Mary Lizzie Macomber (American artist) 1861 - 1916
Macomber is remembered for her highly symbolic, dreamlike paintings. In her native Fall River, she studied drawing and still life painting under Robert Dunning from about 1880 to 1883, then attended the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston for a year, until ill health cut short her studies. After her recovery she studied briefly under Frank Duveneck [1848-1919] and then opened a studio in Boston. In 1889 her painting Ruth was exhibited in the National Academy of Design show in New York City. Over the next 13 years she exhibited 25 more paintings at the National Academy and was a frequent exhibitor at other major museums and galleries. Macomber's symbolic, allegorical, and decorative panels, revealing the influence of the Pre-Raphaelites, were widely admired by her contemporaries. She personalized the abstract concepts of hope, death and love in a painting style that combines linearity with a misty quality called sfumato, yielding a delicate image emerging from the background. Among her more celebrated works are Love Awakening Memory (1892), Love's Lament (1893), Saint Catherine (1896, 83x61cm; 430x334pix, 30kb), The Hour Glass (1900), The Lace Jabot (1900; a self-portrait), Night and Her Daughter Sleep (1902), Memory Comforting Sorrow (1905). In the later years of her career she also devoted much time to portraiture. Her paintings are relatively rare, as much of her work was lost in a 1903 fire in her studio. She also wrote poetry, a book of which was published in 1914. Unfortunately, many of her works were destroyed in a fire at her studio in 1903.
