Waring, Laura Wheeler (1887–1948)
Waring, Laura Wheeler (1887–1948)
African-American artist and educator. Born 1887 in Hartford, Connecticut; died Feb 3, 1948; dau. of Robert Foster Wheeler (minister of Talcott Street Congregational Church in Hartford) and Mary (Freeman) Wheeler; attended Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts; attended Acadeémie de la Grande Chaumière in Paris, 1924; m. Walter E. Waring.
Became director of the art and music departments at Cheyney State Teachers College (c. 1920), remaining there for 3 decades; during this tenure, produced many of her best-known portraits, including those of Leslie Pickney Hill, president emeritus of Cheyney; also produced excellent landscapes of Chester and Delaware County, Pennsylvania; was head of the Negro Art section at Sesquicentennial Exposition in Philadelphia (1926) and at Texas Centennial Exposition (1927); was also invited to exhibit in Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Carlen Galleries, National Collection of Arts, Corcoran Gallery, Art Institute of Chicago, Brooklyn Museum and Howard University; held a one-woman show at Galerie du Luxembourg in Paris; known primarily as a portrait painter, preserved the images of many distinguished African Americans, in particular W. E. B. Du Bois, John Haynes Holmes, Marian Anderson and Jessie Redmon Fauset. Won gold medal in annual Harmon Foundation Salon (1927).
See also Women in World History.