy of the Descendants of John Eliot, "apostle to the Indians," 1598-1905. Tuttle, Morehouse & Taylor Press.
- ^ Moore, Sylvia (1989). Yesterday and tomorrow : California women artists. Internet Archive. New York : Midmarch Arts Press. ISBN 978-0-9602476-9-1.